This is another moment of synchronicity for me in this class; we were just talking about viral marketing in the class I teach. In particular we were talking about an unofficial ad for a Ford car in Europe that gained a lot of controversy (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Ka for the full story on the SportKa model "Evil Twin" ad linked at the bottom.) The ad was never officially sanctioned by Ford Motor Co., and Ford even carried a later apology (it seems they didn't see the link between selling cars and killing cats), but gained a lot of exposure and popularity when links to the video were spread on the Internet.
This gets to the main goal of viral marketing as quoted in the article, "goal of marketers interested in creating successful viral marketing programs is to identify individuals with high Social Networking Potential (SNP) and create Viral Messages that appeal to this segment of the population and have a high probability of being passed along." In other words, marketers are targeting a specific group that they know will pass the message along. In this way it gains a kind of "underground status" amongst potentially hip and knowledgable consumers. For example, the SportKa model was aimed at a young, male audience who are often hard to pin down with traditional advertising. The use of dark humor and unlicensed advertisting may have done more to spread the word about the SportKa with their target demographic than a normal ad would have. Of course conspiracy theories abound about whether or not Ford, in this instance, actually manufactured this entire charade, but the end result speaks for itself.
Obviously this type of marketing scheme thrives on the Internet, and possibly communities as well. GMail invites are one example, as are exclusive and private subgroups that can only be accessed by people in the know. I think this issue of secrecy compounds the earlier discussion of doing something that is slightly wrong to create a design that elicits a feeling of exclusivity in members, which may also produce more loyalty to keeping the product/community in the right hands.
Great observations and examples. I think one more thing to note is that besides the content of the "product" as you have mentioned, the avenue/channel or method of delivery of a viral campaign itself makes a big difference too. Previously, viral marketing may have been primarily associated to word-of-mouth activities, now there are simply certain "hot spots" that marketers sometimes worry about on the same level as whether their "product" is well-targeted. For instance, celebrity endorsement on MTV, video clips on youtube that contain the word(s) <insert whatever tickles your fancy>, and 15 second superbowl ad slots. All of these may make viral marketing sucessful, or more sucessful. Of course, this is not to say that content is not important. Instead, a combination of both makes perfect.
One other thing, I found it interesting that viral marketing is also known as stealth marketing. I want to believe that intelligent people (or lets just say, impartial people) should be able to realize that they are falling for a marketing ploy when they see one. Ironically, this is usually not the case. But, obviously this leads into another discussion on whether we are even supposed to guard ourselves from viral marketing as if it was something malicious.
Advertising is inherently annoying. I use tv, the web, and the newspaper for entertainment and information. 98% of the time I have no interest in using these mediums to find new products, yet I constantly have to deal with commercials, coupon inserts, and dancing Flash animations. I think that the term 'stealth marketing' has less to do with tricking people into making purchases than overcoming the annoyances of advertisements.
After watching a Burger King commercial, I know that I just saw an advertisement, but it may have felt more like a 30 second comedy. Furthermore, when the 'viral' aspect takes effect and I tell the class how great Burger King's "Eat Like Snake" commercial was, it becomes even stealthier... Now it's no longer a commercial, but a conversation between friends or classmates, with all the implied trust, etc. I think viral marketing is 'stealthy' primarily because it is more 'fun' or more 'hip', rather than subliminal.
Here is another coincidence that some you may have already read. A recent article in Fast Company, talks about Duncan Watts' opinion on so called "trend setters" in the viral campaign.
Watts agrees that there are some people who are "more" important than others in spreading a trend. But the success of a trend doesn't rest their shoulders. In fact he recommends the traditional mass marketing to increase the exposure of the society to the new trend.
Cloverfield, Nitentdo Wii and many other popular brands have used viral campaigns with success. I think we have take a line between viral marketing and traditional marketing. Use all the marketing resources and target a specfic audience (like you didn't know this already).
I'm assuming we are having this reading to understand: how we can promote our communities to the outside world. So the goal will be to "increase the awareness about the community to the outside world".
In Ubuntu forums, LoCo teams are formed to promote Ubuntu in their geographic region. In US there are LoCo teams at state levels. They can conduct thier own marketing campaign in their region. I'm not sure how successful they are, but here the design idea is to have a practice as connection. This is essentially a Community of practice for marketing. This practice can foucs on getting the word out there.
Submitted by Matt Adamo on Wed, 02/13/2008 - 17:33.
2
points
The concept of viral marketing is an interesting complement to this week's other readings on barriers to entry, since its focus is on explosive growth rather than selectivity. Mouly pointed out that a design goal might be to use viral marketing to spread the word about a community. This is true, but I think another design goal we can get from this reading might be "to keep the community relevant given the properties of viral marketing." If we assume that community members will spread their interest in a community to people in their social network, the community (or at least people aware of the community) will naturally grow very quickly. The challenge then isn't spreading the word, it's finding the balance between growth and quality, a point addressed by some of the other readings this week.
Mouly, I was going to post a link to that Fast Company article, but I see you've beat me to it! :) Since I'd read this recently, it was the first thing that came to mind about viral marketing - the fact that while it's very popular right now, it's definitely not a silver bullet.
"In modern marketing, this idea--that a tiny cadre of connected people
triggers trends--is enormously seductive. It is the very premise of
viral and word-of-mouth campaigns: Reach those rare, all-powerful
folks, and you'll reach everyone else through them, basically for free.
Loosely, this is referred to as the Influentials theory, and while it
has been a marketing touchstone for 50 years, it has recently reentered
the mainstream imagination via thousands of marketing studies and a
host of best-selling books [like the Tipping Point]." .... "Yet, if you believe Watts, all that money and effort is being wasted.
Because according to him, Influentials have no such effect. Indeed,
they have no special role in trends at all."
Some examples of viral marketing NOT working: Facebook applications. When the platform first launched, companies saw this as a quick and easy way to gain new users and showcase their product/brand. But, the success rate has been pretty dismal - with very few applications becoming really popular, since the already popular tend to stay popular, and the new apps have a hard time overcoming this barrier. Some articles try to provide tips on how to make your app succeed, but really I agree with Duncan Watts, that's it's usually more up to chance than anything else on whether your viral marketing plan will work. Heeding design advice and heuristics will of course help, but after that, you have to just hope that you hit the zeitgeist of the at the right time.
Submitted by John Blair on Tue, 02/12/2008 - 21:05.
0
points
John Blair
From a design perspective, this is great - having the target audience do all the work - presuming of course there isn't a lot of overhead tied to it like the Cloverfield movie stunt. It's long been stated that the best adverstising is word of mouth, this just updates that concept using the Internet.
My disdain for advertisers and marketing types aside, what they fail to mention in this article is that this most certainly would generate a lot of spam and other unwanted content if not focused well. This probably isn't much of a concern for the advertisers as long as they're comfortable something is reaching the intended audience. This questions the design claim of the tactic as to it's effeciency(reach of the target audience). I can see the claim for effeciency being acceptable by the Nine Inch Nails example of leaving USB drives at concerts (brilliant!!!), as I think its safe to say anyone at the concert probably likes NIN and the probability of finding the owner of a lost drive is remote.
What concerns me is that in the concert and football examples, people have no concern for security, which only makes the term viral that much more applicable.
Just a brief summary of viral marketing concept. As a new strategy of spreading information, viral marketing aims at replicating information in a very cheap way through public, especially preexisting networks, to a wider audience so as to expand its popularity. As compared with traditional marketing, it is less costly and thus brings more benefit since audience usually takes and spreads the messages voluntarily.
Famous eCommerce consultant Ralph F. Wilson has summarized six characteristics for any effective viral marketing. They are:
To provide valuable products or service
To provide a way that could deliver messages to others in an effortless way
It is easy to spread messages or information from a very small community to a wide range
Make use of public initiative and enthusiasm
Make use of existing communication networks
Make use of others’ resources
The idea of viral marketing could be particularly useful for infromation products
I think the success of viral marketing is pretty clearly tied to the synchronocity between combining elements of surprise with other emotions, or combinations of emotions. People are bored with the same old marketing techniques. Viral marketing schemes are novel, they tend to play on people's natural draw to innovation and the bizarre.
If I reflect back on times that these advertisements are passed along to me via email, they do often come from friends of mine who I would consider "connectors" in the Malcolm Gladwell "Tipping Point" sense. They're people who just instinctively pass information to those they think would be interested reflexively.
I think WP's entry on viral marketing lists a few things I wouldn't really consider "viral". The term connotes "transmission" of a trend between interested consumers, rather than:
- setting up fake myspace pages for the characters of your movie
- having an ad that auto-dials your phone, and creates a new "experience" -- not really viral, just "novel"
- giving away free stuff to journalists in the hope that they'll plug it. (is it "viral" just because you're giving it to a blogger rather than Walt Mossberg at the WSJ?)
- distributing clever schwag at your own concerts. (People already came to see NIN, right? They're *probably* interested in the new album.)
In order to be "viral" there should be some "peer to peer" element involved in the campaign.
- features making it easy to invite friends to join facebook/linkedin/myspace etc
- giving free sneakers away to regulars in urban third-spaces (this was considered a textbook "viral" campaign by reebok in the late 90s)
- services like snapfish/flickr which rely on people's desire to distribute photographs to friends which then encourages others to create accounts and do the same.
I do think that there is some sort of marketing "grey area" for things which are probably considered closer to "stealth" marketing ie IBM's Tux graffiti in San Francisco sidewalks -- but again I wouldn't really consider these viral unless you are doing something to directly enable consumers to distribute your own image and create impressions on people in their social circles.
The viral marketing entry in wikipedia leaves a lot to be desired. I had similar reactions to oostendo when reading this article (perhaps I should modify the article but I don't consider myself an expert on the subject). The article starts off on the right track:
The goal of marketers interested in creating successful viral marketing programs is to identify individuals with high Social Networking Potential (SNP) and create Viral Messages that appeal to this segment of the population and have a high probability of being passed along.
But, unfortunately, it devolves into descriptions of novel advertising campaigns, like the Portuguese football club calling advert. What ever happened to creating something great (e.g. an online community, like, oh let's say, Flickr), then letting a few passionate people know about, and then watch as the community takes off?
If I recall correctly, this is exactly what happened to Flickr. They created 1) a very usable site, that 2) made sharing the norm, and then 3) advertised it through people who were passionate about taking pictures and sharing them with their friends. It's now probably one of the most popular photo sharing sites on the web.
To me, viral marketing is about creating an "experience" good (community) that users try on their own and experience the advantages of the good. Once they have positive experiences, they share it with their friends and it spreads. There is, however, some recent research that shows this approach may not be the most effective way to spread a message. Arun Sundararajan from NYU business school spoke about this last semester at the STIET seminar. I won't recap all his research, but one finding is that random seeding is optimal when the "marketer" does not know the agent's connectedness or network position (which is usually the case). So much for those Hush Puppies!
Viral marketing is challenging because it requires advertising to be entertaining or noteworthy enough to compel viewers to share it with their friends. In terms of marketing an e-community, if it already exists, it seems that you'd already have an audience with well understood interests. It stands to reason that viral marketing has the potential to be successful if targeted at existing members, with the expectation that they will spread the word to potential members. It seems a bit unorthodox to target the existing community with advertisements, but if they are provided with simple tools to spread the word, it may be an avenue worth pursuing.
Of course, depending on the e-community, your mileage may vary. But an existing community can and should be leveraged to increase the impact of advertising on sites such as Fb, myspace, Youtube, etc.
In the spirit of discussing viral marketing best practices, one well-regarded resource is Malcolm Gladwell's "The Tipping Point". He describes three different types of people essential for spreading epidemics: Salesmen (who enjoy persuasion), Mavens (who enjoy spreading knowledge), and Connectors (who enjoy networking and socializing). Identifying and appealing to these people can help turn an object or content viral, but epidemic potential can only be fulfilled if its ideas are memorable and incite action.
Other demographics to identify are the tiers of adoption: Innovators are the first people to experiment with a new product, service, or idea. They're adventurous and are willing to take risks. Early adopters make up around 15% of consumers and analyze the experiences of crazy and whacky innovators. This group is usually where the tipping point happens because their judgments are well-respected by the mass market. The early majority follows suit, followed by the late majority who are generally more skeptical and won't try anything new until the most respected people approve. Laggards are very traditional, resist change, and new ways of thinking or doing things.
However, promoters face an uphill battle because it's hard to translate a value proposition between early adopters and the early majority. That's when connectors, mavens, and salesmen are essential: they can translate the potential value of an idea between groups. Context is important because if small problems exist, people generally assume the lurking presence of larger problems.
Three principles for creating viral messages:
1) Leveling: removing extraneous details for a target audience
2) Sharpening: specifying remaining details
3) Assimilating: changing details to fit the context of an environment
Submitted by LizBlankenship on Thu, 02/14/2008 - 22:24.
0
points
the Fast Company article referred to above supposedly debunks Malcolm's point, but I found the Tipping Point to be an interesting read, too. At least the half I read before I came to grad school and stopped leisure reading. :-D
Submitted by Tracy Liu on Thu, 02/14/2008 - 11:56.
0
points
Social network plays an important role in the viral
marketing process which promotes the transmission of new production. I am
wondering which type of tie individuals would prefer to be involved. For
instance, if you got both an email from one of your close friends which
recommend you a new software and the other one from someone you happen to know,
which one you would click the link and have a look or further try to use it? My
hypothesis is the first one in this case, however, I didn't say that there is
useless for weak tie in this process, actually I just want to know how, and
when they can perform in viral marketing.
So we've already talking about the fact that viral marketing targets connectors in a given community - the people who are connected to a lot of other and are willing to send information along.
One problem of using this role of community connector for viral marketing is that the person may eventually be considered an annoyance in the community. Akin to your good friend who you like to exchange emails with, but who also inevitably sends you every mass email she gets.
As a community manager you may want to take advantage of community connectors to do your own viral marketing - help role out new community features, etc. However, if you do this too often, then you destroy the effectiveness of your community connectors because other people get sick of hearing from them.
Design claim: Use community connectors to pass along information in your community, but use them in moderation or their effectiveness may burn out.
To
me the definition of viral marketing is no different from a pathology (or a
pathological definition). IF you have a
virus, you are contagious. Inevitably,
there is a high chance, not a guarantee, you will pass it on to someone
else. Regardless, whether it ends with
you or it is passed on you have been affected.
Viral
marketing is no different. Your
sensibilities about pop culture may be sharp and/or astute enough, as is your
strong will, to not give into the purchasing or spreading of a message/product
but as Lisa stated “they tend to play on people's natural draw to innovation
and the bizarre” thus you have been affected.
With
the example of Cloverfield, I never saw the movie but that trailer stuck with
me because the gorilla style of handheld digital camera work has not been done
before in the mainstream. Because I have
been affected I will probably give in to seeing the next film that is in the
same vein but with a real script without the nonsensical dialogue and monsters.
Speaking
of effects, the community that I have chosen is interestingly enough a very
moderate, conservative, non flashy site not prone to implementing any of the
tactics they so stealthily use as a group of visual, viral mktg. geniuses- The
Computer Graphics Society, a society for digital artists (includes CGI pros or
computer generated imagery, i.e. effects central)
My class project in Networks last semester partly dealth with analyzing my facebook application's (Notecentric, for those who are interested) growth and determining its "viralness." It didn't turn out to be viral, but a new application that I've released seems to be doing well.
I think the main properties that make something viral or not are:
Novelty (how interesting it is)
Socialness (how much people can use it with another)
Visibility (how easy it is for others to see it and how desirable it is to show off)
Submitted by Satyendra on Thu, 02/14/2008 - 19:28.
1
point
The growing importance of viral marketing on the web has been, and will be, particularly influenced by:
1. The low cost of transmitting digital information (the cost of replication for the 'virus' is extremely low)
2. The fact that you can better target your customers by personalizing the information (by providing a more conducive host)
One function e-communities and social networks perform is networking individuals - thus adding another important dimension for
viral marketing. Traditionally customer value of an individual was the profit the company could make from him over a lifetime. This
was in most cases the direct influence he had on the profits of the company. His network effects on others were limited to his close friends and family.
With the popularity of social networks and e communities however the influence of people on others increases because of the greatly increased
communication and awareness of what other people are doing and buying. Further, people in a person's social network are more likely to like the
things that he liked than completely random people because they will usually have some things in common - age, demographic, tastes etc. Thus the customer's
network value for the company is increased. Thus it might make more sense for companies to spend more money on individuals who are more valuable to them.
Various factors can be used to identiy these 'valuable' customers. High Connectivity is an obvious one. Also people who are bridge nodes in a network
might be valuable if to ensure the spread of the word about the company to different companies. Network influence in social networks is not symmetric and
hence individuals who have a higher influence can be identified by analyzing the structure of the network. There are more interesting details on viral marketing
in social networks here: http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/pedrod/papers/iis04.pdf
The impact is that the large data available on individuals and their relations with others can be used as a predictive tool to influence and optimize the diffusion of information
thus adding to the power of conventional viral marketing.
I had a hard time to relate this article to online communities. So I looked at one example of viral marketing shown on the Wikipedia: Cadbury's Dairy Milk 2007 Gorilla advert. The ad is quiet interesting and unforgettable, but I still don’t get it. What’s the relationship between the gorilla and the chocolate?
After watching the ad, I start to wonder if viral marketing is a useful tool to promote online communities. Does it really help a community to recruit desired members, if viewers just care about the “fun” part of the ad? For example, after watching the gorilla video, I do have a impression about the brand of the chocolate, which is the goal of viral marketing. However, I just feel it’s interesting, but I don’t think I’ll buy this product. (It seems that I am helping to spread the viral…)
Submitted by LizBlankenship on Thu, 02/14/2008 - 22:33.
1
point
In one of the other readings, they mentioned a hot tub community that kept growing out of control. I think that's a good analogy for an online community using viral marketing. I think also that the hacker forum that required you to hack in first has a certain element of viral marketing - because all viral marketing is, really is spreading by word of mouth, and having some irresistable appeal. The hackers all probably wanted into the forum to prove themselves and then to gain respect and knowledge. So in that case it's a barrier to entry that gives the community part of its viral marketing appeal. But really the hot tub example is classic viral marketing.
I have been interested in how viral marketing propagates and the role of “super members” for a while now. Recently Duncan Watts, a researcher in a network-theory scientist who recently took a sabbatical from Columbia University and is now working for Yahoo has shown that anyone is as likely to be a super influencer as anyone else. All that really matters is if the right conditions exist for a trend to catch on.
Duncan is now promoting an idea that he calls big seed marketing. This is essentially a marriage of traditional and viral marketing where the advertisers use conventional marketing to seed a viral outbreak for the media. Its an interesting metaphor that deserves more attention.
My family and the networks of people that I know buy very little. Almost everything we need is free, and viral marketing isn't terribly relevant for choosing a public utility.
What we DO do however is viral unmarketing. In other words, bad news travels faster than good news. Rarely do I hear "this product is really great" but quite often I hear "Boycott that company."
In addition, viral marketing depends heavily on not only social network topologies but also the thresholds of the individuals in the network, i.e. their sociality. One of the reasons that The Blair Witch Project's viral marketing succeeded despite the fact that it was a terrible film was the hyper-sociability of its target audience.
-------------------------------------------------------- PHartzog@umich.edu
--------------------------------------------------------
The Universe is made up of stories, not atoms.
--Muriel Rukeyser
Viral Marketing is not new, but just has been enhanced in an
information society. Amway, the company employed the direct marketing
strategy by which people only can buy products from their friends as a
registered member of Amway. No matter whether the marketing campaign
happing in the real life or through the Internet, they have the
commonnesses in that 1) strong persuasion; 2) directly discovering
target users; 3) encouraging volunteering advertisement thus saving
cost in some ways. In addition, I thought it is particularly working
for some products of some particular features like: 1) information asymmetry
on products between producer and costumer, so the costumer can't
really tell the quality thus easy to be convinced by the word of
mouth; like shampoo, difference among different brands are pretty
subtle; 2) products or services are similar but it is hard to switch to
new brand, like cell phone network or email service, like GMail used
good viral marketing strategy to spread into relatively high-quality of
users.
In our online community context, the idea of viral marketing
can be emphasized on the insight into the structure of people's
network: how the dynamic happening upon the micro-social interaction,
which can result significantly in the whole performance. Social network
analysis can be a big help on this, in terms of identifying the silent
structure properties of the network.
However, in spite of the
power it may have, the concern is that it can be hard to control and it
can even go to the opposite way as Paul says. People more feel
comfortable to talk about the bad things on the product they found
rather than confirm some good things. So I think in this way, the
convenience of information communication can really improve people's
consuming selecting. However, still on some products with really subtle
quality indicator, a successful marketing can be really deceptive.
Submitted by Daniel Zhou on Sat, 02/16/2008 - 02:22.
0
points
Most comments have been focusing on viral market from the producer's perspective. However I'd like to add a comment from the consumer's perspective. As a consumer, I want to get "infected", I want to get to know more information that interests me. For example, if it's not because of this class, I will never get to learn CouchSurfing, 43things and other great communities. From that point of view, I'd like to raise a few points:
How to get a network more contagious so that useful information can flow with least resistence?
How to encourage users to spread the "virus" rather than keep it to themselves.
How to filter the information I receive so that I can only receive those that interests me?
In fact, I'm a little bit disappointed of the mechnism of viral marketing that some of the interesting information does not have a clear path to infect me, while too much information that reach me is not interesing. It would be great to see how to resolve this tension.
Viral marketing is a very novel business innovation. A product which
is good will automatically be marketed virally. Another product (with
deficiencies) will go down. it sounds like Digg...doesnt it? And when
we talk of Digg, we are already talking of Democracy.
So the question is: Is there a co-relation between Democracy and Viral Marketing?
Another concept: Forced Viral Marketing:
I would put Facebook Application platform in this category. I can
not see the content of the Application that my friend is using if I do
not install the application myself. Facebook forces me to install that
application. Sometimes I install the app, only to uninstall it after 5
minutes. The annoying part is that FB forces the aplications to be
Viral.
Question: Is it good to have a "forced viral marketing" design? How long will people bear it before turning away from it?
Targeting a difficult audience
This is another moment of synchronicity for me in this class; we were just talking about viral marketing in the class I teach. In particular we were talking about an unofficial ad for a Ford car in Europe that gained a lot of controversy (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Ka for the full story on the SportKa model "Evil Twin" ad linked at the bottom.) The ad was never officially sanctioned by Ford Motor Co., and Ford even carried a later apology (it seems they didn't see the link between selling cars and killing cats), but gained a lot of exposure and popularity when links to the video were spread on the Internet.
This gets to the main goal of viral marketing as quoted in the article, "goal of marketers interested in creating successful viral marketing programs is to identify individuals with high Social Networking Potential (SNP) and create Viral Messages that appeal to this segment of the population and have a high probability of being passed along." In other words, marketers are targeting a specific group that they know will pass the message along. In this way it gains a kind of "underground status" amongst potentially hip and knowledgable consumers. For example, the SportKa model was aimed at a young, male audience who are often hard to pin down with traditional advertising. The use of dark humor and unlicensed advertisting may have done more to spread the word about the SportKa with their target demographic than a normal ad would have. Of course conspiracy theories abound about whether or not Ford, in this instance, actually manufactured this entire charade, but the end result speaks for itself.
Obviously this type of marketing scheme thrives on the Internet, and possibly communities as well. GMail invites are one example, as are exclusive and private subgroups that can only be accessed by people in the know. I think this issue of secrecy compounds the earlier discussion of doing something that is slightly wrong to create a design that elicits a feeling of exclusivity in members, which may also produce more loyalty to keeping the product/community in the right hands.
avenue/channel matters as well
Great observations and examples. I think one more thing to note is that besides the content of the "product" as you have mentioned, the avenue/channel or method of delivery of a viral campaign itself makes a big difference too. Previously, viral marketing may have been primarily associated to word-of-mouth activities, now there are simply certain "hot spots" that marketers sometimes worry about on the same level as whether their "product" is well-targeted. For instance, celebrity endorsement on MTV, video clips on youtube that contain the word(s) <insert whatever tickles your fancy>, and 15 second superbowl ad slots. All of these may make viral marketing sucessful, or more sucessful. Of course, this is not to say that content is not important. Instead, a combination of both makes perfect.
One other thing, I found it interesting that viral marketing is also known as stealth marketing. I want to believe that intelligent people (or lets just say, impartial people) should be able to realize that they are falling for a marketing ploy when they see one. Ironically, this is usually not the case. But, obviously this leads into another discussion on whether we are even supposed to guard ourselves from viral marketing as if it was something malicious.
Viral as Stealth Marketing
Advertising is inherently annoying. I use tv, the web, and the newspaper for entertainment and information. 98% of the time I have no interest in using these mediums to find new products, yet I constantly have to deal with commercials, coupon inserts, and dancing Flash animations. I think that the term 'stealth marketing' has less to do with tricking people into making purchases than overcoming the annoyances of advertisements.
After watching a Burger King commercial, I know that I just saw an advertisement, but it may have felt more like a 30 second comedy. Furthermore, when the 'viral' aspect takes effect and I tell the class how great Burger King's "Eat Like Snake" commercial was, it becomes even stealthier... Now it's no longer a commercial, but a conversation between friends or classmates, with all the implied trust, etc. I think viral marketing is 'stealthy' primarily because it is more 'fun' or more 'hip', rather than subliminal.
Oh, and because you're so curious, Eat Like Snake: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTXbMCOywVY
Not so viral
Here is another coincidence that some you may have already read. A recent article in Fast Company, talks about Duncan Watts' opinion on so called "trend setters" in the viral campaign.
Watts agrees that there are some people who are "more" important than others in spreading a trend. But the success of a trend doesn't rest their shoulders. In fact he recommends the traditional mass marketing to increase the exposure of the society to the new trend.
Cloverfield, Nitentdo Wii and many other popular brands have used viral campaigns with success. I think we have take a line between viral marketing and traditional marketing. Use all the marketing resources and target a specfic audience (like you didn't know this already).
I'm assuming we are having this reading to understand: how we can promote our communities to the outside world. So the goal will be to "increase the awareness about the community to the outside world".
In Ubuntu forums, LoCo teams are formed to promote Ubuntu in their geographic region. In US there are LoCo teams at state levels. They can conduct thier own marketing campaign in their region. I'm not sure how successful they are, but here the design idea is to have a practice as connection. This is essentially a Community of practice for marketing. This practice can foucs on getting the word out there.
Retrovirals
The concept of viral marketing is an interesting complement to this week's other readings on barriers to entry, since its focus is on explosive growth rather than selectivity. Mouly pointed out that a design goal might be to use viral marketing to spread the word about a community. This is true, but I think another design goal we can get from this reading might be "to keep the community relevant given the properties of viral marketing." If we assume that community members will spread their interest in a community to people in their social network, the community (or at least people aware of the community) will naturally grow very quickly. The challenge then isn't spreading the word, it's finding the balance between growth and quality, a point addressed by some of the other readings this week.
Viral marketing not always the answer
Mouly, I was going to post a link to that Fast Company article, but I see you've beat me to it! :) Since I'd read this recently, it was the first thing that came to mind about viral marketing - the fact that while it's very popular right now, it's definitely not a silver bullet.
A quote from the Fast Company article:
"In modern marketing, this idea--that a tiny cadre of connected people
triggers trends--is enormously seductive. It is the very premise of
viral and word-of-mouth campaigns: Reach those rare, all-powerful
folks, and you'll reach everyone else through them, basically for free.
Loosely, this is referred to as the Influentials theory, and while it
has been a marketing touchstone for 50 years, it has recently reentered
the mainstream imagination via thousands of marketing studies and a
host of best-selling books [like the Tipping Point]." .... "Yet, if you believe Watts, all that money and effort is being wasted.
Because according to him, Influentials have no such effect. Indeed,
they have no special role in trends at all."
Some examples of viral marketing NOT working: Facebook applications. When the platform first launched, companies saw this as a quick and easy way to gain new users and showcase their product/brand. But, the success rate has been pretty dismal - with very few applications becoming really popular, since the already popular tend to stay popular, and the new apps have a hard time overcoming this barrier. Some articles try to provide tips on how to make your app succeed, but really I agree with Duncan Watts, that's it's usually more up to chance than anything else on whether your viral marketing plan will work. Heeding design advice and heuristics will of course help, but after that, you have to just hope that you hit the zeitgeist of the at the right time.
Classic tactic redeployed
John Blair
From a design perspective, this is great - having the target audience do all the work - presuming of course there isn't a lot of overhead tied to it like the Cloverfield movie stunt. It's long been stated that the best adverstising is word of mouth, this just updates that concept using the Internet.
My disdain for advertisers and marketing types aside, what they fail to mention in this article is that this most certainly would generate a lot of spam and other unwanted content if not focused well. This probably isn't much of a concern for the advertisers as long as they're comfortable something is reaching the intended audience. This questions the design claim of the tactic as to it's effeciency(reach of the target audience). I can see the claim for effeciency being acceptable by the Nine Inch Nails example of leaving USB drives at concerts (brilliant!!!), as I think its safe to say anyone at the concert probably likes NIN and the probability of finding the owner of a lost drive is remote.
What concerns me is that in the concert and football examples, people have no concern for security, which only makes the term viral that much more applicable.
Viral or not
Just a brief summary of viral marketing concept. As a new strategy of spreading information, viral marketing aims at replicating information in a very cheap way through public, especially preexisting networks, to a wider audience so as to expand its popularity. As compared with traditional marketing, it is less costly and thus brings more benefit since audience usually takes and spreads the messages voluntarily.
Famous eCommerce consultant Ralph F. Wilson has summarized six characteristics for any effective viral marketing. They are:
The idea of viral marketing could be particularly useful for infromation products
The Visceral in Viral
I think the success of viral marketing is pretty clearly tied to the synchronocity between combining elements of surprise with other emotions, or combinations of emotions. People are bored with the same old marketing techniques. Viral marketing schemes are novel, they tend to play on people's natural draw to innovation and the bizarre.
If I reflect back on times that these advertisements are passed along to me via email, they do often come from friends of mine who I would consider "connectors" in the Malcolm Gladwell "Tipping Point" sense. They're people who just instinctively pass information to those they think would be interested reflexively.
Lisa McLaughlin
viral marketing or just clever marketing
I think WP's entry on viral marketing lists a few things I wouldn't really consider "viral". The term connotes "transmission" of a trend between interested consumers, rather than:
- setting up fake myspace pages for the characters of your movie
- having an ad that auto-dials your phone, and creates a new "experience" -- not really viral, just "novel"
- giving away free stuff to journalists in the hope that they'll plug it. (is it "viral" just because you're giving it to a blogger rather than Walt Mossberg at the WSJ?)
- distributing clever schwag at your own concerts. (People already came to see NIN, right? They're *probably* interested in the new album.)
In order to be "viral" there should be some "peer to peer" element involved in the campaign.
- features making it easy to invite friends to join facebook/linkedin/myspace etc
- giving free sneakers away to regulars in urban third-spaces (this was considered a textbook "viral" campaign by reebok in the late 90s)
- services like snapfish/flickr which rely on people's desire to distribute photographs to friends which then encourages others to create accounts and do the same.
I do think that there is some sort of marketing "grey area" for things which are probably considered closer to "stealth" marketing ie IBM's Tux graffiti in San Francisco sidewalks -- but again I wouldn't really consider these viral unless you are doing something to directly enable consumers to distribute your own image and create impressions on people in their social circles.
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oostendo@umich.edu
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Conflating viral marketing with novel marketing
The viral marketing entry in wikipedia leaves a lot to be desired. I had similar reactions to oostendo when reading this article (perhaps I should modify the article but I don't consider myself an expert on the subject). The article starts off on the right track:
The goal of marketers interested in creating successful viral marketing programs is to identify individuals with high Social Networking Potential (SNP) and create Viral Messages that appeal to this segment of the population and have a high probability of being passed along.
But, unfortunately, it devolves into descriptions of novel advertising campaigns, like the Portuguese football club calling advert. What ever happened to creating something great (e.g. an online community, like, oh let's say, Flickr), then letting a few passionate people know about, and then watch as the community takes off?
If I recall correctly, this is exactly what happened to Flickr. They created 1) a very usable site, that 2) made sharing the norm, and then 3) advertised it through people who were passionate about taking pictures and sharing them with their friends. It's now probably one of the most popular photo sharing sites on the web.
To me, viral marketing is about creating an "experience" good (community) that users try on their own and experience the advantages of the good. Once they have positive experiences, they share it with their friends and it spreads. There is, however, some recent research that shows this approach may not be the most effective way to spread a message. Arun Sundararajan from NYU business school spoke about this last semester at the STIET seminar. I won't recap all his research, but one finding is that random seeding is optimal when the "marketer" does not know the agent's connectedness or network position (which is usually the case). So much for those Hush Puppies!
E-community as the target audience
Viral marketing is challenging because it requires advertising to be entertaining or noteworthy enough to compel viewers to share it with their friends. In terms of marketing an e-community, if it already exists, it seems that you'd already have an audience with well understood interests. It stands to reason that viral marketing has the potential to be successful if targeted at existing members, with the expectation that they will spread the word to potential members. It seems a bit unorthodox to target the existing community with advertisements, but if they are provided with simple tools to spread the word, it may be an avenue worth pursuing.
Of course, depending on the e-community, your mileage may vary. But an existing community can and should be leveraged to increase the impact of advertising on sites such as Fb, myspace, Youtube, etc.
The Tipping Point
Viral Marketing
In the spirit of discussing viral marketing best practices, one well-regarded resource is Malcolm Gladwell's "The Tipping Point". He describes three different types of people essential for spreading epidemics: Salesmen (who enjoy persuasion), Mavens (who enjoy spreading knowledge), and Connectors (who enjoy networking and socializing). Identifying and appealing to these people can help turn an object or content viral, but epidemic potential can only be fulfilled if its ideas are memorable and incite action.
Other demographics to identify are the tiers of adoption: Innovators are the first people to experiment with a new product, service, or idea. They're adventurous and are willing to take risks. Early adopters make up around 15% of consumers and analyze the experiences of crazy and whacky innovators. This group is usually where the tipping point happens because their judgments are well-respected by the mass market. The early majority follows suit, followed by the late majority who are generally more skeptical and won't try anything new until the most respected people approve. Laggards are very traditional, resist change, and new ways of thinking or doing things.
However, promoters face an uphill battle because it's hard to translate a value proposition between early adopters and the early majority. That's when connectors, mavens, and salesmen are essential: they can translate the potential value of an idea between groups. Context is important because if small problems exist, people generally assume the lurking presence of larger problems.
Three principles for creating viral messages:
1) Leveling: removing extraneous details for a target audience
2) Sharpening: specifying remaining details
3) Assimilating: changing details to fit the context of an environment
the Fast Company article
the Fast Company article referred to above supposedly debunks Malcolm's point, but I found the Tipping Point to be an interesting read, too. At least the half I read before I came to grad school and stopped leisure reading. :-D
Who will be in the viral marketing process
Social network plays an important role in the viral
marketing process which promotes the transmission of new production. I am
wondering which type of tie individuals would prefer to be involved. For
instance, if you got both an email from one of your close friends which
recommend you a new software and the other one from someone you happen to know,
which one you would click the link and have a look or further try to use it? My
hypothesis is the first one in this case, however, I didn't say that there is
useless for weak tie in this process, actually I just want to know how, and
when they can perform in viral marketing.
Community Connector Turned Community Annoyance
So we've already talking about the fact that viral marketing targets connectors in a given community - the people who are connected to a lot of other and are willing to send information along.
One problem of using this role of community connector for viral marketing is that the person may eventually be considered an annoyance in the community. Akin to your good friend who you like to exchange emails with, but who also inevitably sends you every mass email she gets.
As a community manager you may want to take advantage of community connectors to do your own viral marketing - help role out new community features, etc. However, if you do this too often, then you destroy the effectiveness of your community connectors because other people get sick of hearing from them.
Design claim: Use community connectors to pass along information in your community, but use them in moderation or their effectiveness may burn out.
When will they develop antiviral medicine for viral mktg?
To
me the definition of viral marketing is no different from a pathology (or a
pathological definition). IF you have a
virus, you are contagious. Inevitably,
there is a high chance, not a guarantee, you will pass it on to someone
else. Regardless, whether it ends with
you or it is passed on you have been affected.
Viral
marketing is no different. Your
sensibilities about pop culture may be sharp and/or astute enough, as is your
strong will, to not give into the purchasing or spreading of a message/product
but as Lisa stated “they tend to play on people's natural draw to innovation
and the bizarre” thus you have been affected.
With
the example of Cloverfield, I never saw the movie but that trailer stuck with
me because the gorilla style of handheld digital camera work has not been done
before in the mainstream. Because I have
been affected I will probably give in to seeing the next film that is in the
same vein but with a real script without the nonsensical dialogue and monsters.
Speaking
of effects, the community that I have chosen is interestingly enough a very
moderate, conservative, non flashy site not prone to implementing any of the
tactics they so stealthily use as a group of visual, viral mktg. geniuses- The
Computer Graphics Society, a society for digital artists (includes CGI pros or
computer generated imagery, i.e. effects central)
www.cgsociety.org
Another look at viral marketing
My class project in Networks last semester partly dealth with analyzing my facebook application's (Notecentric, for those who are interested) growth and determining its "viralness." It didn't turn out to be viral, but a new application that I've released seems to be doing well.
I think the main properties that make something viral or not are:
communities, networks and viral marketing
The growing importance of viral marketing on the web has been, and will be, particularly influenced by:
1. The low cost of transmitting digital information (the cost of replication for the 'virus' is extremely low)
2. The fact that you can better target your customers by personalizing the information (by providing a more conducive host)
One function e-communities and social networks perform is networking individuals - thus adding another important dimension for
viral marketing. Traditionally customer value of an individual was the profit the company could make from him over a lifetime. This
was in most cases the direct influence he had on the profits of the company. His network effects on others were limited to his close friends and family.
With the popularity of social networks and e communities however the influence of people on others increases because of the greatly increased
communication and awareness of what other people are doing and buying. Further, people in a person's social network are more likely to like the
things that he liked than completely random people because they will usually have some things in common - age, demographic, tastes etc. Thus the customer's
network value for the company is increased. Thus it might make more sense for companies to spend more money on individuals who are more valuable to them.
Various factors can be used to identiy these 'valuable' customers. High Connectivity is an obvious one. Also people who are bridge nodes in a network
might be valuable if to ensure the spread of the word about the company to different companies. Network influence in social networks is not symmetric and
hence individuals who have a higher influence can be identified by analyzing the structure of the network. There are more interesting details on viral marketing
in social networks here:
http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/pedrod/papers/iis04.pdf
The impact is that the large data available on individuals and their relations with others can be used as a predictive tool to influence and optimize the diffusion of information
thus adding to the power of conventional viral marketing.
Obamagirl
How's this for viral marketing? 6.2 million views; 14000 ratings; 23000 comments; favorited 15000 times.
http://www.youtube.com/v/wKsoXHYICqU&rel=1
Sorry I can't embed YouTube videos here to demonstrate viral marketing at work.
How helpful is viral marketing?
I had a hard time to relate this article to online communities. So I looked at one example of viral marketing shown on the Wikipedia: Cadbury's Dairy Milk 2007 Gorilla advert. The ad is quiet interesting and unforgettable, but I still don’t get it. What’s the relationship between the gorilla and the chocolate?
After watching the ad, I start to wonder if viral marketing is a useful tool to promote online communities. Does it really help a community to recruit desired members, if viewers just care about the “fun” part of the ad? For example, after watching the gorilla video, I do have a impression about the brand of the chocolate, which is the goal of viral marketing. However, I just feel it’s interesting, but I don’t think I’ll buy this product. (It seems that I am helping to spread the viral…)
Hot Tub!
In one of the other readings, they mentioned a hot tub community that kept growing out of control. I think that's a good analogy for an online community using viral marketing. I think also that the hacker forum that required you to hack in first has a certain element of viral marketing - because all viral marketing is, really is spreading by word of mouth, and having some irresistable appeal. The hackers all probably wanted into the forum to prove themselves and then to gain respect and knowledge. So in that case it's a barrier to entry that gives the community part of its viral marketing appeal. But really the hot tub example is classic viral marketing.
Viruses and seeds
I have been interested in how viral marketing propagates and the role of “super members” for a while now. Recently Duncan Watts, a researcher in a network-theory scientist who recently took a sabbatical from Columbia University and is now working for Yahoo has shown that anyone is as likely to be a super influencer as anyone else. All that really matters is if the right conditions exist for a trend to catch on.
Duncan is now promoting an idea that he calls big seed marketing. This is essentially a marriage of traditional and viral marketing where the advertisers use conventional marketing to seed a viral outbreak for the media. Its an interesting metaphor that deserves more attention.
Links:
http://cdg.columbia.edu/uploads/papers/watts2007_influentials.pdf
http://cdg.columbia.edu/uploads/papers/watts2007_viralMarketing.pdf
Viral UnMarketing
My family and the networks of people that I know buy very little. Almost everything we need is free, and viral marketing isn't terribly relevant for choosing a public utility.
What we DO do however is viral unmarketing. In other words, bad news travels faster than good news. Rarely do I hear "this product is really great" but quite often I hear "Boycott that company."
In addition, viral marketing depends heavily on not only social network topologies but also the thresholds of the individuals in the network, i.e. their sociality. One of the reasons that The Blair Witch Project's viral marketing succeeded despite the fact that it was a terrible film was the hyper-sociability of its target audience.
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PHartzog@umich.edu
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The Universe is made up of stories, not atoms.
--Muriel Rukeyser
Viral Marketing is not new,
Viral Marketing is not new, but just has been enhanced in an
information society. Amway, the company employed the direct marketing
strategy by which people only can buy products from their friends as a
registered member of Amway. No matter whether the marketing campaign
happing in the real life or through the Internet, they have the
commonnesses in that 1) strong persuasion; 2) directly discovering
target users; 3) encouraging volunteering advertisement thus saving
cost in some ways. In addition, I thought it is particularly working
for some products of some particular features like: 1) information asymmetry
on products between producer and costumer, so the costumer can't
really tell the quality thus easy to be convinced by the word of
mouth; like shampoo, difference among different brands are pretty
subtle; 2) products or services are similar but it is hard to switch to
new brand, like cell phone network or email service, like GMail used
good viral marketing strategy to spread into relatively high-quality of
users.
In our online community context, the idea of viral marketing
can be emphasized on the insight into the structure of people's
network: how the dynamic happening upon the micro-social interaction,
which can result significantly in the whole performance. Social network
analysis can be a big help on this, in terms of identifying the silent
structure properties of the network.
However, in spite of the
power it may have, the concern is that it can be hard to control and it
can even go to the opposite way as Paul says. People more feel
comfortable to talk about the bad things on the product they found
rather than confirm some good things. So I think in this way, the
convenience of information communication can really improve people's
consuming selecting. However, still on some products with really subtle
quality indicator, a successful marketing can be really deceptive.
I want to get infected!
Most comments have been focusing on viral market from the producer's perspective. However I'd like to add a comment from the consumer's perspective. As a consumer, I want to get "infected", I want to get to know more information that interests me. For example, if it's not because of this class, I will never get to learn CouchSurfing, 43things and other great communities. From that point of view, I'd like to raise a few points:
In fact, I'm a little bit disappointed of the mechnism of viral marketing that some of the interesting information does not have a clear path to infect me, while too much information that reach me is not interesing. It would be great to see how to resolve this tension.
Democracy and Viral Marketing: [Revised Posting from blog]
Viral marketing is a very novel business innovation. A product which
is good will automatically be marketed virally. Another product (with
deficiencies) will go down. it sounds like Digg...doesnt it? And when
we talk of Digg, we are already talking of Democracy.
So the question is: Is there a co-relation between Democracy and Viral Marketing?
Another concept: Forced Viral Marketing:
I would put Facebook Application platform in this category. I can
not see the content of the Application that my friend is using if I do
not install the application myself. Facebook forces me to install that
application. Sometimes I install the app, only to uninstall it after 5
minutes. The annoying part is that FB forces the aplications to be
Viral.
Question: Is it good to have a "forced viral marketing" design? How long will people bear it before turning away from it?