... In a big pond: big fish marketing uses viral campaigns via social networking sites to get their clients' names out.

'VIRAL campaign" and "social marketing" are just buzzwords at many companies, but Big Fish

Marketing has been there, done that and done it in spectacular fashion.

Its campaign for the 10th anniversary of "South Park," the animated show on Comedy Central, offers a case study for innovative marketing projects of the future.

To promote the anniversary, Big Fish created pages on MySpace that allow visitors to build their own character-image from the show. The user selects a favorite character and then chooses his skin color, hairstyle, eyes, hat, clothes and facial expression. Add a background, and the visitor leaves with a personalized drawing ready for posting on his or her MySpace page. Alternately, users could skip the characters and build their own scene in the show's signature art style.

As of March 16, the campaign had generated 29.8 million impressions, meaning that MySpace users had seen a "South Park" image that many times. Exactly 929,236 people had interacted with the character-generator program, and 227,796 finished creating a character and placed it on their page.

"It was an experiment in the sense that it hasn't been done before," said Steven Roffer, president of Big Fish. "These social networking pages need to be jam-packed with photos and giveaways and contests. ... It's a panacea for advertisers."

"Big Fish captured the essence and humor of the 'South Park' story, and the attention of the show's huge fan base," said Sean Stevenson, director of interactive marketing at Comedy Central.

Big Fish started in 1992 in Atlanta. Chief Executive Officer Robin Fisher Roffer had recently resigned from Turner Broadcasting, where she helped launch the TNT cable channel. Her goal was to create an advertising agency dedicated to promoting TV shows, channels and networks.

"We cater to the big fish, that's why we called it that name," said Robin. "Initially, we did sweepstakes, contests and tie-ins because I had expertise in that and few networks had done anything like that at the time. It was a launch pad, but not what I wanted the company to be."

Early clients included Atlanta-based TNT and the Discovery Networks in Maryland, but the company soon moved to Los Angeles to improve access to TV clients.

By the late 1990s, Robin had largely reached her goal of building a full-service agency, but then the market shifted online.

Enter Steven Roffer, a film executive who had worked stints at Creative Artists Agency, Warner Bros., Fox and Universal. The marriage of Steven and Robin--both literally and in terms of their business skills--changed the direction of the agency.

"Right during the Internet bubble, I joined Big Fish to head up its Internet division," said Steven Roffer. "It's what's driving our business today."

In the aftermath of the bubble bursting, the rest of the agency carried the Internet division. But in 2004, Big Fish landed the thenstruggling ABC network as a client. That fall, the network debuted three hit shows: "Desperate Housewives," "Lost" and "Wife Swap."

"We launched those shows online," said Steven Roffer. "It was a tremendous success for the shows, for the network and for us."

'South Park' success

The "South Park" campaign illustrates how online data can give insights to marketers and the show's creative crew. Which characters do fans identify with the most? The numbers indicate Eric Theodore Cartman ranks as the fan favorite. Kenny McKormick places a distant second, while Kyle Broflavski and Stan Marsh essentially tie for last.

"The show premiered, the numbers were through the roof, but the viral campaign still continues today," said Steven Roffer. "It has been months since the clients spent any money to fuel media or creative."

But Steven Roffer warns that, contrary to what most people think, viral campaigns don't come cheap anymore. Now that News Corp. has taken possession of MySpace, "they are very interested in advertising dollars and they are delivering a huge value to Comedy Central," he said. To gain access to the social network, Comedy Central had to buy ad space on MySpace promoting the "South Park" 10th anniversary.

Doug Jaeger, founder of online marketing firm TheHappyCorp Global in New York, said that one of the dangers in viral campaigns is that the brand loses control to "anti-brand consumers." For example, a campaign for SUVs in Australia allowed users to edit their own commercials, but some used the clips to argue that SUVs contribute to global wanning.

In the "South Park" case, "the simplicity of the campaign eliminated the ability of the consumer to create inappropriate messages," Jaeger said. "They controlled the elements--they didn't give away free drawing tools, symbols or anatomy outside the 'South Park' universe."

Another potential problem for clients is that these campaigns don't generate sales. If that became an issue, Jaeger said the marketers could sell "South Park" DVDs through MySpace. Alternately, the marketers could sell users the self-created character. Even in free mode, "maybe there's not a direct transaction with the consumer," said Jaeger, "but it makes the license and property of the show more valuable."

In the future, Steven Roffer expects to work on viral video campaigns. Brands and consumers will produce two- to three-minute video clips and spread them online.

"In the past, digital media came as an afterthought to what they did offline," said Robin Fisher Roffer. "Now it has to be done from the beginning. Don't just repurpose video from TV--shoot original video for the Web."

Jaeger believes the "South Park" campaign succeeded because it allows consumers to create a version of their favorite characters that was very personal. Other brands--particularly many of the entertainment brands based in Los Angeles--can follow this "avatar-based" model, he said.

For her TV-conscious clients, Robin Fisher Rofter sums up the lesson she learned from the "South Park" experiment and would pass it along to potential clients: "Think of your brand as content, and make that content liquid. Then pour it through every medium you can think of."

Big Fish Marketing Inc.

Founded: 1992

Core Business: Advertising agency for TV producers

Employees in 2006: 10

Employees in 2007: 10

Goal: To become the top "brand strategist for the digital landscape"

Driving Force: The growing demand for viral video marketing campaigns

By JOEL RUSSELL

Staff Reporter