Nigel Corbett : Getting to the soul of the matter

Campaign: Soul Bar - Champagne
Agency: OgilvyOne
Creative team: Tom Paine and James Bowman
Reviewer: Nigel Corbett, WRC creative director

Viral marketing is a funny old thing. It works solely on the strength of the creative idea. Get it right and your message will be seen by millions around the world.

Get it wrong and it'll be seen by the IT guy, the people in your company's address book and that's about it.

Right now I'm racking my brains to think of a way to slip in a mention of our recent Coruba Gold work that registered more than four million website hits, mostly through viral means, but bugger me if I can think of anything.

I love the latest bit of viral marketing by Auckland's waterfront Soul Bar.

We worked on it a few years back and had some success but I think the guys who did this one have lifted it to another level.

The offer is a glass of free champagne to all the "ladies" who visit Soul Bar for a month (yes, good viral marketing also needs a good offer).

The email tells the story of a bloke who tried to pick up a girl in Soul Bar, saying that if she didn't come back to his place he'd shout all the girls in the bar champagne for a month (apparently he works in property).

It's marketing that seems to come from the inside of the target audience. Achieving such genuineness and credibility is no mean feat.

Often when advertisers try it, people see right through it immediately.

But this one gets it so right.

Even down to the grammatical errors and typos (my dad would have something to say about the state of the country's education system right now) and the dodgy-looking conversation of the actual deal being made, shot on someone's cellphone.

I think it's fantastic and, if they're capturing data, they're on to a winner.