UK operator, 3, have some great ideas and some rather weird ones. Which I guess is OK, as it’s better to try lots of stuff than do nothing at all - and the mobile market’s just unpredictable enough that some of the less likely ones just might work.

But I’m decidedly confused by the latest bandwagon of Viral Videos, reported on by Justin in the NMA.

Viral marketing can be remarkably effective, consisting of three stages.

First, you create something that you think your target audience will find interesting or amusing enough to pass on to their friends.

Then you seed the message to a group of people you think are disproportionally likely to be sneezers ie those who will pass the virus on.

Finally, you sit back and watch as the message goes round the internet 27 times and congratulate yourself on a brilliant, highly cost-effective marketing campaign.

The medium is frequently video, but not always. Text, games and images have all been used and all worked as well or as badly as each other. Because the thing about going truly viral is that it’s very very difficult to get right all the time.

Anyway, what 3 are doing is promoting their network as great way for marketers to use viral marketing via their network. But then they seem to have forgotten what viral means and talk about making viral ads available via video short codes for their customers to download. Which means that they’re expecting people to pay to download advertising, right?

Well, clearly it would have to be quite an exceptional ad to get people to pay for it. But what’s viral about it? Where’s the sharing?

I suppose you could argue that kids might share a really great clip over Bluetooth, much as they’re doing with Happy Slapping or sending the clips they’ve paid to download to their friends. But if that is the case (and it’s far from clear), what we’re talking about is using 3 as a great way to seed viral marketing campaigns.

Can anyone shed light?

Anyway, I’m off to Frankfurt and Wikimania early tomorrow as I’m speaking there at 2.30 tomorrow. If you’re around, come and say Hi. I’ll post a rough transcript of the idea I’m talking about (bringing Wikipedia into the physical world) here at MobHappy.