AFL football gets viral

The Hawthorn Football Club today dipped their toe into the water of viral marketing with this ad:

But what is viral marketing?

Viral marketing or viral advertising refer to marketing techniques that use pre-existing social networks to produce increases in brand awareness or to achieve other marketing objectives (such as product sales) through self-replicating viral processes, analogous to the spread of pathological and computer viruses. It can be word-of-mouth delivered or enhanced by the network effects of the Internet. Viral promotions may take the form of video clips, interactive Flash games, advergames, ebooks, brandable software, images, or even text messages.

Source: Wikipedia

Viral marketing has been used in the sports industry for years, but typically by apparel companies such as Nike, Adidas and Reebok.

Hawthorn are playing off the recent introdution of the Myki ticketing system and its failures. With Melbourne transport users being more frustrated than ever with the over-budget and under-delivered public transport system, the mere thought of a footy clubs membership card getting us access to a system that a multi-billion dollar infrastrcture can’t, is laughable.

Other teams such as the New York Jets in the NFL have used various viral marketing techniques for the sole purpose of increasing their membership, just like the Hawks have today. By producing a video such as this, Hawthorn have made a point of difference between themselves and rival AFL clubs marketing departments’ allowing them to rise above their competition.

Edit: Essendon have also done marketing campaigns this year, but due to legal restrictions, was unable to post the video to Youtube as it contained gameday footage. With EssendonFC having its own social network ‘The Hangar’ posting a video to it’s official website, and not to Youtube or other video sharing website which allows them to keep their members on their official website.  Do you have videos from other clubs? Send them in and I’ll post them.

The idea was not completely brand new as they reached into their bags of tricks slightly by producing another train-themed marketing video. The following video was made in 2006.

Subliminal Advertising

I call it subliminal advertising because the companies that launch these campaigns, don’t intend the end user to know they’re the ones behind it. Samsung recently launched a campaign in the lead-up to the Vancouver Winter Olympics. The trick to this campaign? You see Samsung logos in the background of the campaign the entire time, but your mind is never totally fixed on them.

They named the video “Snowboard Basketball FTW!!” and posted it from a non-Samsung branded youtube account. Sounds fairly Gen-Y, right? It definitely doesn’t sound like it got its name from a multi-national organisation’s marketing department, and there inlies the genius. The video is aimed at the youth culture and will get a lot of viewers (over 300,000 at the moment) and all of them will be exposed to subliminal advertising by Samsung.

One of the most famous sports viral campaign which took a similar path was Nike’s video for Ronaldinho. The video shows Ronaldinho doing some amazing things with his boots on the training ground and had fans raving “Is this real?” It brought great exposure to the brand and had kids around the world wanting their parents to buy Nike boots.

And finally for your viewing pleasure, some more viral advertising by the folks at Samsung. Enjoy!