百事可乐酿造病毒式营销奇迹

    电视广告都希望能够产生病毒式传播效应。NBA总决赛第一场比赛中插播的广告中，百事可乐公司（Pepsi）的新产品百事极（Pepsi Max）或许并不是唯一抱着这种希望的广告。但却是唯一的采用了后向营销模式的品牌。

    与美国橄榄球超级杯大赛（Super Bowl）和奥运会（Olympics）广告类似，营销人员希望吸引观看凯文•杜兰特和勒布朗•詹姆斯决斗的数百万观众的目光。（去年，约有1,700万观众观看了德克•诺维茨基打败詹姆斯和南部海滩队员的比赛。）今年，有一位头发斑白的退役老队员“德鲁大叔”也加入了这个队伍。上个月，德鲁大叔在YouTube上的一段百事极视频广告引起了轰动。在这段时长五分钟的视频中，德鲁大叔在一场街头即兴篮球比赛中，用与胡子花白、大腹便便的老头形象完全不相称的胯下运球和灌篮让在场的球迷为之倾倒。实际上，德鲁大叔是由年轻的篮球明星凯里-欧文乔装打扮的，他同时也是这则广告的编剧兼导演。

    5月18日，百事极营销团队在没有任何媒体购买的情况下发布了该视频；而就在此之前的几天里，欧文刚刚以压倒性的优势获得了NBA年度最佳新秀（NBA's Rookie of the Year）奖。欧文球技了得，视频推出的时机恰到好处，因此，《德鲁大叔》视频在YouTube上的点击次数已经超过900万次，获得了98%的好评率。

    这时，百事可乐公司营销团队认识到，自己手头已经掌握了一支低成本的热门广告。随后，它走出了一步不同寻常的棋——把YouTube上的广告移植到电视黄金时段播放。虽然在线广告和病毒式营销已经成为美国橄榄球超级杯大赛广告的常规套路，但《德鲁大叔》广告策略投机性更强，成本也更低。

    美国西北大学凯洛格商学院（Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management）的营销专家德里克•洛克指出，对于美国橄榄球超级杯大赛的广告，新品上市等长尾营销常常比一次性的商业广告更胜一筹。广告攻势超过赛事本身的周期时，重头电视广告产生的回报就会更高。因此，现在的营销人员都在致力于延长广告关联性的时间跨度，使用的手段则包括在线预告片、用户竞赛环节和后续广告等。

    Pepsi Max might not be the only brand that debuted a television spot during last night's Game 1 of the NBA Finals with hopes that the campaign goes viral. But it is the only one entering the process backwards.

    Much like with the Super Bowl and the Olympics, marketers want to capitalize on the millions who tune in to watch Kevin Durant and LeBron James go head to head. (An average of just over 17 million viewers tuned in last year to watch Dirk Nowitzki down James and his South Beach crew.) Joining them this year will be a grizzled old veteran, "Uncle Drew," who made waves last month in a Pepsi Max video on YouTube. In the five-minute clip, "Uncle Drew" amuses, then mesmerizes, a pick-up basketball game and its fans with crossovers and dunks unbecoming of a white-bearded, paunch-carrying old man, and only possible because the true identity of "Uncle Drew" was a carefully disguised young basketball star, the clip's writer-director Kyrie Irving.

    Pepsi Max's brand team put out the video without any media buys on May 18, just several days after Irving won the NBA's Rookie of the Year award in a landslide. Between Irving's crossovers and that fortuitous timing, "Uncle Drew" has been watched over 9 million time on YouTube, with a 98% positive feedback rate of "likes" to "dislikes."

    The PepsiCo brand (PEP) realized it had a hit on its hands for a low-cost, which has led to an unusual move—the transition of an ad spot from YouTube video to primetime television spot. While the use of online teasers and viral campaigns has become one of the new staples of Super Bowl advertising, the "Uncle Drew" strategy is more speculative and much less expensive.

    With Super Bowl advertising, long-tailed campaigns such as a product launch tend to outperform one-off commercials, according to marketing expert Derek Rucker of Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management. High profile television spots have a better return when a part of a broader effort that out lives the event itself. Marketers now push to stretch out the time of relevance of their spots, from teasers to user contests and follow-up ads.