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One of the most interesting things I learned from my study of urban legends is the concept of communal recreation. In the urban legend post I said this:
Each person in this recreative chain attempts to fit the story into their existing mental frameworks and in doing so they apply a bit of themselves, of their own values and perspectives, altering the story and retelling their version.
And for viral and social marketers, this idea should be fundamental to everything we do. The campaigns we build and the brands we manage must become platforms for users to express themselves with, each person that touches our messages should be recreating them, “applying a bit of themselves, of their own values and perspectives.”
Your brand must be a box of crayons, not just a rubber stamp. The examples of successful viral and social media marketing efforts (and non-marketing memes) using this strategy are numerous, including: Elf Yourself, Simpsonize Me, I Can Has Cheezburger, and The South Park Facebook App, just to name a few off the top of my head.
Personally I’ve developed the Geekflirt Lolcat Maker, and I’ve been involved in the pitching and development of a few other of these kinds of box-of-crayons type campaigns. I’d also love to hear any other examples you might know of.
Update: I forgot that I’d written about this for Jonathan Bailey’s Plagiarism Today.
May 19th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
Aw, the Elves are gone?!? I so wanted to Elf myself. The South Park one is always a great example ‘cuz it was one of the first (that I know of). Like, I was still in high school.
May 19th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
@alison i didn’t even notice the elves where gone.
May 20th, 2008 at 9:54 am
I totally agree with you!
When I start a post on my Blog advocating an issue and others come around to voice they concern on the same issue, they concerns differ a bit.
I am actually happy when they express it in their own way not just rubber stamp it with yes vote!
When something is rubber stamped it usually has no traction! That is once a post is finished and the regulars commented no one comes around to comment on it.
But when the post Morphs on different ideas provided by the commenters it tends to live long time. People come around and comment on it even months later.
Also many of my posts get different commenters. It is not all want to support and get involved with every issue in the same way.
No Rubber Stamps Please!