Garlic is Viral, Influence is King

Men are not waiting for a product to increase breast size. Women just laugh about tools to enlarge a penis.
You cannot infect anybody with anything but you can surely take the right measures to infect some.

Viral marketing works just like epidemics. A virus is spread to people using carriers. But unlike with sicknesses, not anybody can initiate the message to spread. You need to carefully select people with the right characteristics: sociable, enthusiastic and influential among their peers.

‘Influential’ is the keyword here as it plays an important role when you want to convince others to use your product or service. Imagine a heavy-weight guy telling stories about this great weight reduction product or a bookworm trying to convince others she/he is a partytiger. Would you trust those people? Are they influential? No.

What about an influential institution like Stockholm’s Museum of Modern Art or your good friend telling you that something is interesting, cool or worth visiting? And what about reading more about this product on various blogs on the net? I bet you would get eager to check it out yourself.

Even if it’s really silly? Yes, when it’s promoted in the right way.

Best example: the GarlicCard
A new gadget nobody needs, everybody goes crazy about, thus spreading the word to the world.

The GarlicCard, invented by Herman Rasmuson in Sweden, is a patterned card specially designed to grate garlic cloves, resulting in some sort of purée you can put on your dishes. Nothing more, nothing less.

So what could make this product worth spreading?

• it’s a little bit silly
• extra-ordinary useful, nothing similar has been produced so far
• accompanying information is amusing, interesting and unusual, for ex.: video
• a simple message, easy to explain and quick to tell
• influential initiator with an open-minded target group: in this case the museum of modern art
• gadget-like price, not too expensive. people won’t worry about the price so much

Martina from Adverblog puts it this way:
Actually the best thing about this gadget is the smart website: nicely designed and with an amusing video to explain how the garlic card works.

No virus unleashes better and more effectively than on the web. You just need to find people liking your product and they will spread it to the masses.

iSocks for your iPod anyone?