Piaras Kelly PR - Public Relations in Ireland

I attended a marketing breakfast last week and noted at the event how far behind we are in Ireland in terms of viral marketing. There was no mention of the likes of YouTube or Google Video. Instead ,the only mention of viral marketing was a Carlsberg PowerPoint presentation that was emailed around following Ireland’s victory over England in the Rugby Six Nations Championship.

This completely ignores the rise rise of clip culture online. More importantly though, it highlights the fact that Irish marketers/PR practitioners/advertisers are ignorant of the trend of Consumer Generated Media, whereby consumers are creating viral marketing efforts that are exceedingly becoming more popular than corporate efforts.

For example, I didn’t receive the email about the Carlsberg PowerPoint presentation. If I had I probably wouldn’t have opened it for reasons like the fear of inadvertently downloading a virus unless it was from a trusted source. Distribution channels like YouTube and Google Video are overcoming this because they are secure channels, and they are also more effective in the spread of viral marketing efforts as the content is easily accessible rather than just being restricted to email recipients.

Aine Chambers has become a cult figure in Ireland following from her series of videos on SligoZone.net that are being distributed through Google Video. While the series of videos is funny to watch, it’s worth noting that just about anyone could do the same thing thanks to the capabilities of mobile phones. That means that means that companies can launch similar initiatives at a fraction of what they would have cost a year ago.

More importantly, companies need to realise that virals are switching formats in terms of distribution and content. The quicker we catch onto the popularity of YouTube and Google Video the better.

Technorati Tags: Aine Matthews, Google Video, Piaras Kelly, PR, Public Relations, Sligo, Viral Marketing, YouTube