Hands up if you play computer games when you’re at work…? On the pc, from our email, on the mobile phone, on a console, more and more of us, more of the time, just playing stupid games – but now it’s ok, it’s good for business apparantly!

Video games have begun to appear more and more as part of the marketing communications mix – a new media that customers actually want to receive, to interact with, to learn from and (heaven help us all) actually share with their peers. You know, that bit about loyal customers becoming advocates and resellers? Wow, what if that could really happen?

But it is happening and it’s called ‘viral marketing’. Chances are that you’ve recently received some viral digital content; an emailed joke, a funny photograph, a video clip or a link to a game. Maybe you liked it and, if so, you’ll have passed it on to one of your colleagues or friends – someone you know who thinks the way you do, someone you think will appreciate the gift, get the joke, share the benefit. The virus is set free and rapidly begins to infect your world, jumping across address lists, oblivious to international boundaries or time zones, spreading mercilessly.

People want to share stuff, we just can’t help it. According to a recent survey by Jupiter Communications, 81% of viral communications are passed to at least 1 other person, providing an opportunity to exploit nature to promote that offer, build your brand or to develop your knowledge of your customer base by capturing their contact information, personal preferences and motivations. Why second-guess what to make and sell to your customers when you can simply ask them what they want?

Viral marketing content, such as video or games, can be developed far less expensively than traditional broadcast media and distributed without many of the restrictions that the broadcast censors otherwise enforce, allowing the message to be very highly targeted towards the particular audience; matching to the tastes, styles, fashions, language and behaviour of that audience where others would have previously been unavoidably offended. In fact, as long as the viral content provokes a reaction appropriate to the audience – humour, weirdness, shock, romance even – then it is likely to be forwarded amongst that particular ‘tribe’ of like-minded customers.

And the power of the Tribe is increasing. People are no longer all sitting watching ads on television, they’ve got Sky+ and don’t have to. Not that they’re even all watching TV anymore, they’re far too busy Tweeting or chatting to friends on Facebook or watching anything they please online via YouTube – and it’s changing the marketing landscape forever!

The Tribes no longer wants to be sold to or advertised to – they are now all-powerful and have all the information they need to make their own informed decisions, and all the friends in the world to help them! Marketers can no longer bamboozle with smoke and mirrors, confuse with jargon or seduce with glamorous images. But Tribes will open their email, they will play the game or watch the movie and if they like it – if they like you – they will pass it on, and on, and on. Round and round and round it goes, where it stops nobody knows!

Communications and media technologies are revolutionising they way we do most things and inevitably this includes business. Customers’ behaviour is changing; we marketers have to change also. Companies will have to change. The products and services will change. The direction is really clear if you’ve got ears to hear – just listen to the Tribe.

It’s only a game after all…………………