Kleenex 'Viral' Marketing Works Wonders

This winter, Kleenex set up a social marketing program that let consumers send each other free samples of tissues.  And its success was pretty amazing: The company just mailed off its millionth sample, which, as the brand director Craig Smith put it, “essentially enabled 1 million consumers to become ambassadors for the brand.”  The company also let people send each other virtual Facebook tissues, but the real (read: useful) ones proved far more popular.