Viral Social Marketing to Come?

Ad Age had an article a few days ago about Wendy's taking a first stab at viral video. It has received mixed reviews, with MySpace users enjoying the video and YouTube users generally disliking it. A quote from the article points to potential troubles using viral marketing to reach a younger demographic:

Another thing that could work against it: The finicky demographic hates to be marketed to, and on YouTube, the film is prominently flagged as a viral video for Wendy's.

I can't say that I've run across many social/health campaigns trying to make use of viral video, though of course they might be out there somewhere. But I think it's going to be a tough feat to pull off, since it seems like social marketing campaigns already start in the hole in terms of being a message that people want to pay attention to.

Doing viral video well can be a bit of a hit or miss proposition (how many people have tried to copy Dove's Evolution unsuccessfully?), and one has to wonder how many nonprofits or health institutions are going to try and do this... With limited advertising budgets it can seem like a great idea for stretching dollars, but those dollars are pretty much wasted on creating any video or materials that don't happen to catch on.

Anyway, the Wendy's article was an interesting view on a large brand's first adventure into viral marketing, it seemed worthwhile to pass that along.