Nice to see that the iPod posts got a reaction.
For those who haven't seen it, Apple's 2004 WWDC featured a music video for their iPod, iTunes, music store, Airport Express et. al., to the tune of "Walkie Talkie Man" by Steriogram. It's actually one of the best ads I've seen in a long time, even though it's probably too long to run on TV. If you want to ditch the streaming version and get a copy of the large (480-pixel wide) video to play privately, just right-click here.
If Apple was really serious about boosting the iPod and/or iTunes' status as "ideaviruses" via online marketing, however, it would be thinking different:
- The iPod + iTunes section of Apple.com would have its own media coverage section.
- This Media Coverage section would include a full set of favourable reviews and articles about the Pod as a hot trend, all in one easy to reference place and even divided by sub-sets (tech reviews, fashion/trend reviews, etc). "Email this" features would be available for each item, so people could easily tell their friends.
- This section would also have the full gamut of commercials available online, plus web-only commercials like the one linked above. Their "email this!" feature, very open usage guidelines, plus promotion via the iTunes store itself would ensure that these videos and commercials could easily be distributed far and wide.
- Those web-only commercials could be run in a way that takes a page from the Absolut Vodka campaigns, bringing in lots of cool new material.
- Now we add a blog promo program, of course, which would give them inbound customer stories, feedback and marketing angles as well as inbound traffic if done properly.
Ta-daa! The foundations and basic infrastructure for one ideavirus-based, trend friendly, online marketing campaign. Hey, Apple, need some help making this happen?
For more on the potential of the "Ideavirus", check out Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. Not only is it a good book, but if you can get past the craziness of Hiro Protagonist reading up on the Babylonians while simultaneously riding a motorcycle, you'll find more on ideaviruses.
They're actually kind of scary, if you think about it, the kind of potential a creeping ideavirus can have on the rest of the world. Or an ideavirus in the hands of someone evil.
Took the day off and was just reading up some blogs and thought I would post here