The Heineken Walk-In fridge advert is the best advert I have seen in a long time. Actually Heineken has never ceased to amaze me for the power of its ads all around the world. And it’s not because I have worked for them 6 years, it’s because I have learned to recognize great marketing ideas and great brands when I see them.

What comes to mind though is a growing trend now to call all sorts of YouTube videos “viral”. The term has become fashionable to the point that marketers who don’t make virals nowadays are not “real”marketers. But, what makes something viral is more than posting a simple video, and sorry to rant, but there is nothing viral about a video unless it triggers me to do something. Important things to consider are:

1. The Delivery Method: How you reach critical mass – email ? advertising ? PR ? how you drive the initial traffic ? for it to snowball you need to have snow and to make a ball and throw it with force where it can pick up on its own (hence the importance of a context the better the context the less effort you need to reach critical mass – when the phenomenon spins by itself).
2. The Replication Method: It’s the need to share – the way Word of mouth raps around a story and drives people to go and check something for themselves, or makes people forward a link to someone else. That’s viral. Something Mutates.
3. The potential to induce Behaviour Change: The fact that once you have been in “contact” with a viral (virus – think of the analogy with biology) – your behaviour is changed, something is triggered that wasn’t before. And you’ll take action if nothing else by forwarding the link. The keyword here is the Stickiness factor.

In the example of the Heineken video although it is a mere advert what is fascinating is the growing number of “spoof” ads, run a search on YouTube for Heineken Fridge ad and you’ll find many.

As I write this I am not sure if those are made up by Heineken some seem to be (Let’s not be naive it happens) or totally spontaneous and user generated but it certainly looks like the phenomenon is getting out of control.

Take another recent example: the Samsung LED Sheep video. Is that a viral?

It certainly has been claimed as one. But to me I’d say it was a great “go crazy ad”, a clever PR stunt, and yes it got people to talk, and they even forwarded a link… I mean 7 million viewers forces respect but was that really a viral? Is Susan Boyle a viral? is Obama viral? their videos went around the world… but… Popular content can’t really be called viral.

So I guess my point is = I prefer mutating content – I’d like to distinguish interesting videos which people like to share with a viral mechanism for which a lot more thought has gone into to make it different and sticky.

Take a classic example like the Dexter treatment. When you give a friend the “Dexter” Treatment you are given a chance to personalize the content to suit your friend. So the content changes every time you forward it and is highly personalised to the target. The delivery mechanism is email and the result is so believable that you actually want to do it to your friends as well (replication).

Check http://www.thedexterhitlist.com/

To me this type of mechanics deserves a lot more to be called “Viral”.

Few are those who are going to see the glass half full. Yet, times like these are an opportunity. And this is how it should be seized:

What is the role of Marketing in an organization?

Depending on the type of business product or service, marketing will be involved at different levels, but if its role were to be summarized in one sentence, I would say that marketing is here to add value to the business proposition.

And what drives Value in the market?

In a word, Uniqueness. I would define this as the sum of tangible benefits and points of difference that make your product or service a better fit for your target market, and trigger consumption / purchase and re-purchase.

So I propose that the role of Marketing is to create and sustain that “Uniqueness”.

I recently ran a survey on Linkedin asking what one should expect of their marketing team in times of recession. The answers I received were showed the mood of the times – ‘make greater direct impact on sales’ was highest on the wish list. While this is an undoubtedly practical expectation, how do we deliver it?

I think the more visionary amongst the respondents had the right answer when they chose ‘more creativity than ever’ and ‘outside the box innovation’ – as these are the most effective tools for delivering to expectations. I certainly empathize that in the midst of today’s reality it is challenging to maintain a focused strategic vision. Nevertheless, we need to act now in ways that will ensure we come out fighting fit when this climate ends. Times of recessions are a strategic opportunity for those who can avoid myopia – they are a time to leave the competition behind. Let’s not forget that in growth mode everyone finds something to survive on, and gaining the edge is harder.

Encouraging creativity and innovation is what everyone should do. R&D is not only for product development. Creativity and Innovation need fostering at all levels of a business. New ways to reach consumers, innovative promotions, smarter trade tools, sharper communications, and better market insights. We need to get businesses in fighting order if they want to preserve their market share and push the weakest out of the market.

So by all means review your marketing investments, challenge their efficiency, that but don’t stop all activities or you will suffer deeply from the loss of momentum and will lose Brand equity.

Take this opportunity to explore new avenues of reaching out to your consumers. Drive innovation within your teams. You just have to open the tap and facilitate participation and individual initiatives. You will probably find out that everyone in your business has his own idea on how things could be done better and cheaper.

Good Luck.