When I read "Viral Marketing for the Real World" at HBS's Working Knowledge (link via Kottke.org), I realized it was immediately applicable to music and media. Duncan J. Watts (professor of sociology at Columbia University) and Jonah Peretti (founding partner of the Huffington Post, BuzzFeed and ContagiousMedia.org) want businesses to think about combining new media tools (viral marketing) with traditional old media. They call it "big-seed marketing."

Traditional viral marketing starts with a small "seed" that necessitates a reproduction rate (R, the rate at which people pass along the virus) that is relatively high (R>1, say the authors). Big-seed marketing starts with a bigger seed and can be successful with a much smaller reproduction rate (R<1). Here are examples given in the article:

"For example, a campaign called Tom’s Petition—an appeal for gun control launched in 2004 by StoptheNRA and the Brady Campaign—exhibited a reproduction rate of 0.58, meaning that ForwardTrack more than doubled the size of the initial 22,582-member seed. Stimulated by the success of Tom’s Petition, Procter & Gamble subsequently incorporated ForwardTrack into a viral campaign to promote Tide Coldwater as an energy-efficient alternative to regular detergents. This campaign registered a much lower reproduction rate of 0.041 but was initiated with such a large seed—over 900,000—that it still reached some 40,000 more individuals than it would have without the forwarding capability. And a campaign run by Oxygen Network, in which Oxygen agreed to donate $1 for every participant (up to $25,000) to Hurricane Katrina relief, exhibited the highest reproduction rate we have seen to date—0.769—reaching an additional 23,544 participants beyond the initial seed of 7,064."

The authors point to a key point to big seeds: "Success does not depend on influentials or on any other special individuals." That's a great strategy for labels, since many are hell bent on winning over influentials at the expense of reaching run-of-the-mill consumers (they may not be trendy, but their dollars are just as green). Big-seed marketing may seem to fly in the face of the attractiveness of Internet viral marketing -- lower costs, smaller scale, a word-of-mouth aspect that feels more genuine -- but labels have plenty of big seeds to start with. And while they should be looking for greater numbers of moderate sucesses, labels will still need online tactics that think beyond the mid-level hit.