Media Monday: Viral campaigns are least effective in India

As per a survey by Sapient Interactive on digital media ads and their effectiveness in India, Viral campaigns are believed to be the least effective of marketing methods. This was based on the report “Digital Marketing: The CMO perspective” where Chief Marketing Officers of various sectors took the survey.

Though they all agreed that digital advertising is an integral part of any marketing campaign but creating a viral buzz doesn’t seem to be a preferred choice.

As per the survey the effectiveness score of various online methods is as follows-

• Website advertising or product based microsites- Score: 100%
• Search marketing campaigns-Score: 94%
• E-mail marketing- Score: 90%
• Banner Ads- Score: 78%
• Viral Ads- 30.7%

But why Viral marketing which is seen as a very effective way to communicate over web in other countries is least effective in India?

In my opinion the main reason is using wrong products for viral campaigns. Most of the viral videos which I have seen feature products which are either already famous or don’t have any compelling value that can be related to the campaign.

Sometimes the viral takes over the brand and what we remember is only the video and not the brand!

Recently, Tata’s DoCoMo did a very good viral campaign and it was successful as it delivered a clear message about their product.

We can’t relate a DoCoMo viral with any competitive product and it stands uniquely. We should not just look for an innovative video to create a viral (I hardly remember that the famous Sholay video viral was for makemytrip or for cleartrip or Yatra?).

And moreover when Sholay videos got famous even Orbit used the same for their campaign (hardly any brand reckoning value)!

Indian companies need to understand this better and should utilize this free platform cautiously to make it more effective.

What’s your opinion ?

[This Media Monday digest has been written by Rabi Gupta, a start up enthusiast and co-founder of iDubba (Intelligent Box).]