Get Your Irish On - Here Comes Another Viral

Many of us wonder what the Elf Yourself campaign could have been if it were a bit more focused on sales. Maybe it would have looked a bit more like Irish Spring’s Get Irish Now campaign?

(Due to annoyingness of sound, I have posted a screen shot in lieu of video. You can see the video here).

Yep, that’s me. I’ve Irishified myself - even down to an Irish accent. (Now, if only it could talk like an Irish pirate…)

Do consumers still get a kick out of this kinda thing? Or is this just another “me too” campaign? Irish Spring did do things a bit differently, which might give this a better shot at success:

Portability

A key difference between this and Elf Yourself is you can share your creation on Facebook or your blog with embeddable code. I believe with the Elf Yourself campaign, you had to have a sophisticated screen capture program like Camtasia to create a video, or just post a still screenshot.

In an age where DVRs like TiVo enable viewers to skip commercials entirely, iPods have killed the radio-spot and more and more leisure time is spent in social networks — allowing people to post their Irish characters to Facebook, MySpace and their other personal blogs exposes far more eyeballs to the brand than email forwards alone.

Think about it. Traditional advertising spots cost a fortune - and these are little videos of your friend doing something silly. Which campaign has higher retention? With TV and print, you pay for every ad slot. With viral campaigns that can be posted in social networks and blogs, the reach can grow exponentially with no incremental costs above creating and maintaining the microsite.

Branding

Another difference in this campaign is it has an end to its means: promoting its body wash product. Irish Spring has chosen to include branding at the top left and bottom right corners - you can’t miss it. Of course, there is no call-to-action that would direct someone to make a purchase online, so conversion rates are impossible to measure.

Features

Users can create personalized catch-phrases that they couldn’t do with the elves. It adds an extra level of personalization. You can also choose from a number of scenes, body types, props and mouths - which may make it more appealing to play around with more than once.

Relevance

Irish Spring has far more relevance to St. Patrick’s Day than office supplies have to Christmas, I think recall and retention should be high. Although I’ve been critical of Elf Yourself, I think it’s too bad that the connection wasn’t made between the brand and campaign and that people attributed the fun experience to its competitors.

What Do You Think?

At the end of the day, I doubt I’ll actually purchase Irish Spring body wash. But by sharing my creation, I’m exposing thousands of others who might buy. And that’s something TV ads can never do.

I’d like to hear what you think of this campaign.