The Jia Junpeng phenomenon – clever viral marketing

“Jia Junpeng, your mom is calling you to eat at home” became one of the hottest catch phrases on Internet, getting cult status. It is also a testimonial of the power of viral marketing.

In July 2009, an anonymous user posted the sentence “Jia Junpeng, your mom is calling you to eat at home” on a World of Warcraft forum. Within 24 hours, it was viewed 1.5 million times, got over 200,000 comments and was reposted and quoted on at least 7,000 webpages. It quickly developed into a media tsunami inside and outside China.

The brain behind the phenomenon is Ao Chunhua, CEO of a small website marketing company based out in Chonqing. He hired over 800 people to register over 20,000 online IDs to flood the forums and create 100,000 replies / postings to drive traffic to World of Warcraft.

Why did it become such a success?

1. China’s youth are the driving force behind online growth. They love to social network and reach out and connect online.
   
2. The sentence “mom calling you home to eat” triggers an instant emotional response. The Chinese fondly recall childhood memories of playing outside and being called by their mother to come home to eat once dinner was ready.
   
3. The Internet is a breeding ground for creativity, ideas, and testing out of marketing strategies.
   
4. Viral marketing or word-of-mouth (WOM) marketing is a highly effective way to reach out and communicate with Chinese consumers. Chinese consumers shy away from traditional media and puts emphasis on guanxi (personal relationship). A recent survey found that nearly 40% of Chinese men aged 18-34 ranked word-of-mouth marketing as their top influence for electronic purchases.
   
5. Viral marketing is also a cost-effective way of reaching target groups and building brands. As everywhere in the world, traditional advertising on television, radio, or in print is expensive.

Legal oversight, marketing blunder or a stroke of marketing genius?

On Election Day last November, Starbucks launched a one day marketing campaign. It offered a free 12 oz. drip coffee to anyone who voted. However, this is illegal in the US. Federal law prohibits payment of money, goods or services in return for voting. Starbucks advertised the voter promotion on television during the comedy sketch show Saturday Night Live (for a brilliant spoof of the coffee chain click here).

Starbucks did some quick crisis management issued the following statement:
“To ensure we are in compliance with election law, we are extending our offer to all customers who request a tall brewed coffee."

As a result the wires buzzed with, "Did you hear about Starbucks?" which went hand in hand with: "Do you think Obama will win? "

Theis kind of viral buzz is a marketer's dream. Starbucks profited big time from their freebie:

• Many that came in for the free coffee left with purchased sandwiches, cookies or muffins.


• Others opted to upgrade their free plain coffee for a fancy grande mocha frappuccino latte or espresso.


• The Starbucks brand was plastered all over the media

The question remains if Starbucks made an honest mistake (in which case they should fire their legal advisor) or if it was a clever marketing ploy (in which case they should promote that marketing professional to a senior management position).

Quite likely, it was a case of an eager marketing beaver running off with a campaign without clearing it with legal first. If that is so, Starbucks presented us with a wonderful example of effective crisis management.

Although it turned out great for Starbucks in the end, I strongly advise all companies (regardless of industry or location) to run all planned marketing, sales or PR campaigns via their legal department or advisor before launch. This is even more critical if the company operates internationally.

How a viral marketing campaign went vitriolic – the Mozilla marketing mess

Mozilla normally markets its open-source browser using its Spread Firefox site and a host of fans to drum up new users.
In an effort to get a chuck of Microsoft’s market, it came up with an innovative online campaign that sadly backfired.
The “Fight Against Boredom” featured a YouTube movie which echoes “We are the World”.
Only in this case, the singers poured out statistics, comparing Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer users with Firefox users.
It included “fun facts” such as:
“15% more likely to have watched cartoons on TV within the last seven days” and “21% less likely to fish”.

However, it also included:
“23% less likely to have cancer” ; “25% less likely to have breast cancer” and “20% less likely to live with others suffering from cancer.”
These “statistics” also included that Firefox users were less likely to have high cholesterol or heart disease.

The TechCrunch blog was the first one to report on and object to the marketing program.
The readers’ comments make fascinating reading.
To give an example, Zachary wrote: "As a Firefox user who has cancer, I'm less than amused."

Paul Kim, Mozilla's vice president of marketing, tried to do some damage control.
He wrote on his blog:
“This is Paul Kim, VP of marketing for Mozilla.
I want to apologize to anyone who was upset or offended by some of the stats on the not yet final website for this campaign.
The list Techcrunch referenced was posted without a final review by Mozilla and wasn’t intended to be published as is.
We’re working right now to correct this on the site, which goes live in a final form later today.”

The apology doesn’t make sense. This kind of campaign should never have been conceived, not even as a rough concept.
I agree with blogger Tom Page, who points out that:
"Saying that it was not meant to be 'publicly available' makes it seem as if these comments are only acceptable as a private joke at Mozilla. Caesar's wife must be above suspicion, and if something like this came from Microsoft you'd go absolutely crazy."

Mozilla yanked the campaign.
What puzzles me most is the part that their PR Company played in this.
AKQA profiles itself as “ideas-lead agency” that holds the “Agency of the Year” title on “both sides of the Atlantic at the same time”.
You would expect more (cultural) sensitivity from an agency like this.
("Al AKQA", that also features a stuffed monkey on its website, claims $ 350M. in online media billing and 450 staffers).

Considering the gap between Firefox and its rival (according to the company Net Application, Inc. Firefox accounted for 16.8% of all browsers that visited the 40,000 sites the company monitors for its customers), this latest expedition in creative marketing will not help.

The lesson to be learned: marketing professionals need to be diligent in all their materials, even if it's only a rough concept.