To respond to your question 4MySales,

“What elements of a marketing activity make people talk about it?”

To broadly answer your question, I would say controversy and entertainment are the main elements.

I define viral marketing as Karen does. Now it goes both ways, a group of people could latch onto your advertisement and start spreading it because they hate it. However, for the most part, I’ve noticed that viral marketing generally has to do with creative and more often than not, funny advertisements.

If you wanted to start a viral campaign for a blender company, I would assume that chopping up a cat or some other cute animal in one of your blenders and posting it on youtube would do the trick. However, I doubt you want that kind of image spread around. The point is, find a way to get people talking about your advertisement and give them the ability to easily pass the message. For video, youtube.com is the best way to spread it. For blogs, I recommend digg.com, in fact I’m suprised myeducatedguess.com doesn’t have digg buttons on their posts. Other viral media could be publicity stunts, such as the aqua teen hunger force LED displays that made national news. Maybe a better way to define viral marketing is to say that the goal is to have people talking about the advertisement itself, instead of focusing on the company.

Hope this was helpful.

-Aaron

-4MySales