BOOK REVIEW: Unleashing the Ideavirus

One thing that I've been really rotten about when it comes to this whole blog assignment is actually keeping up with the mandatory postings. For instance, did you all know that I've been charged with weekly book reviews? No hands? I'm not surprised. Well, in the interests of catching up, here's the first of four belated book reviews.

Today's book is Seth Godin's much-lauded Unleashing the Ideavirus. When I first started reading this examination of the new start of marketing in the 21st century, I was expecting something akin to the starry-eyed proclamations usually reserved for something Scott McCloud dreamed up after reading old Katzenjammer Kids strips backwards while double-fisting purple drank. That is, something revolutionary in its unreality. However, Godin's ideas remain firmly grounded in the implementable, and, though sometimes colored by a little irrational exhuberance, remain solid strategies for marketing in a new landscape.

One of the ideas that really struck a chord with me was Godin's thoughts on access in relation to products and ideas. He notes early on that "one of the dumbest things marketers do is put artificial barriers in the way of trial". While it seems like common sense to say that, in order to become popular, a given object or idea has to be available to the right people at the right time, we don't have to look very far to see that companies still haven't quite grasped this inevitability, especially in the digital marketplace. From the recording industry to Major League Baseball, old-school organizations continue to frustrate users and drive down sales through the use of antiquated, protectionist DRM schemes. Instead of protecting the integrity and pocketbooks of the artists and corporations who use them, these obstructions of use and ownership are simply fueling a consumer-led backlash. Why buy from iTunes when you can slip over to eMusic and get mp3s that are actually yours?


Where have we heard that before?

As Godin point out in his book, digital media, when freely distributed, is one of the best ways to get people hooked on not just a song, but a band's entire output. This kind of loyalty is exactly the type of behavior that Godin looks for in taste-makers from all venues, people that he refers to as "sneezers":

Music execs know that you’ll pay nothing to hear a song on the radio, but if you like it, you’ll gladly pay $15 for the CD. And that if you love the CD, you’re more likely to pay $40 for tickets to the local concert, where you might be converted to a raving sneezer, much more likely to infect your friends and neighbors with raves about the band, the song, even the souvenirs!

Now that I have some of that DRM-rage out of my system, I'd like to turn my focus onto how all of this applies to politics. Now, I think it's safe to say that, generally speaking at least, creating and maintaining the same kind of ideavirus that Godin talks about is harder to do in the world of politics than it is in the world of product marketing. As an example, here are videos from two memorable viral videos that have emerged in the political world over the past few years: the "Hillary 1984" clip, George Allen's "Macaca moment", and




Clearly, these clips had some impact: the 1984 clip generated some serious buzz and cost its creator, Phillip de Vellis, his job at Blue State Digital, while Allen's slip was used deftly by his opponent, Jim Webb, to sway voters in Virgina's ultra-close Senate race (which Allen went on to lose by a razor-thin margin). What made both of these videos so powerful was precisely the thing that is the hardest to recreate: spontaneity. No one scripted the macaca comments, and no one hired de Vellis to make his commercial. Both events occurred outside the realm of planned marketing/image-making, a world which was then forced to respond. While examining the strategies that each campaign employed after the release of the videos may be telling, it ignores the most important part of the equation: the lightning-in-a-bottle nature of most videos.

Godin tells us that, when marketers beat people over the head with ads and come-ons, they tend to be ignored. However, in national politics, a land of ideas and heavy scrutiny, there isn't much room for developing secret campaigns. If you're not found out and laid bare to begin with, chances are good that your plan will be identified strongly enough with marketing strategies that many people will be turned off. For a viral video to really work in politics, it has to come from someplace outside of "the system". Fortunately, as citizens become savvier with net video technology, more and more of these homebrewed political commentary clips will pop up. Of course, it then becomes an issue of weeding out the good from the bad, but the blogosphere hasn't had much of a problem so far, so it's unlikely it'll develop one out of thin air.

Take that, Andrew Keen.

The real problem comes when they people don't want to talk about the same things that you want to talk about, or when the wrong people are doing the talking. Going back to some of Godin's ideas, it's fine when a candidate has the support of influential sneezers who are out there taking their message to the streets, but what about candidates who are on the outside looking in? How does a campaign drum up grassroots support (and content) without creating a little of its own first? I don't know the answer, exactly, but that's why I'm not the one writing the books.

Of course, this doesn't take into account attempts at politics-related humor that go viral. In cases like this, standard rules apply, I guess.


However, other sites have tried to blend humor with genuine campaigning. Some of the people behind the "Obama Girl" video, including actress Amber Ettinger and writer Leah Kaufman, are on record as willing to use the viral credibility earned from their first video to develop other videos across candidate, and party, lines. Call it viral-for-hire, I guess, though I have a feeling that the good feelings earned from the initial video could wear off quickly if we're faced with eight or nine more.


The curse of the one-trick pony?

Godin is right when he notes that maintaining these kinds of viruses is challenging work:

People no longer clamor to dance the Hustle or to get into Studio 54. They don’t visit the once hot jennicam website or pay a premium for front row seats at Cats. Why? Because instead of institutionalizing the process of improving, honing and launching new ideaviruses to replace the dying ones, the “owners” of these viruses milked them until they died.

Does anybody need Giuliani Girl? Probably not. By focusing on replicating the past instead of innovating towards a new, desirable form of video, sites like BarelyPolitical.com guarantee themselves a short cultural half-life. Again, it's an interesting challenge.

The challenge of replicating viral marketing in political forums might be best-suited for local or state elections, where focused campaigns, a narrower market, and a relative lack of big media scrutiny might afford political marketers some of the mystery and allure needed for these ideas to catch on. Nationally, however, hoping the replicate artificially the power of naturally-occurring viral media is a disaster waiting to happen.

For more on Seth Godin, check out his site for more insights and optimism. And, for those of you who love political videos, here's a countdown of the 10 best, according to these guys.


I'll be back later with my reviews of The Interplay of Influence, The Cluetrain Manifesto, and News That Matters, along with the usual pithy banter.