#Loewe's viral experience

March, 14th

“Do u wanna laugh for a while and/or feel embarrassed? Watch the new advertisement of #Loewe” by @pathernando.

“The documentary about special education of #Loewe is great” by @cot_julia.

“All of you hate #Loewe’s new advertisement, but, all of you talk about it. Do you know what viral marketing means?” by @October_Lee.

What does viral marketing mean?

Viral marketing means advertising, it means money, interactivity, and above all it means social networks as means.

Just imagine a virus. A simple flu will serve. Yesterday you went to a hospital and you, unknowingly caught the virus. Later, you went out with your fiends whom you, unintentionally, transmitted the virus. They came back home and transmitted it to their families. Parents went to work and brothers and sisters went to school. We already have an epidemic. All infected.

Now, replace the flu with an advertising message and the hospital with Youtube. The key: to transmit = to share. Like.

This is viral marketing, an advertising strategy that seeks the rapid spread of a message to potential consumers of the advertised product.

Viral marketing is no new. Do you remember mouth-to-ear (word-to-mouth)? These are the roots. Nowadays, mouth have been replaced with “Notification on your wall” and ear with “Share on a friend’s timeline” or #let’screateaWorldwidetrend. Today, the Internet and social networks are the mean and the propagation is quicker and more effective.

A company hides an advertisement within a provocative idea in video format that make viewer’s opinion came up et violá!, for the modest price of a video uploaded to Youtube for free, it got to manage to thousands of people. And everything without paying for spots on TV or radio. Economic ¿right? Yes it is, and much more when traditional media publish pieces of news about the success of the viral campaign. Total media convergence. Just one text, many media.

This is precisely what Loewe, the Spanish firm of luxury goods, has achieved. Let solve the unknown factor. A company: Loewe. A message: gold collection 2012. A provocative idea: try to represent the Spanish youth with a sample of "supercool” young people."The results: #Loewe, Spain trend in Twitter, 730,000 views on YouTube, hundreds of posts on blogs, articles in national newspapers, parodies on YouTube... and most important, thousands of young Spanish people speaking about Loewe, even if it’s only to criticize and satirize. But... how true the idiom 'let them talk, well or bad, but talk' is?

Loewe has transformed this idiom in its personal slogan. Around its viral experiment it has produced a movement of opposition and criticism that has flooded social networks and that has even reached international audiences. With an experience like Loewe’s one, the risks of a viral marketing campaign for a company become obvious. The reasons for these risks are also clear: viral marketing is based over the unpredictable reactions of thousands of users-consumers. They have the power.

Viral marketing not always works. Sometimes even when the ideas and the means are the correct ones, the message doesn’t spread. Sometimes the message does extend, but, as in the case of Loewe, the image that is extended between the users is not positive.

In the hands of thousands of fussy-active-interconnected users, a viral marketing campaign can easily become both, a success and a failure. The question that comes up with the new media reality is obvious: is it worth risking your brand image for the possibility of getting viral success?

For Loewe, it’s clear. Results never can be predicted, but even advertising has to take advantages of the new possibilities that the Internet offers. No matter the price.

As a present: funny viral marketing summary. Enjoy it!