Comments on: When Viral Marketing Attacks: 9 Epic Viral Fails

By: Seth

Seth — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 19:25:11 +0000

I would have to agree with Robert J. The Adult Swim viral marketing campaign worked better than they could have imagined. Definitely not a fail.

By: Phil

Phil — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 12:09:38 +0000

weird, this sort of thing was in my mind this morning – do you have a camera to my sole?

By: Kevin OKeefe

Kevin OKeefe — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 04:04:32 +0000

Thanks for reference to my post on the Walmart fake blog fiasco. You’ve got a great blog, so in all seriousness it’s an honor to be mentioned by you. Keep up the great work.

By: ff

ff — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 17:54:40 +0000

“Hi, I’m Dan Zarrella. I’m a social & viral marketing scientist”

FAIL

By: Dave

Dave — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 17:48:12 +0000

It’s fascinating that there’s such a wide spectrum of FAILs here: some advertisers lied (or just weren’t truthful) on the web, some weren’t as ready to give free reign to web users as they thought they were, some did cool real world stuff that really irked a relatively small group.

I’m more of a web guy than a marketing guy, so I’m curious: is there significant value to the negative press that some of these companies got? Is the idea of “as long as they’re talking about you” valid in cases like this?

By: SpudgeBoy

SpudgeBoy — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 17:07:41 +0000

I have to agree with Robert J. The Aqua Teen Hunger Force viral marketing campaign was one of the most successful in history. They friggin’ shut down Boston. Jeebus, Microsoft would pay billions for that kind of press.

By: Robert J

Robert J — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 16:37:15 +0000

I Love the fact that you claim the Aqua Teen Hunger Force campaign was a failure when it created mainstream news headlines around the world. Probably tens of millions of dollars worth of airtime, for the cost of a few light brights and some local hippies – I call that a genius investment. The controversy also played perfectly to the antiestablishment alternative southpark watching demographic it was aimed at. Also you mistake this campaign as a viral marketing campaign, it was not. It was a Guerrilla marketing campaign that turned viral after a few inconceivably stupid people mistook a child’s toy for a bomb. I say 10/10 for the campaign and 1/10 for your understanding of viral marketing. YOU are still virally marketing the movie almost a year after the campaign by writing about it on your blog. I may get it out tonight and watch it, thanks for reminding me!

By: maria

maria — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 16:02:03 +0000

Great post, Dan. I especially enjoyed the Unilever bit.

By: Space Cowboy

Space Cowboy — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 15:26:14 +0000

It disgusts me when corporations have such a lack of internet savvy.