One of the best examples of a viral campaign by a local company would be Star Trends Apparel’s warehouse sale. I learned about this through Anton’s blog and have followed it through the years through word-of-mouth (WOM) eyes. Here’s why I think they’ve been effective:

• Strong copy - mention the words “Mango”, “branded” and “factory price” in any ad collateral and you’re sure to turn heads, or at least a forward to a friend reaction.
• Strong use of imagery - the author backs the copy up with photos with this revolving theme: happy people leaving the warehouse with a lot of items; subtle and it works.
• Honesty is the best policy - the way the review was presented made the author’s comments appear honest and sincere. It was in the language most of us could relate to. The photos also helped downplay the seemingly commercial nature of the post. The first blog post is almost 2 years old yet it still gets comments from people genuinely interested in the subject. Now I don’t know for certain if Anton was compensated for his coverage of the event. He or his wife may be friends with one of the owners and the blog posts may have been meant as a favor. Regardless of the fact, Anton’s posts give Star Trends Apparel extensive coverage over the blogosphere. I can imagine most of the commenters in those three threads passed on the same info to friends via email or SMS.
• Preying on people’s vanity - add exclusivity to the viral mix, then you’ve got one powerful pull that appeals to the young, female, affluent market. The email which the company sends to past customers actually has a do not forward clause which in my opinion works wonders in reinforcing the VIP nature of the event. Look at how they worded it:
  

  This email has been forwarded to you because you registered in any of our previous sales. KINDLY DO NOT FORWARD to anybody else, as we will not be able to entertain them as properly as we should. Your support is much appreciated, and we would like to make this event exclusively to you, in thanks. Our apologies for not being able to entertain more of your referrals but our current space is not feasible

For a deeper understanding of viral marketing, head on over to this excellent E-Consultancy interview with Richard Spalding of The 7th Chamber, a UK-based viral marketing/PR agency:

What makes a successful viral campaign, in terms of numbers?

I had a meeting today with an agency’s media planning department, and they were asking the same thing. Being able to track a viral’s success and put it on a graph is good - planners love graphs.

We have found that once you get to the 1.5m view mark, you’ve hit the tipping point. Campaigns that we’ve run have been successful when they have got to that area between 1m and 1.5m views. Then they take on a life of their own and are suddenly at 4m or so within a few weeks.

People start talking about it and it starts being talked about in the press, and more people hear about it. Success generates success.

How does your distribution work, beyond posting content on the Kontraband site? Do you have a partner network?

We have about 100 sites that we work with, and we have various relationships with them, depending on the target market and the viral. Then we have bloggers who we work with and forum seeders. If it’s aimed at more of a niche audience then we have to go down the seeding and blogging route.

We seed out to between five and 20 sites on every viral we do. We basically pay them a fee, depending on what the budget is, and they can promote the viral on their site.

Are there any tricks marketers running a viral campaign should be doing to prepare other channels and make the most out of the traffic?

Viral often sits out on its own, and I’m often not sure why it does. It should become more of an overall strategy; not just sitting out there, being funny. It’s still a bit rogue, with a lot of experimenting.

It’s changing slowly. Clients tend to put it in a little pile on its own in the corner. A lot of the traditional agencies struggle when it comes to doing a successful viral because they are so used to working in other formats, like press and posters. They would deny that, but there tend to be more specialist people in viral and they are slowly getting their heads round the thing.

I think one important thing is to have something to offer. There has to be an end-point. But I don’t think clients are building marketing strategies around virals – they are doing virals because agencies have talked them into doing something a bit wacky. They’re not backing it up with anything.

One of the viral campaigns 7th Chamber did was a ’secret’ downloadable discount voucher for Threshers, a UK-based drinks retail chain. How cool would it be for a company like PowerBooks to launch a similar campaign here. Their last attempt at viral came in the form of this 3-Day Warehouse Summer Sale email which I think never enjoyed the traction it deserved.

Got any local successful (or not) viral marketing campaigns you can think of?