Victoria’s Secret seems to be a very popular place around Valentine’s Day. It’s filled with women and men looking for the right gift in the right color. This interest in color has been very prevalent recently on Facebook as well.

Like me, you may have noticed that many of your female Facebook friends have been posting one word status updates like black, white, red, nude, cheetah, and so on. Being confused and curious, it was obvious that I was not in the loop, so a little research was needed.

While no one is certain, it seems a woman in the Detroit area sent the following message on Facebook.

Some fun is going on...just write the color of your bra in your status. Just the color, nothing else. It will be neat to see if this will spread the wings of breast cancer awareness. It will be fun to see how long it takes before people wonder why all the girls have a color in their status…Haha.

Although there was no fundraising associated with this campaign, it has been an incredible viral marketing success. In January of this year, the campaign was in Google’s top 20 hottest searches. It has been mentioned in the Washington Post, on CBS News’ website and many other media outlets.

What can marketers learn from this campaign? If you want people to spread your message, you have to make it fun, free and easy. Having everyone ask why your status update reads “White” is fun. Facebook is free. And one word is easy. You also have to be relevant. Breast cancer awareness helps save lives.

There is another interesting aspect of this campaign. It was very successful in quickly spreading a message using only one or two words. Doesn’t that sounds a little bit like Twitter?

Now let’s see if we can be more creative with our marketing colors.

Blue Stripes.