Tuesday 13 December 2011

Beg, steal or borrow - and share

These days, market research agencies devote a lot of interview time to establishing the potential "buzz" value of a piece of branded communication in their pre-testing as well as tracking studies.

How likely would you be to "share" this on social media?

Would you "like" this on Facebook?

As well as the old standards about "this is an ad I'd talk about with friends."

Sharing, these days, is big business. On the Unruly Media list of "most shared" commercials, The Force for VW has had 4.8m shares - over twice the number of its nearest rival - and 46m views. That's about the size of the population of Spain.

In the Top 5 were also DC Shoes, T-Mobile (twice, with Angry Birds Live and Royal Wedding) and Kia, with Party Rock Anthem.

If you look at the Top 20, and think about the "share" factors of entertaining, informative or useful, it's obvious that entertainment wins hands down. And, sifting through the usual internet suspects - cute kids, celebrities, music, dystopia, cars, apes & gorillas, laser swords and furry creatures - something striking emerges.

Almost everything in the Top 5 is borrowed: from movies, theme parks, games or real events.

Perhaps "borrowed interest" is not such a dirty word any more.

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