Intrapromote:
Full-Blown Viral Advertising or Just the Sniffles?
by Jeff Mellen
The Hamster Dance. All Your Base Are Belong To Us. Mahir.
Mullet Hunting. The Blair Witch Project. All of these
are examples of viral popular culture-- icons that defy description
and categorization and spread like wildfire over the heavily networked
and connected Internet. Such events might be lightning in a
bottle; unpredictable, and unmanufacturable. But the power of
viral content is not lost on marketers, who would like their clients
and products to be as ubiquitous on the Web as "Move Zig... For
Great Justice."
One such marketer is Intrapromote, a self-proclaimed viral marketing
and search engine optimization leader. Their business is twofold,
as the proclamation implies. First, they still specialize in
one of the oldest advertising strategies in the book: getting a site
to the top of the Net's search engines. However, the second
and most important is their viral marketing business. Intrapromote
believes that it can create small, self-contained programs for customers
and send them to individuals, figuring that they will pass that game,
screen saver, or other gadget onto their friends and business partners.
Examples include Executive Wallball from Beveridge Consulting, a Break-Out
type game where you use a ball to break bricks of "Management
Misconceptions." Another is "Verado: the IT Security
Game," a nearly impossible shoot-em-up in which you face off
against a relentless spammer. When you lose, it's not merely
"Game Over;" it's a message that Verado's services would
have helped you fight the enemy.
Intrapromote unleashes these "Viral Objects" in several
ways. They can "infect" a trade show or conference
with cheap CDs of Viral Objects, anticipating that those that receive
the CD will like the objects, and pass them onto those they think
are interested. Another strategy is to bundle the object alongside
another product, and encourage the passing on of this item through
that stream. By connecting objects to banners, those who might
not otherwise see the object in the first place might get exposure.
In each case, their success is measured on the number of "pass-alongs,"
and how quickly an otherwise unknown company can gain name recognition.
I see a problem, though. As much as Intrapromote hypes this
concept on its website, and as much as trend-happy investors, analysts,
and other ever-optimistic, ever-naïve e-business figureheads
point to viral marketing as the next big thing, the majority of these
"Viral Objects" will flop. Why? It's back to
lightning in a bottle. Intrapromote is trying to manufacture
unique Internet phenomena, whose defining characteristic has been
their offbeat nature, uniqueness, and independent spirit. In
contrast, Intrapromote is a for-profit company with for-profit clients;
as a result, their viral memes are laced with corporate messages,
product placements, and an unauthentic feel. "Executive
Wallball" and "Verado: the IT Security Game" are unabashedly
transparent, and as variations on a familiar theme, have no added
value other than their advertisements. If Intrapromote can
create a truly unique Viral Object that just happens to have some
marketing, perhaps their model will work. In its current form,
however, their strategy may end up in the same digital grave as ad
banners and user referrals.