Main Points

* Capitalises on proliferation (of technology)
* Uses the consumers to promote so that it is peer-to-peer marketing that is, to some extent, invisible to the consumer.
* Can capitalise on references to or themes within a movie as appetisers that ‘prepare a market’ for the content
* Can adopt slogans that are spread around and create curiosity before delivering the final source e.g. The Dark Knight
* Original viral videos contained some small reference to the product even though the video itself was ‘just a cool vid’ e.g. ‘My dad’s got restless legs’
* This phenomenon is related to ‘word-of-mouth’ advertising, ‘buzz marketing’ and ‘stealth marketing’ and can be used to create a perfect storm (see Obama’s campaign ad)
* Popular phrases that are ‘user-generated’ by the consumers are popularised by marketing forces and used to sell e.g. Dancing Baby’s “All you base are belong to us”.
* They often violate copyright laws through their very nature as they use trademarks, symbols, characters, ideas and put them into new contexts whether as mash-ups or in some other form.
* ‘Hyper-real’ cinematic styles capitalise on the success of viral videos by making themselves appear amateurish (and therefore genuine) to some degree.
* Can be used in positive ways to raise awareness about issues e.g. District 9’s ‘humans only’ phone-boxes’ called to mind the racism of old South Africa in segregating 'the whites and the blacks'.