‘Infected’ is a weekly column by Venntertainment.com documenting Pop Culture in Viral Marketing. ‘Infected’ will also include sporadic ramblings on other random ‘viral’ topics…watch this space!

Last weeks article covered the general topic of how to spread an idea (to Zombies ). I thought I’d delve a little into the development of the study behind the transmission of ideas in popular culture and what it means for marketing.

To summarize last weeks article: Want to spread your ideas? Target your zombies, connect them and lead them with well designed material and engaging interactive content.

I mentioned something that I called ‘The Flea Factor’. It described the short attention span that Zombies of this world have. This week we’re going to discuss what that means for your ideas and how they spread.

Week 3 -

Infected - The Flea Factor

Memetics

Way back in 1976, Richard Dawkins (author of ‘The God Delusion‘) introduced a term to the world of Pop-Science and psychology. In his book ‘The Selfish Gene‘, Dawkins used the word ‘Meme‘ to describe the transmission of cultural ideas from one mind to the next.

Attention span of a?

There has been a lot of commentary on this school of thought since Dawkin’s original theory. An awful lot. The concept has been dragged through research of all disciplines and then re-hashed in pop form many times over the last few years.

An article on Wired got me thinking about the subject of Memes and what they mean for marketing now.

The article covers one of the pioneers of Internet Memes. Bill Wasik was one of the first to big-up the idea of flash mobs on the web. (He’s just written a new book, And Then There’s This: How Stories Live and Die in Viral Culture). It’s interesting to read about a guy who’s essentially criticising himself. He makes a very good point though:

Consider the Long View

Everybody wants their moment in the limelight. Everybody wants their five seconds, minutes, hours…whatever. The problem with 21st century internet culture is that longetivity no longer exists. Everything is instant, and passing. Fashions and trends, and cool things to talk about pass in the blink of an eye.

I am fascinated with how ideas are spread and how the Zombies of this world are ‘Infected’, but it’s important to separate a passing meme from a clear and professional social media and viral marketing strategy. It’s something that became clear to me at a recent Viral Marketing Workshop with Ze Frank (Idea virus guru) and Jonah Paretti of Buzzfeed.com.

J.J. Abrams (creator of Colverfield, Lost, Alias and Fringe and Director of Star Trek) recently bemoaned the death of ‘mystery’. He spoke about people having everything they needed at the tip of their fingers and having no time for old rituals like the purchasing of an album in a store. It makes internet marketing very, very difficult.

What’s the moral of this rant? Don’t fall for creating a passing trend, be in it for the long haul -

Be Remarkable

Seth Godin always talks about marketing being very simple. If your idea is good enough, it will sell. It is integral to develop a clear and concise internet strategy.

What I’m trying to do here, is distinguish the difference between something that is so easy to do, like posting a clip on youtube, and the art of creating a truely remarkable viral marketing campaign like The Dark Knight last summer. That’s what Viral Marketing is really about.

Make sense? I’d love to hear any thoughts and suggestions!

More ‘Infected‘ next week where I’ll be discussing some of the tools that can help create a truly astounding Viral Marketing Campaign.