E-Marketing and Viral Video - Diddy Style

My guilty pleasure is trashy reality TV. The more catfights, “tell offs,” hook ups, and acts of debauchery, the more likely I am to tune in. One of my new favorite reality TV shows is “I Want to Work for Diddy.” Produced by Vh1, the show tracks 20 contestants competing for the job of a lifetime: personal assistant to Diddy.

For the reality TV and pop culture challenged, Sean “Diddy” Combs, who you’ve probably seen featured in Burger King’s latest TV ad campaign, is one of the richest people in the hip-hop entertainment business. Banking in $35 million from revenue streams (Sean John clothing line, Bad Boy record label, Ciroc premium vodka and two reality TV shows), Diddy ranked No. 3 on Forbes.com's 2008 Hip-Hop Cash Kings list of the top-earning people in the business.

The fourth episode of “I Want to Work for Diddy” aired on Monday night and featured a viral video challenge. Diddy instructed contestants to create 90-second videos that were “out of the box” and “creative” to help promote the launch of Diddy.com. The videos would be release online, and the team with the highest number of views would win.

While I can’t give the episode a five-star rating on my trashy scale, I can commend Diddy for recognizing the impact of the digital era, the importance of an online presence in today’s marketplace, and for using the Internet as a resource and marketing communications platform.

Diddy creates amateur promotional video (low production cost makes ROI easy) that’s short, interesting, humorous, and sometimes edgy (produces something people will want to watch and talk about/share); optimizes the video by adding a URL (helps people find, save, and share); and then leverages the power and popularity of YouTube and trendy, user-generated content sites such as his blog and MySpace page (makes the video “viral”) to drive traffic to Diddy.com (profits from Web site traffic). And there you have it. A successful e-marketing campaign – that’s recession proof.

- Lisa Wells