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It's obvious. More and more companies are using viral marketing these days. The most recent viral marketing ad I've seen was the one I was shown last week from Vodaphone, F1 racer Lewis Hamilton's title sponsor. The YouTube video shows two RC enthusiasts controlling a small remote controlled F1 racer around a makeshift track in their workplace. The remote control? The new Blackberry Storm.

The ad later showed how their YouTube video got the attention of the McLaren racing team. Later on the team used the technology to create a full-scale F1 racecar that could be controlled by the Blackberry Storm via Bluetooth. Hamilton himself, who was an avid RC fan before graduating to karting, later controlled the racecar around a small track with the Blackberry, clearly impressed.

Naturally, it was easy to doubt the authenticity of the ad – after all, it's doubtful that they'd let a multi-million dollar racecar be piloted around a track with a Blackberry Storm. Besides, technically Bluetooth access range tapers off drastically at some 30 feet, so I don't think Hamilton was really controlling the car remotely from a range that was clearly beyond 30 feet. Nevertheless the ad did the job – the video now has almost a million views in YouTube after being up for about 2 weeks.

There's a little rule of thumb called “100-10-1” in marketing – when you try to sell a product or service to 100 people, only 10 will respond, and only 1 will actually buy from you. If this rule also applied to viral marketing, then I'm supposing the ad has already garnered around 10,000 sales. Not bad for a two-minute video.

Another one of my favorite viral ads was the one made for Marc Ecko Enterprises a couple of years ago, where a few guys snuck into a restricted airfield and spray-painted the words “StillFree” on the side of George Bush's Air Force One, amidst close watch by guards and guard dogs. It was later revealed to be an elaborate fake – the plane was a rented 747 with one side painted to look remarkably like the real Air Force One – but it was still pretty clever, and it garnered the fashion company a lot of publicity.

The Marc Ecko “tagging” of Air Force One is still one of the most popular ads out there. It was done by the ad company Droga5, which has been doing some really interesting work over the past few years.

It's going to be fun to see how viral marketing evolves down the line. I know for a fact that collaborative media is going to eventually replace much of currently conventional media, and from what's out there so far, I'm liking what I see.