Fw: Fw: Fw: Viral Marketing

I was in Langkawi a week ago for a family retreat. Had a great time, which unfortunately meant that I didn’t get enough sleep, which resulted in the syndrome of needing another holiday to recover from this holiday…

But anyway.

On the last day we managed to visit The Loaf, a bakery by our former PM Tun Dr Mahathir and a Japanese partner. This isn’t a food review, but I’ll go as far as to say that the setting was really idyllic, having the marina and an assortment of yachts right in front of you whilst you enjoyed your tea. Almost made me feel like I was on holiday. (Okay, fine, I *was* on holiday but to me it doesn’t count as a proper one if the weather’s just as hot and the cars just as Malaysian.)

Coincidentally, I received a multiple-forwarded email today, with the subject: Fw: Fw: FW: Tun Mahathir’s Bakery Shop-The Loaf In Langkawi -MUST GO &TRY. With it was an attached PowerPoint Presentation, describing the author’s trip to The Loaf in vivid detail, along with plenty of photos to illustrate his points.

You can download the file here (870kb) if you wish to have a look for yourself.

But what really struck me was that this was a great example of what I would term an “accidentalâ€? viral marketing campaign. The author probably wrote it as part of a holiday album to be sent to friends. His friends then forwarded it to other friends, and so on till it reached my mailbox this morning.

It didn’t cost The Loaf anything, and it gave (and continues to give!) them brand exposure.

The real pity is that they probably don’t even know about this, much less exploit it for maximum publicity and advantage. With analytics, business intelligence and all the tools and experience we have today, we could really be driving customers to their doors in droves. (Which would be really good since they’ll be opening in Pavilion KL soon!)

Now, can your business benefit in the same way?