Two “viral” letters from Virgin and Canon

Bad Virgin Food

Recently there has been a lot of commentary about a scathing (and hilarious) letter of complaint written by a disgruntled Virgin passenger. I had it sent to me as a PDF in an email on January 23rd and it finally hit the mainstream media on Feb 16th. It’s as good an illustration as any that viral is an adjective, not noun; a piece of content can be distributed in a way that imitates the exponential occurrence of a virus. In other words, it behaves virally – but it’s not actually something that’s called a ‘viral’. So when Brand Republic writes that “Zara Phillips and a horse star in a Land Rover viral that breaks today” it seems to me they’re jumping the gun a bit. It’s more correctly a video that it is hoped will become viral in its distribution behavior.

It’s an important distinction, as the constant association of viral distribution with funny edgy, gripping or sexy video content means that marketers are potentially missing opportunities: if what you have to distribute is valued by them, your audience they will do it on your behalf; in other words, pass it on to interested friends who will do the same, much like a like a cold goes round the office in January.

The other letter I came across recently that displayed the attributes of viral distribution was from Canon. Like the Virgin letter it wasn’t distributed at the brand’s behest, but unlike the Virgin example it was distributed because it was useful, not because it was an hilarious piss-take.

Canon users had been discussing an issue they had with the EOS 5D. Canon had responded by issuing a customer service letter to owners of the product. The product owners found the information so useful that they re-posted it in camera forums, Flickr groups and on product review sites. 2,300 times.

Be KUDOS with your social media and your audience will distribute your content for you – in whatever format they find the most useful.