Adultdost vs Gajodhar

In this post, I have tried to analyse two virals that I came across this month. TataSky, in order to promote its Active Darshan pack, launched a viral microsite called as http://www.adultdost.com/.

Interesting...isn't it!! The reason why I found this interesting was due to two reasons:
1) For a company as traditional and conservative as Tata, associating itself with something which suggests a pornographic gateway was a bit (in fact a lot) risky.
2) Promoting the Active darshan pack by making use of a completely contrasting way from a content of view.

The moment I saw this viral, I immediately showed it to my colleagues and they passed it on further. Such impactful was the viral. Suddenly, the marketer inside me began to analyse the numbers involved with the viral. The making of the viral including the development and creative would have cost 20k at max. From the ROI perspective, I would rate this viral as one of the best that I have seen in recent times. Brilliant!

Another viral that I saw was Gajodhar (to promote http://www.oktatabyebye.com/) which was nothing but a spoof on Aamir Khan starrer 'Ghajini'. To be honest, the first few frames put me off completely and the reason - Webchutney. The moment I got to know that this was a Webchutney creation, I told to myself, 'Not again' :(

However, I continued watching the viral till I realized that I had once again wasted my precious 5 minutes on a stupid Webchutney viral.

There are tons of reasons for not liking this viral:
1) I have seen similar brainless, stupid virals before
2) Taking advantage of opportunity is fine but creative banckruptcy is not
3) I didn't bother to viral it!!!

Creating a viral just for the heck of it I believe is nothing but fooling around with clients money. Virals from a marketers point of view give a better ROI, however, in the long run, brand can't be sacrificed for ROI.