'kolaveri": viral marketing at its best

As the subject of this post says, this is yet another post I am writing on the same topic on the success of latest viral hit : "why this kolaveri di". The earlier article was totally unrelated but an useful one if you would like to read.

There is lot said and analysis paralyzed about this why this song was rage in the internet with topping cool trends, here is one more set to start with the viral marketing and the basic simple principles that this song could make use of the same.

Just for the uninitated like me on Viral Marketing: Viral marketing started with Virus and the simple behavior of virus goes its working method: "A virus doesn't even have to mate -- he just replicates, again and again with geometrically increasing power, doubling with each iteration."

What does a virus have to do with marketing? Viral marketing describes any strategy that encourages individuals to pass on a marketing message to others, creating the potential for exponential growth in the message's exposure and influence. Like viruses, such strategies take advantage of rapid multiplication to explode the message to thousands, to million.

When looking into how this song caught up with so much hype, the following were put across the common reasons:
1) Cool catchy tune (any body can sing)
2) Star power of the actors involved in the song and their live performances in youtube
3) back ground of the "super-star" power, as this picture could depict

However, even with such a multi-horse powered approach, not so many albums could meet such a success of this song. So how come this song alone could make it? people only can say about one thing: "word of mouth" promotions.

The following were the 5 simple principles of the viral marketing:

• Provides for effortless transfer to others
• Scales easily from small to very large
• Exploits common motivations and behaviors
• Utilizes existing communication networks
• Takes advantage of others' resources

Now, if you compare these traits in the song, you could clearly see how the song was promoted and in what fashion.

Here is a short video that explains quite a bit in south indian flavour:

Moral of the story: Lookout for how people vent out their feelings the next time, you may land up in a lucky jinx and end up having business lunch with Prime Minister of the country!!