Viral Branding - Coursework Example

I. Introduction Viral branding, also known to scholars and managers as grass roots and buzz, stands apart from another current contender to mind influence, which is cultural branding. As the concept indicates, viral branding puts emphasis on the directions of public influence, which is how non-company players persuade customers to have a high regard for the brand. The viral model is a compendium of insights and concepts embedded in the traditional notions of public influence, such as word of mouth, diffusion of originality, and public relations, which acted in response to two main events in the 1990s: the greater distrust toward mass marketing and the invention of the Internet (Mathieson 2005). Viral branding believes that consumers, and not companies, have the greatest influence in the generation of brands. Sceptical consumers will cease to listen to the messages of mass marketers, hence instead should create original brands of their own. The Internet furnished a way to speed up this creation. Consequently, what was formerly regarded as an essential mechanism that marketers could aim to motivate has at present turn out to be an objective in itself. Furthermore, several scholars nowadays suggest below-the-radar marketing, which sows the brand among individuals of powerful and influential classes in the society. The fundamental assumption is that if the company can persuade these individuals to adopt the brand as their own, develop and diffuse the brand, like a virus, to establish it as a convenient and easy topic to talk about, these promoters will radically broaden their awareness in the brand to others by making use of their social networks, similar to the process of virus spreading (Mathieson 2005). II. Viral Branding: Perspectives from Experts At the advent of the new economy age, New York-based writer Douglas Rushkoff alerted humanity about what he referred to as ‘media viruses’. Managers of brand-creation and brand-marketing immediately turned the tables and concluded that taking on a viral approach was the speediest and most inexpensive route to brand paradise. The more swiftness through the organisation, the better the brand performs (Aguirre 2001: 111). A similar insight is what Malcolm Gladwell, also a New York-based writer, has referred to as the ‘coolhunt.’ In this point of view, brands are not anymore directed by business organisations’ activities but to a certain extent provided meaning and significance on the streets by perspective-dominant innovators who approves the brands and grants them prestige. Consumer good firms deploy cultural investigators onto the streets of areas considered as ‘cool,’ like the recreational areas in poor urban districts or antiestablishment clubs, to survey new trends. The contest is to take hold of the latest, trendiest culture the quickest, before it turns out to be a mainstream or mass culture (Robinson & Rohan 2002: 48). In the field of viral branding, a hidden public relations form becomes the centre of the branding attempt. Doyle Dane Bernback, an ad agency, promotes its capability to generate ‘talk value’ as its most important competitive advantage, for example. Several of the largest and most well-known ad agencies and consultancies have introduced focused teams, such as Young & Rubicam’s Brand Buzz, to send viral branding schemes to their customers. Another example is Sputnik, a streetwise research consultancy, which generate profit through spending time with the right pacesetting extremes and filing statements with international corporations (Mathieson 2005). In general, the viral model assumes that consumers, and not marketers, produce brand value. As a result, identity branding has resorted into the job of covertly sowing brands with the suitable customers in order that they will adopt the brand as their own and build up its value. The company positions itself in the back seat with regard to its consumers in strengthening what the brand represents and symbolises. A very good example of effective use of viral branding is Coca-Cola. The name Coca-Cola itself creates a mini universe of its own. The branding of Coke, for instance, permeates its product quality, marketing, packaging, and it has managed to profitably harbour its image on the Internet (Robinson & Rohan 2002). Coca-Cola has been aware early on that the Internet would serve a critical role in not merely strengthening brand loyalty (http://internetmark.home4u.china.com/brand-internet-marketing-online/brand-internet-marketing-online.html) among their consumers but as well in attracting new consumers to its product (Robinson & Rohan 2002). Hence the question is what is a viral brand? According to L. Kareem Geiger, the pioneer and vice president of TechnikOne’s client relations department (http://internetmark.home4u.china.com/brand-internet-marketing-online/brand-internet-marketing-online.html), “Your brand is the relationship you have with your customers” (Robinson & Rohan 2002: 47). Geiger argues that branding replies to the question: How do people see us? Who are our customers? How are we establishing a good rapport with them? Carrie Williams, proprietor of Williams Creative Marketing in Seattle, adds “Brand transcends your products. If your brand communicates effectively, it can bring a culture together, whether it’s an internal audience (the company) or an external audience (consumers)” (Robinson & Rohan 2002: 47). A business organisation does not make a brand merely for the product or service it (http://internetmark.home4u.china.com/brand-internet-marketing-online/brand-internet-marketing-online.html) provides to the consumers, it accomplishes it for the relationship and loyalty that accompany it (Robinson & Rohan 2002). In the area of viral branding, brand possess a great deal of importance, it is not only a vivid façade. Brand is realistic, customer-oriented, quality of product, and reliability of performance and delivery (The Free Library 2002). It is not merely performance but it is as well an attempt to public relations. Coca-Cola benchmarked the technique of viral branding through one of its subordinates, Sprite, through permitting consumers to log on the website of Sprite and type codes located under the bottle tops of Sprite (Robinson & Rohan 2002). Consumers garnered points that might afterwards be exchanged for prizes. And once Nike had been left a month to enlist runners in a race in London, the company controlled its brand value on the Internet through aiming at its most important audience with ( http://internetmark.home4u.china.com/brand-internet-marketing-online/brand-internet-marketing-online.html) online message comic strips persuading them to enlist. Nike had roughly 10,000 runners enlisted in a matter of two weeks (Robinson & Rohan 2002: 48). Viral marketing accompanied with games, contests, symbolic images that can be downloaded and product bargains are other strategies that permit customers to relate with a company. Dissimilar to television advertisements, which are passive, viral marketing strategies allow you to ( http://internetmark.home4u.china.com/brand-internet-marketing-online/brand-internet-marketing-online.html draw viewers’ attentions and interests and allow them to gain more knowledge of the product (Robinson & Rohan 2002). It is noteworthy to remember in viral branding that it cannot be accomplished overnight. Similar to any relationship, it consumes substantial amount of time to develop and should be well managed to be successful. This is what the Coca-Cola Company showed to the world of branding. III. Spread the Word Aside from viral branding another effective strategy is viral marketing, which is an unusual name for a valuable marketing mechanism. It makes use of the communication systems and frequently the resources of those who visit a particular company site or consumers to spread the word regarding the site in an exponential manner. In plain English, it is a form of marketing that is reliant on word of mouth. One case in point is Hotmail.com or Iwon.com free e-mail service, which involves a catchphrase regarding the service at the end of every electronic mail message. You notify friends of yours, and they notify their friends, and so on. The following examples are different kinds of viral marketing (Mathieson 2005: 88): a) Affiliate agreements. You do not necessarily need to rent a storeroom for your inventories or products. Endeavour building affiliate relationships with established, successful business organisations that can process orders and transport goods for you. For instance, through providing books that are related to your enterprise through a company such as the Amazon.com, they will take care of taking the order for your book, of supervising shipping, and afterwards giving you a percentage of the business. b) Brand recognition. Since the Internet has facilitated several small businesses to provide the identical line of products and services, establishing a brand is important for drawing the attention and keeping the loyalty of customers. Try making use of offline and online promotion and marketing to attract people directly to the site. c) Permission marketing. Visitors grant you permission to mail them information regarding your business. By the use of permission marketing, Website visitors obtain intended e-mail notifications of new products and services. An information sheet is another component of permission marketing. d) Vertical site. Through this, you can in fact be very creative: Recommend your customer everything they might perhaps require. For instance, if you are in the business of selling cakes, suggest recipes, kitchen tools, and other supplies. Viral marketing, similar to viral branding, has in fact accelerated in fame over the recent decade and accompanied by it, so have numerous of the viral marketing cases and techniques in which individuals are making use of. In the duration of merely the last couple of years we have witnessed some remarkable software inventions and numerous programs in which to broaden viral marketing campaign (Mathieson 2005). In any attempt towards viral marketing campaign, there are specific concerns that an individual or business organisation has to take note of. For one thing, underlying every attempt there has should be some form of benefit or incentive for the individual to become interested to pass the message on. Viral marketing campaigns that do not actually compensate the sending party will most probably fail to reap benefits from viral marketing. IV. Conclusion The viral branding model is basically a fashion branding framework. The model depends on the preference leaders who are considered the trendsetters and create the brand prestige and needed consumer desirability when they make use of it and talk about it. Viral attempts hence aim to influence preference-makers as well as trendsetters. While several fads and fashions have been recognised through the mechanisms of viral branding, symbolic brands function beyond this cycle. Actually, getting trapped in a fashion cycle can weaken a symbolic brand. Identity brands that are built up through viral models have a critical imperfection; they lack the presence of their originators. A company gives up power over the brand to consumers as well as to cultural trendsetters. The dilemma is that these creators flourish on manipulating the next big thing. Immediately after they make a brand prestigious, they proceed to the next mission. Fad brands are abandoned and ditched by fashion avant-garde trendsetters as soon as their prestige has been eaten up. When competently handled, symbolic brands are much more long-lasting compared to fads and fashions. Apart from the usual fashion cycles of boom and bust, symbols cater to severe social pressures that normally endure for several years. There appears to be an excess in viral marketing as section of the overall normal progress in quality, though. Decisively, with viral process it is the customers not the marketers who are in power or in charge of the whole business thing. Hence whatever customers prefer will constantly be successful. The excellence of the material quality with respect to its capacity to motivate customers is thus the most important benchmark. In the near future, users will become more challenging. This will make the viral industry more efficient in getting things right. References Books Aguirre, H. (2001), Spread the Word, Black Enterprise , 110+. LePla, F. J. (1999), Integrated Branding: Becoming Brand-Driven through Companywide Action, Westport, CT: Quoeum Books. Mathieson, R. (2005), Branding Unbound: The Future of Advertising, Sales and the Brand Experience in the Wireless Age, New York: AMACOM. Morgan, A. (1999), Eating the Big fish: How Challenger Brands Can Compete against Brand Leaders, New York: John Wiley & Sons. Tuska, J. & Piekarski, V. (1996), The Max Brand Companion, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Journal Articles Linton, A. (2004), “A taste of trade justice: marketing global social responsibility via Fair Trade coffee,” Globalizations. Robinson, F. & Rohan, R. (2002), Developing a Brand: Want to Generate Loyalty Online and Off? Create a Killer Brand, Black Enterprise , 47+. Virtually Solvent. (2001), The McKinsey Quarterly, 4+. Websites http://internetmark.home4u.china.com/brand-internet-marketing-online/brand-internet-marketing-online.html Robinson, Fabian Rohan, Rebecca. "Developing a brand: want to generate loyalty online and off? Create a killer brand. (Web Marketing).", Black Enterprise, May 2002 Issue http://www.enterprise-ecology.com/bks_system_brand.htm Building Successful E-brands, Bibliography http://www.geocities.com/building_brands/bibliography-books.html Robinson, F. & Rohan, R. (2002), Developing a brand: want to generate loyalty online and off? Create a killer brand - Web Marketing, BNET http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1365/is_10_32/ai_85010835/ Developing a brand: want to generate loyalty online and off? Create a killer brand - Web Marketing (2002), The Free Library. http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Developing+a+brand:+want+to+generate+loyalty+online+and+off%3F+Create+a...-a085010835 Read More