Viral Marketing Burger King Style

Interesting interview by eMarketer recently with Jeff Benjamin, the award-winning creator of online viral campaigns for Burger King.

Here are a couple of interesting points from the interview: 

eMarketer: The Crispin Porter + Bogusky employee handbook goes into the agency’s philosophy. One point is, “Keep money in context.” What does that mean?

Jeff Benjamin: There are a lot of people wasting money on the online space, and then there are a lot of people using their money really effectively. We try and find spots where it’s not just about buying impressions—it’s about creating something that makes people create the impressions for you for free. People can do the advertising for you if you give them the inspiration and the tools. That was the case with the “Whopper Sacrifice” application [a recent campaign for Burger King]. We did do a little bit of a media buy on Facebook, but ultimately it was all about people putting it on their page and creating impressions and sacrificing friends. You’re getting more bang for your buck at the end of the day.

I love the line “People can do the advertising for you if you give them the inspiration and the tools.” So many times viral campaigns fail because either the brand is afraid to let go of the distribution of the message s or the camapign simply fails to inspire people.

eMarketer: What are some misconceptions about viral marketing?

Jeff Benjamin: One big one is that in order to be provocative and get a lot of buzz, you can’t be true to your brand. I think a lot of brands make that mistake. They try to become something else just for the sake of being viral and making something sticky. You always have to make sure those things belong to your brand. Otherwise, I don’t think it’ll work and people won’t remember you for it. It won’t do anything to further the brand. People go into brainstorming viral, and you can’t go into it with that intention. What you can go into it with, though, is the idea of making a great ad. If you do make a great ad, people will talk about it. The viral part will sort of be a consequence.

But a lot of times, clients will come to us like, “Hey, we want something viral.” That’s not very inspiring, because that doesn’t really give any insight into what the ad really is. Ultimately, we want to create great ads that are going to do great things for the client. If we do our job right, the consequence of that will be something that gets passed around and talked about. Even before the Internet, viral advertising always existed. It’s just changed its form. What’s been effective over the years keeps evolving. Like right now, I don’t think viral is creating something terribly subversive or anything. I think it’s about utility and tools that make our lives better or easier.

Great points here on staying true to the core value and messaging of your brand.  Some brands are perfect for viral marketing while some other brands are simply not suited for it. 

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