Top mobile viral marketing campaigns ever

This blog is based on a presentation held at MediaPro in November 2010 with the headline “The  most successful viral apps in Mobile history”. We had an amazing feedback on the presentation  from clients and the audience. Therefore we want to reiterate the insights on our blog.

Everyone wants to know: what makes a mobile app or service viral? We hope to provide you with at least some of the most important success criteria. Our recommendations are based on the experience from launching more than 300 mobile apps over the past couple of years. Among them some extremely successful. In some cases the content was great but viral effects turned out rather moderate.

The top 5 viral marketing campaigns that we’ve launched during this period were:

1. Malibu Bowling Game for Pernod Ricard (Agency: Great Works)– bowl with coconuts and melons and play against your friends. The game reached over 6m downloads primarily in the US with no marketing other than appstore distribution

2. Cippi for Perfetti (Agency: BBH) – the first mobile farting application downloaded over 4m times  thereof 2m in Italy which was the target market with minimum marketing effort via Vodafone Italy (watch on YouTube)

3. Lynx/Axe for Unilever (Agency: BBH) – mobile apps that turn your phone into a  flirting machine resulting in over 0.5m downloads in the UK (watch on YouTube)

4. Who Killed Summer for Vodafone (Agency: OMD) – interactive mobile app for an online reality  show which generated considerably more downloads and activity on the mobile than it did online

5. Du & Jag (You & Me) – one of the simplest apps ever with a test to see how well you match a  girl or guy resulted in over 100k downloads in Sweden in only a few months in 2007

We will let the failures be forgotten in history for now…

So what are the key learning’s and tips from these?

1. Viral is about the physical sharing experience

Viral marketing online is very centred around sharing via Facebook, e-mail, instant messaging, Twitter and other channels. With the core function of a mobile phone being communication you would expect the same thing to be true for mobile. What we’ve noticed through research and focus groups however is that the most common sharing experience is physical. The user shows the game, entertainment or utility app to a friend who then also downloads it. In many cases the average user shares the app with 5+ people.

2. Make it easy to share

Having said that the most successful sharing experience is physical there is still a great amount of viral effects that comes from sharing online. Therefore it is key that it is easy and fun to share. There are a couple of important things to think about in order to encourage online sharing:

• Make it clear what is shared – i.e. show how the other user(s) will receive the message by e-mail or Facebook
• Integrate with the phone experience – use the phonebook to make it easy for users to share with their friends
• Let the user decide how they want to share – allow the user to choose between e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, Bluetooth, etc
• Make it meaningful to share – ensure that there is an incentive to share whether it is to let the user impress their friends, a benefit to the receiver or an incentive to the sharer

3. Available on all/most devices

Less than 10% of the mobile users in Europe have an iPhone. So what happens if an iPhone user shares the app with an Android, Nokia or Blackberry user? Make sure that you support the devices that your target audience has.

4. Distributed through as many channels as possible

There are now well over 100 carriers, handset manufacturers and independent appstores (excluding Apple). Clearly some of them are more popular than others but distributing your app to as many of them as possible will give you much better reach which results in more downloads. In addition to this making sure that your app gets mentioned in blogs and other media can also make a big impact.

So in summary, what makes a successful mobile viral app campaign?

• Make it a fun and useful sharing experience in the physical world as well as online
• Make it easy to share and be honest about how it’s done
• Ensure that your app/campaign is available to your target audience devices
• Distribute through as many channels as possible

And don’t forget to share this blog!

Author: Magnus Jern (CEO Golden Gekko)

See the presentation on slideshare