Apr 09 2008
Viral Marketing is like Beating up Children
An excellent example of viral marketing. How many hits do you suppose this site gets? Are you going to go see how many five year olds you could beat up? I really wish you would. Beat my score! I dare you!
On the topic though, what an excellent example of coming up with a concept that will get traffic! Why does this work? What are some other ideas that would gain popularity simply because its odd? Is this even a decent and acceptable idea?
Ideas like this gain popularity because it fills a basic human need.
People crave information that appeals to their basic needs, that will somehow educate them, make their life easier, enlighten them, solve their problems, provide comfort, security, or emotional satisfaction.
For some reason, this provides emotional satisfaction for some. Personally, I am a parent of six and I get the reference to wanting to beat up children even though admitting it would, in theory, make you a “Bad Person”. Nevertheless; people still feel the need to do it.
I agree, you should question whether this is even a good idea but questioning won’t change the human need for it. Filling the need can work to your advantage. Sell them something to replace it with, something that seems similar but doesn’t violate your principles.
35
Probably because I am a dirty fighter who’s ready to do whatever it takes to win
but yeah, funny concept.
Things like this work because it’s sooo random. I’ve been following the quizes they have there for a while and all of them are genius ideas to get TONS of traffic from places like Myspace, and well, this blog
I didn’t quite beat your score but it was fun trying. I will agee with Andrew, it was kind of hard saying I’d kick a kid but your point is well taken on the marketing ploy behind the survey.
It seems so terrible doesn’t it?
Don’t worry Kellie, the only reason I beat you was because I said I wouldn’t mind using a five year old as a weapon!
What was that about terrible?