Discussion in the industry offers many pros and cons as to whether or not viral marketing is a valid method of branding. The whole goal of viral marketing is to have your message spread quickly and as a result leave some impression on your audience be it lasting or temporary. The point is to get your name out there and it does just that.

Name recognition is what you want with branding. Like television is to reach marketing, at the very least, a viral video will do the same thing. We’d all like to say that viral videos are a way of interacting with our consumers at a deeper level, but it will honestly take more than one viral video to do that. You’ll need multiple interactions from various sources to engage consumers and they will engage if you do it right.

While consumers reportedly don’t like corporate advertising schemes, they will watch video clips in general. It will be up to the ad agency to get creative and find innovative ways to reach and engage the audience despite the barriers that stand in the way. To say that viral marketing doesn’t work and eliminate that as part of the marketing strategy simply because consumer don’t like advertising is like throwing a wrench in our own supply chain.

Wondering if your viral video strays too far from relevance to your brand? You want to generate buzz about anything your company does. If it takes “hype” to do that, then so be it. You can always develop the relationship later. Think of it this way. If there was some negative press about your business, that would spread rather quickly. Why can’t agencies get more creative about spreading the good stuff that a client’s company offers?

Marketing online is changing to become a package deal. No longer can you do just one form of advertising (viral videos only or podcasts only) and expect that to stick in the minds of your audience. You’ll have to reach them in a variety of ways to connect and engage. It’ll take multiple efforts like social networking, viral videos and podcasting to enhance or bring out the full message of what your client’s company is all about.

To go back to the original question about whether viral marketing does work, the question should be more like, “Is using one form of online advertising feasible for brand recognition?” We have a host of low cost online advertising alternatives that help to create the image and brand a company wants. Why should we limit ourselves to just one avenue?