Businesses may only just be getting comfortable with today's models for viral marketing campaigns, but some are already talking about the need for different techniques.

Will Jeffery, managing director of Maverick, a London-based production company specialising in viral advertising, believes big advertisers will in future create their viral advertising first, since he believes it is more in tune with their target audience than traditional advertising. They would then let this drive their entire communications effort. "The viral space is driven by quality of ideas. Once you've developed a creative concept that works virally, it should be transferable into any other media, and you can let it drive the whole campaign," he says. "How you integrate paid-for media to work alongside a viral is going to become increasingly important."

Meanwhile Paul Marsden, co-editor of 'Connected Marketing: The Viral, Buzz and Word of Mouth Revolution', warns that the biggest danger of simply transplanting conventional advertising thinking into the online space is that advertisers fail to build an interactive element into their communications. "Any online advertising without any interactive dimension - for example, a link to an online shop - is a waste of time. Web 2.2 is all about interacting and engaging with people."

He believes the term viral marketing is already passé. "Web 2.2 is all about interacting and engaging with people; we should really be talking about engagement marketing."