viralmarketing

 =**Viral Marketing Investigations** =  1 **) Detailed definition of viral marketing**

Marketing has always been a very important aspect of selling products. It seems obvious that the more of the population that knows about your product, the more people that will adopt or purchase whatever you are trying to sell to them. This product could be an actual object, or it could be an idea or service that you provide to them. Marketing has evolved as the habits of consumers have changed through the years. As more and more people began using the Internet, more and more marketers realized the potential for using this resource to sell their product. One type of marketing through this technology that has become very well known is viral marketing. Viral marketing is a term coined by Jeffrey Rayport in an article of the December 1996 issue of the magazine Fast Company. In this article he states five rules of viral marketing, which are “stealth is the essence of market entry, what's up-front is free; payment comes later, let the behaviors of the target community carry the message, look like a host, not a virus, exploit the strength of weak ties, and invest to reach the tipping point”. When many people hear the term 'viral marketing' they associate a negative connotation with it, but all the term really means is using your target audience to market your product for you. Viral marketing differs from traditional marketing because with traditional marketing there was a specific target market that businesses were aiming their product at. With viral marketing it is much more difficult to know exactly who the target market will be. Even though the product and price may be the exact same on the Internet as it would be in a retail store, there are so many more options on the Internet that a business really needs to catch the eye of the people they are trying to sell their product to. John West, a company that sells salmon, created a commercial that the viewers thought was funny, and therefore they shared it with their friends (1). Dr. Ralph F. Wilson, an E-commerce consultant, explained the elements of a viral marketing strategy in an article entitled The Six Simple Principles of Viral Marketing. He stated that the elements are “giving away products or service, providing for effortless transfer to others, scales easily from small to very large, exploits common motivations and behaviors, utilizes existing communication networks, and takes advantage of others' resources” (2). Facebook.com produced a 28 page pdf document that they handed out to users of Facebook pages entitled “Facebook Pages – The Insider's Guide to Viral Marketing”. This PDF is full of ideas and tips for users trying to sell products through Facebook, which “With 70 million active users, Facebook is the Interne's leading social utility” (3). Feed Company, which is 'a Los Angeles-based online marketing agency' and 'the leader for seeding videos on the web for major brand advertisers in the U.S.' released the results on October 13, 2008 to a viral video marketing survey. This online survey was completed by 40 executives at 'the top US creative ad agencies and media buying firms'. The results of this survey stated that “brands and agencies are both aware of and interested in viral video, viral video campaigns are likely to produce desirable results, advertisers are seeking more accountability, and exponential views and brand engagement are the greatest benefit” among other things. This information show that the top executives realize the potential for viral marketing to grant their product greater recognition.

**[|Definitions for Viral marketing Concepts]**


 **Target market:** The specific group of consumers or culture that the idea or product is created for.
 * Viral expansion loop**: Properly explained by the marketing agency [|Twist Image.]

I. // Earliest found attempt at viral marketing // “Mobility and urbanization of American society at the beginning of 20th century unwittingly helped spread the syphilis, which was a major public health disaster by the twenties. Penicillin was still two decades away. Having the disease almost certain meant a painful death. It was feared and was not tolerated. After the World War I the tobacco companies expanded business into advertising to women, with __[|R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company]__  being at the forefront with its Camel brand. Very fierce competition ensued. Competitors apparently used the following technique of word of mouth and fear to counter advertise: Two "strangers" would enter an establishment such as pharmacy through separate entrances, and independently from each other. A discussion will "incidentally" commence about Reynolds' cigarettes, and one person would express fear that there is a danger of catching syphilis from smoking Camels, because there is a confirmed epidemic among the factory employees. Discussion would be picked up by bystanders, and fear relayed to others. Radio was in its infancy at the time, and many people were illiterate, with no access to newspapers. Such technique must have been actually used, since at one point Reynolds advertized a $10,000 prize for exposing the perpetrators.” (5)  a. [|Hotmail] - Microsoft's free email program that used a simple sentence at the bottom of each sent email that notified the recipient of the free email provider. b. [|Subservient Chicken] - Burger King's website to promote their chicken sandwiches that has a command bar where you can tell a man in a chicken suit to perform many actions and he will respond accordingly. c. [|Will it Blend] - Blendtec's idea on how to make a normal kitchen utensil interesting. They blend random items would not be thought able to be blended and turn them into tiny fragments in order to show the power of their blenders. d. [|One Red Paperclip] - The story of how one gentleman started with a paperclip and traded his way up to a two story house. e. [|Million Dollar Homepage] - A young entrepreneur decided to sell pixels of his website to advertisers so that they could 'own a piece of internet history'. The advertisers thought this idea would bring curious onlookers and so agreed to purchase advertising space on this website for $1 per pixel. f. [|Mentos/Diet Coke videos] - Steve Spangler decided to make a video on his 'experiment' with Diet Coke and Mentos which caught the interest of enough people that it became famous. The videos display art similar to a fireworks display using only these two products. g. [|Dove Evolution Video] - As a part of Dove's campaign for the self esteem of 'normal' women, they showed the transition of an average woman into a model that is used for a bilboard. They show how the picture of the woman is distorted in order to show why average women cannot compete with what society considers beauty. At the end of the video the line 'no wonder our perception of beauty is distorted' is displayed. h. [|Tea Partay] - A Smirnoff sponsored music video that is a upper class parody of hip hop music videos. There is very little advertising in the video, and is more of an example of reaching out to the culture of a specific target market. i. [|Nin Year Zero] - The campaign for Nine Inch Nails' Year Zero album. There were hidden parts of the advertising, such as the website that is in the link seeded for the fans to find. This viral marketing campaign used the curiousity of the audience to seek out hidden bits of interest in order to uncover all of the marketing campaign. j. [|BMW films] - BMW released eight short films from eight different directors that showed a driver completing multiple tasks depending on the plot. These films created a great amount of [|business] for the company. k. [|Cadbury's Dairy Milk 2007] - This advertisement showcased an actor in a realistic looking gorilla suit playing the drums to Phil Collins "In the air tonight". This example of viral marketing did not show the product until the very end of the advertisement. l. [|The big word project] - the self proclaimed 'viral marketing campaign to redefine the dictionary'. This website allows users to choose a word or input their own word into the list and instead of defining the word the user puts a link to their website. This allows the user to literally define their website as a single word. m. [|Sporting Portugal] - An ad created to get more of Portugal's football (soccer) fans to the stands instead of watching the games on televison. The website had the user input their information and phone number into the site and then a video started playing. During the video it shows the players in the locker room waiting for something, and then the coach comes in and makes a phone call to the viewer of the site (which actually made the user's phone right with a message fromt he coach). ====n. [|Blair witch project] - When the movie was originally being advertised, they decided to portray the events in the movie as actual events. This decision brought many viewers to blairwitch.com and made the movie viewing experience much scarier than it would have otherwise been because of this aspect of reality that came with it. ====
 * 2 ) Examples of Viral Marketing**
 * 1) //Examples of successful viral marketing campaigns//


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[|42entertainment] [|Campfire] [|Go Viral]
 * 3 ) Examples of companies with current viral marketing campaigns**

4 **) Technology approaches to Viral Marketing** // I. Examples of early technology usage // Viral marketing has only been used to a great degree within the last ten years. The best early use of technology was Hotmail's use of their email service to market their service to everyone a user emailed. // II. Some recent examples of using technology for viral marketing // A great majority of the examples of successful viral marketing campaigns that I gave earlier used Youtube as a resource to get their videos to the masses. Using existing social networking sites has also been a very favorable tactic, as it allows the advertiser to infiltrate already existing social connections of users to transmit their product or idea. // III. How do new technologies affect/increase/promote viral marketing // New technologies that come out in the future will only promote viral marketing. Any new technology that will allow people to get their product or idea to the eyes of more consumers will be used by future viral marketing campaigns. As technology continues to improve, more and more people will be able to be reached by future viral marketing campaigns. It would seem that a great hope of advertisers would be that technology develops to a point that they will be able to reach their entire target market with little or no cost.

5 **) So how do I get started?** // I. Basic knowledge of Viral Marketing // Now, knowing the basic principles of viral marketing, the usefulness of viral marketing, and some basic ideas of how it should be implemented, how is it that students could be taught how to implement viral marketing? One thing that cannot be taught to students is the idea or product that they would desire to 'sell' to their target audience. It is very difficult to know what will, and what will not, catch on in the Internet environment. A very important aspect of getting a product to be passed from a user to their friends is that the idea has to be presented in a manner that has not been seen before. Remaking the same advertisements with a slight change and a different product will not very likely be able to catch on in a viral manner. By producing a new method of delivering the product, many people will probably wish to share their new 'discovery' with their friends. Once this initial discovery has caught on, it is up to the users to decide how large of an viewing the product will receive. There are countless articles online trying to give good guidelines on how to create a good viral marketing campaign to sell a product. Though some of them can be useful, we have all had the experience of viewing viral marketing firsthand. By showing students all of the viral marketing videos and campaigns that they have already come in contact with, and teaching them how to observe and realize when they come in contact with new viral media, they will begin to get a greater understanding on how to actually implement their own viral marketing. Understanding what has worked in the past, and how viral marketing is evolving with and through technology, will form a foundation of knowledge that should give students the capability to enter the world of viral media. II. // How could viral marketing be used? // The following are four situations in which viral marketing could be implemented, and ideas of how one would go about implementing viral marketing in order to get their product or idea to reach a greater market. a. New Program at FSU At Florida State University it is well known that the economy has caused budgets to become a very important priority. Without an intense need for a new program, even if the idea appeals to those that decide whether or not the program will be created, it will more than likely be denied. Once one has stepped back and seen this fact, then it is obvious that the two goals of the viral marketing campaign would be to create an intense interest in the program that will be created, and to emphasize the low cost or cost efficiency of the new program. Creating the interest in the group would be the first step. One could create fliers and place them around campus and hope that word spreads, but this is horribly inefficient and will bring completely random results. A good idea would be to create surveys and send them to those that this new program would pertain to. These surveys would not have to be intensive, because they would be used mostly to gauge the narrowed target market. By giving more information to those that are more interested in this idea and getting them involved, they are very likely to spread the word to those that have common interests, and in turn invite new people to become involved. The hope is that this cycle would create a viral expansion loop and make the program a necessity instead of a good idea.

b. Launch of student business/website The very first thing that should be considered in this situation is the purpose of this student business or website. Businesses gain a great amount of business from word of mouth if they show efficiency, quality, customer service, and knowledge in the field they are dealing in. I have seen a great deal of my peers start their own business and website, and they used existing social networks that are already in place to create interest in their service. All of the online social networks they were a part of were used (Facebook, Myspace, Forums on the topic, etc.). The main key to this strategy was repetition (placing the information every single place they could think of) and the sheer numbers of people that see this information. The social networks that are already in place are a very good place to create viral marketing, and the greatest challenge that one wishing to do this faces is to find preexisting social networks that the business or website would create a large amount of interest in.

c. Promoting a movie Advertising for a movie in the previews of other movies has been done for a very long time, and although it is effective, the people that will see your preview will also see about five other movies' advertisements at the same time. Unless the preview for your movie creates a great amount of interest by using some new method, it will probably be forgotten as soon as the actual movie begins. When Cloverfield began advertising their movie, they never even gave the title of the movie. Instead they created curiosity by giving almost no information about the movie. After they caught the interest of enough people, websites began popping up that were related to the movie, but completely unadvertised by those producing the movie. This method created such a curiosity that people began searching for more information and creating their own theories from the obscure facts that they had uncovered(8). Although this tactic would become annoying if it happened enough times, it does serve a very good purpose. By using a new idea to create viral marketing, this film was more successful than any other film that was released in January ever had. This method would probably fail if another tried to replicate it, but a similar viral marketing campaign could be started by creating a new method that makes viewers curious and want to find out more about the film without giving all of the information up front.

d. Charity Drive/social event/NFP event Viral marketing could be used to create a great amount of interest for any of these three things. One possible tactic could be to create a very strong emotional attachment to the event. This tactic would serve the purpose of giving people a driving reason to be involved and recruit others to the event. This could be accomplished by showing people how they are helping others, instilling compassion in them for those that are being helped, and showing them the difference that this drive or event will make. If people are emotionally moved, then they are a great deal more likely to tell people that they see, and try to recruit as many people as they can to help. Another tactic could be to set two different teams or organizations that are competing with each other for the same goal. Our society thrives from competition, and many people will do as much as they can to win. This tactic would be more effective for a situation that is less emotionally moving, but still very important. The illusion that there is an opposing force in the situation would motivate those involved to invite as many people as they could so that they would not be 'defeated'. <span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;"> I. // Viral marketing has been known to backfire on multiple occasions // // a. // In 2006, Chevy decided to that a 'create your own ad' promotional event would be a good idea. Many would have agreed with them before the event took place. One reason that this event backfired was because at the time gas prices were very high, and the 2006 Tahoe's gas mileage is about 14 mpg (6). This promotional event also allowed global activists the opportunity to post exactly what they thought about what the Chevy Tahoe was doing to the environment: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oNedC3j0e4&feature=related // b. // In an attempt to target “urban nomads” for the PSP, Sony realized that the usual forms of advertising would not work. They decided to create graffiti of people playing with PSPs in several major cities, and did not use the words Sony or PSP anywhere in their advertising. What Sony did not foresee was that this counter culture would not appreciate their attempt to reach out and simulate the lifestyles that were such a part of their lives. This graffiti advertising was spraypainted over by the target audience and “advertising directed at your counter culture” and “Fony” were added beside the advertisements. Knowing the culture of your target market is a very important part of viral marketing, and this is one example of how imitating that culture can go very wrong if the ideals behind this culture are not completely understood (9). II. [|More sources on Viral Marketing]
 * <span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">6) Limits to Viral Marketing/Cautions to using viral marketing **
 * Ponzi scheme, and other following pyramid schemes are examples of using viral marketing for a corrupt purpose. They also gave viral marketing a bad name early on.**


 * Works Cited**
 * 1) <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 128); font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">__[|http://www.wilsonweb.com/wmt5/viral-principles.htm]__
 * 2) <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 128); font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">__http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FARnbRBWKGg__
 * 3) <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 128); font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">__http://www.docstoc.com/docs/520148/Facebook-Insiders-Guide-to-Viral-Marketing__
 * 4) <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 128); font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">__[]__
 * 5) <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 128); font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">__[]__
 * 6) <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 128); font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">__[]__
 * 7) <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 128); font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">__[]__
 * 8) <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 128); font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">__<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif; font-weight: normal;">http://adage.com/digitalalist/article?article_id=125679 __
 * 9) <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 128); font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">__[]__