Malware City – Fighting the Villains of the Online World
When it comes to social media campaigns in general and business blogging in particular, coming up with something new becomes ever more tougher as the adoption of new channels increases. If a corporate blog, authored by a company CEO or dedicated to a product, use to be trendy and new a few years ago, not having a blog has become the exception in more recent times.
Tones, angles, designs, they have all been tested and adapted to better suit the real purpose of all marketing and PR – sell more. And this sell more includes increasing a brand’s popularity, getting a wide user base for freebies and the actual sales. It all builds up to position a company and its offering into the first few choices of potential customers around the world.
With such tough competition, I have to admit I was quite impressed with what BitDefender is doing with their MalwareCity.com blog. A half anime, half comic strip design reminding us of action heroes and dreadful villains prompting us to defend our virtual city and keep it safe for malware threats. The common enemy that we all understand and fear: viruses, Trojans, cookies, backdoors, rootkits, you name it, we’ve heard about it.
The truth of the matter is we all know what an antivirus does and we want the very best. It’s enough to get infected once, see the mess created and you know what you need to do. But standing out is key for these companies, as antiviruses come in all shapes and sizes. If you are into tech stuff and need to protect your computer, chances are you spend a lot of time online; and you are, just as experts are, bored of the plain old corporate blogs.
Finding one that you can say has a cool idea is quite appealing. The black and white photo that automatically makes me think of Sin City, the brand color text urging visitors to take actions, the news on new threats and the prompt to scan your computer now, online, quick and painless and of course for free, it’s a all a good and spot on mix. It makes you aware of what’s at stake and shows you how to deal with it.
The blog tries to keep it friendly – forum section, twitter stream promoted on the home page and a fan section with banners, avatars, wallpapers and other artwork in the same spirit of the site. A clean design that reminds those who know the brand of BitDefender and is attractive enough for new comers to want to know more. Although it’s fun, there will be no minute spent on the site without feeling the pressure of the malware threat. Malicious, you’d think, but I’ve been around the tech field long enough to know 90% of emails sent worldwide are spam (or even more, my statistics are a few months old) and there are so many infected computers that could cause you to lose all your work, it could make your head spin.
If you’re a fan of maps and seeing malware spread, play a little with the Virus Map. I had my share of fun discovering where the most viruses are. Overall, this blog is great at meeting objectives – get the attention, lead them to the free scan with no installation hassle and keep them informed and worried about their security. All that’s left is for the product to prove its worth and live up to the expectations :)
