Fun viral marketing

by Eleonora Anello

Half experiment half viral campaign. The fun can be an effective deterrent to change people's attitudes? If simply by climbing a ladder you can compose music, or if a garbage can produce funny sounds, would be more likely that people will stop using the escalators and leaving waste on the street? According to Volkswagen, yes. With that in mind the carmaker launched "The funtheory", a new viral marketing campaign starting in June 2009 in Sweden and now expanding globally.
The initiative seems to refer to the work of Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein titled "Nudge. Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness". According to this two authors, in order to direct people towards a particular choice in any field, from waste disposal practices of good citizenship, you need a "sting", an aid. And Volkswagen’s viral movies are so a good example of this new theory that they’re mentioned in Nudge's blog.

In a market where competition is becoming fiercer, and traditional commercials are snubbed by the public, to promote the new VW with eco-system BlueMotionTechnologies a more innovative and apparently successful way was finally choosen . The video "Piano stairs" in fact has been viewed more than 2.5 million times on YouTube and is part of a much larger viral marketing project than continue with an increasing involvement of consumers, called to produce similar videos before November 15. The winner will receive a prize of 2,500 €.

The theory works: it is in fact an increase of 66% of people preferred to climb the "Stairs piano" rather than being passively transported with a higher consumption of electricity by the comfortable but boring escalators. Furthermore, in a single day the trash "sound" has collected 72 kg of waste, 41 more than the daily average.
The leadership of Volkswagen say they want to make the world a better and more fun place to live and the site was created to support the initiative, promising to publish further demonstrations in support of their argument. Once the mechanism was triggered curiosity, "buzz" and anticipation surrounding the publication of the movies arises, in fact the channel has already announced the release of other "experiments". And in these days is online the highly anticipated "Bottle Bank arcade machine", a funny way to sort waste. But the next step will be so automatic? The consumer will associate the fun to the driving a Volkswagen? Or its focus will remain on sharing of videos with friends?
Again, this theory is really as effective in determining the actions of individuals as to suggest a new way of manipulating the masses without even instruct them because of the changes required? If so it would be worrying, or we must abandon this paranoid obsession and understand the nudge as a powerful tool for rethinking our habits and abandon ourselves to a new way of life that make us live better relations with our fellow humans and the environment?