Viral Marketing and Word-of-Mouth - Essay Example

Word-of-Mouth (WoM) WoM refers to oral person-to-person communication about a brand, product, or service between a communicator and recipient withoutcommercial benefits (Arndt, 1967). According to Katz and Lazarsfeld (1955), WoM is up to seven times more effective than traditional print advertising and influences consumer’s attitude and purchasing decision. Viral Marketing The term “viral marketing” was introduced by Jeffrey Rayport in 1996. Viral marketing, also known as electronic word-of-mouth (WoM), has gained enormous popularity with the technological changes such as PC networking, SMS technology, and greater bandwidth, as these are leading to exponentially growing networking between companies, potential buyers, and WOM opportunities (De Bruynand Lilien, 2004; Gruen, et al., 2006; Dobele, et al., 2005). The ultimate goal of viral marketing is to achieve effective unsolicited electronic referrals to create awareness, trigger interest, and generate sales or product adoption (De Bruyn and Lilien, 2004). When executed effectively, viral marketing can create three main advantages to a firm. First, it incurs very little expense since individuals voluntarily pass the message or promotion along others (Amstrong, et al., 2011). Second, messages delivered by viral marketing are more favourable because the act of recommendation is voluntary rather than a paid ad campaign (Palka, et al., 2009). Third, viral marketing is more effective targeting because according to Dobele et al. (2007), messages sent by familiar recommenders are regarded to be credible and more likely to be open and read. In order to benefit from this opportunity, several world-class companies and brands have jumped on the viral marketing bandwagon, including Procter &Gamble (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2011), Virgin (Dobele, et al., 2007), Burger King (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2011), Honda (Dobele, et al., 2005) etc. Comparison between Viral Marketing and WoM In contract to traditional WoM, viral marketing has two main advantages. First, viral marketing diffuses new information quicker because the diffusion of traditional communication is limited by the size of the social network (Marsden, 1987; Hill and Dunbar, 2003), thus, chains of WoM communication and customer referrals tend to die out quickly. Second, viral marketing usually contains more interesting content because written communication provides the opportunity to polish communication and self-enhancement concerns lead people to talk about more interesting products and brands (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2011). Conditions to create an epidemic According to Kaplan and Haenlein (2011, p. 256), three basic conditions must be met in order to make viral marketing effective, which include the right people, the right message, and the right circumstances. The following paper will focus on giving suggestions to create a successful viral marketing campaign along with the process from the beginning of selecting initial target to the designing of right message to solve negative WoM resulting from the campaign. Target Selection It is important for companies to choose well-targeted initial consumers to pass on the viral marketing message, since these people are the basis of viral networks (Helm, 2000; Bannan, 2000). Dobele et al. (2005) suggested that people are more likely to delete email from companies without opening them; therefore, marketers should identify opinion leaders interested in the information in a target segment to network the message throughout the segment. For example, Motorola’s viral campaign achieved 400% original database growth, and 75% of the recipients referred at least one friend by mailing about their V70 model to people who previously registered on the company’s website (Dobele et al., 2007). Furthermore, the number of initial target should be as few as necessary, thus, it allows to design targeted messages contain more relevant information and increase the chance of being forwarded (Phelps, et al., 2004). Dobele et al. (2005) use the A.I viral campaign example further emphasis that opinion leaders can act extend beyond simple WoM to a more complex objective by building a extend target market. According to Pelps et al. (2004), in order to find the right target consumer, advertisers need to identify viral mavens and high opportunity infrequent senders according to detailed profiles of viral participants including demographic similarity, perceptual affinity, and tie strength. WoM communications are more likely to occur when people have similar demographic characteristics in terms of sex, age, and social status (Brown and Reingen, 1987). However, the main weakness of the study is the failure to address how the impact of demographic similarity varies in different decision making stages (De Bruyn and Lilien, 2008). During awareness stage, the influence of demographic similarity further depends on if there exists weaker strength of tie because the message is more valuable between different demographic profiles (Granovetter, 1973). Following the awareness stage, demographic similarities can either strengthen (Gilly et al., 1998) or weaken (Burt, 2007) the influence of the message, which depends on the type of product. For instance, when WoM communication relate to impersonal products (such as choosing a VCR), demographic dissimilarity brings novelty of information and experience outside the social circle, which can be more beneficial (De Bruyn and Lilien, 2008). During the final stage of the decision-making process, the effects of demographic dissimilarity may not be symmetrical (De Bruyn and Lilien, 2008). Higher perceived authority (such as professor to her students) or superior social status (Van den Bulte and Stremersch, 2004) are more likely to have greater influence. Message design On the other hand, Berger and Milkman (2012) suggested that it is more cost effective to focus on crafting contagious content by considering how psychological processes shape social transmission than targeting opinion leaders for generating WoM. The message cannot go viral even when you have the most perfect combination of messenger and online media channel (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2011). Despite message is so important, it has been always ignored (Berger, 2013). Kaplan and Haenlein (2011) also suggested that a well-designed message has the potential to spur a lifelong infection in the market. The relationship between E-WoM motivations and the content of message Internet users’ motivations to forward electronic content are critical factors to the success of viral marketing (Ho and Dempsey, 2010). Ho and Dempsey (2011) reviewed the FIRO theory (Schutz, 1966, cited in Ho and Dempsey, 2010) and found the e-mavens forward information to others due two key motivations: a way of standing out from the crowd and a way of helping others. In Berger’s (2013) talk, he pointed out that people share things to enhance themselves as being good or intelligent. Therefore, Henning-Thurau et al. (2004) suggested crafting a message containing information that may signal connoisseurship to target someone with this motivation. Yap et al. (2013) further suggested to use emphatic and persuasive language which contains words (e.g.: “very”, “definitely”) and express certainty and confidence in judgement. Concern for others relates to the concept of altruism which is based on love and affection (Price et al., 1995). Ho and Dempsey (2010) identified that messages resulting from this motivation should have both greater cognitive and affective characteristics. Moreover, Pollach (2007, cited in Yap et al., 2013) suggested that in order to increase the credibility, designers should avoid colouring the message with emotions and vivid language. Building emotional connection when designing message Dobele et al. (2007) argued that it’s essential to build an emotional connection between the campaign and the recipient therefore the virus gets spread. This can be explained by the phenomenon of social sharing (Reme et al., 1992). People initiate communication to express their emotions (Dobele et al., 2007). In their study, Berger and Milkman (2012) concluded that positive news is more likely to be highly shared than negative news, although it is opposite to the common thoughts. In practical, this means marketers should design message with more useful, interesting, and surprising content. Furthermore, Berger (2013) pointed out that regardless of whether those emotions were a positive (e.g. awe) or negative (e.g. anger or anxiety) nature, content with high-arousal emotions are more likely to go viral. This finding is also consistent with the idea of triggering by capturing the recipient’s imagination in a unique or unforgettable way (Dobele et al., 2007). For example, BMW created a series of short online films called “The Hire” with negative emotion (anxiety), which was concerned to damage the brand. But the result turned out to be highly successful and generated millions of views because anxiety induces arousal according to the theory (Berger and Milkman, 2012). According to Dobele et al. (2007), marketers should not only connect emotions to messages but should also achieve a fit between them. For instance, viral marketing campaigns that use joy are best suited to fun brands (e.g. Apple, Virgin), or efforts to encourage interest in a mature category (e.g. Ford’s Evil car); sadness-based campaign are best suited to seek an immediate rather than long term response to disasters (Dobele et al.,2007). Marketing should be careful especially when using fear and disgust based campaign because it has a high risk of falling foul of legislation and ruin the brand image (Armstrong et al., 2012). Dealing with negative WoM Everything has two sides. WoM can not only foster the spread of information (Goldenberg et al., 2001), boost new customer acquisition (Schmitt et al., 2011), and increase sales in various product categories (Chevalier and Mayzlin, 2006), but also it can hurt product evaluation, create negative perception, and damage sales (Huang and Chen, 2006; Tybout et al., 1981). Therefore, it is necessary for the marketers to consider both the way of execution of WoM and the way to deal with negative WoM when designing a viral marketing campaign (Dobele et al., 2005). No matter whether WoM is positive or negative, it leaves significant cues related to the products or services in the environment, which make consumers more aware about the position of the product (Berger and Fitzsimons, 2008). However, the effect of negative WoM depends on existing product awareness (Berger et al., 2010). If only few people are aware about a book released by a new author, the negative publicity will have positive influence on increasing the awareness. On the other hand, if there is already a lot of buzz about Mission Impossible 3, the negative WoM will have negligible impact or even lower product evaluation (Berger et al., 2010). In addition, according to the idea of sleeper effect (Hannah and Sternthal, 1984), Berger et al. (2010) suggested that sales will be more likely to boost if there is a delay between publicity and purchase opportunity. In practice, delay can be created by increasing barriers to reach the product in terms of time or product awareness. If the negative WoM already exists, this can be a solution of dealing with. For example, if book reviews and the book itself on Amazon.com appear on the same page, the product awareness is high. In contrast, people saw which movies are reviewed that week on the New York Times book review section by coincidence, the review may be the first time to hear about the film, the product awareness is low. Consequently, the negative publicity of the movies is more likely to have positive effect on increasing the volume of sales (Chevalier and Mayzlin, 2006). In conclusion, this paper focused on giving suggestions to three aspects of creating successful viral marketing campaigns including the way to select right initial targets, designing message based on learning recipients’ emotional response, and motivation to pass along messages and solutions to deal with negative WoM. Environment for spreading viral message, this research area, however, is generally assumed to be very hard to control. Sometimes it is just luck to launch a successful viral marketing campaign at the right time and place. Although this assumption seems fair, the success of the campaign can be significantly influenced by the environment. Further research might examine factors in the environment that can influence the success of viral marketing campaigns. References Armstrong, G., Kotler, P., Harker, M. and Brennan, R. (2011). Marketing Introduction. 2nd Ed. Essex: Pearson. p. 478. Arndt, J. (1967). Role of Product-Related Conversations in the Diffusion of a New Product. Journal of Marketing Research. 4(3). pp.291-295. Bannan, K.J. (2000). It’s catching. Brandweek. 41(23).Pp.20-27. Berger, J. and Fitzsimons, G. M. (2008). Dogs on the street, Pumas on your feet: How cues in the environment influence product evaluation and choice. Journal of Marketing Research. 45(1). pp.1-14. Berger, J. and Milkman, K.L. (2012). What makes online content viral? Journal of Marketing Research. 49(2). pp.192-205. Berger, J. (2013). Contagious: Why Things Catch On. [Online] Available from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FN4eDk1pq6U. [Accessed: 30th Dec 2013]. Brown, J.J. and Reingen, P.H. (1987). Social ties and word-of-mouth referral behaviour.Journal of Consumer Research.14(3).Pp.350-362. Burt, R.S. (2007). Brokerage and closure: an introduction to social capital. Oxford University Press. Chevalier, J. and Dina, M. (2006). The effect Of word of mouth on sales: online book reviews.Journal of marketing research. 43(August). pp.345-354. De Bruyn, A., &Lilien, G. L. (2004). A multi-stage model of word of mouth through electronic referrals.[Online]eBusiness Research Center Working Paper.pp.1-30. [Online]Available from:http://www.smeal.psu.edu/cdt/ebrcpubs/res_papers/2004_02.pdf/at_download/file. [Accessed: 28 Dec 2013]. Dobele, A., Toleman, D., Beverland, M. (2005). Controlled infection! Spreading the brand message through viral marketing.Business Horizons. 48(2).pp.143-149. Dobele, A., Lindgreen, A., Beverland, M., Vanhamme, J., van Wijk, R. (2007). Why pass on viral messages? Because they connect emotionally.Business Horizons.50(4).pp.291-304. Gilly, M.C., Graham, J.L., Wolfinbarger, M.F. and Yale, L.J. (1998). A dyadic study of interpersonal information search. Journal of the Academy of Marketing science. 26(2).pp.83-100. Godes,D. and Dina. M. (2009). Firm-Created Word of Mouth Communication: Evidence from a Field Test. Marketing Science. 28(4).pp.721-739. Goldenberg, J., Barak, L., and Eitan, M. (2001). Talk of the network: A complex Systems Look at the Underlying Process of Word of Mouth. Marketing Letters. 12(3).pp.209-221. Granovetter, M.S. (1973). The strength of weak ties.American Journal of Sociology. 78. Pp.1360-1380 Gruen, T. W., Osmonbekov, T., &Czaplewski, A. J. (2006) eWOM:The impact of customer-to-customer online know-howexchange on customer value and loyalty.Journal of BusinessResearch.59(4).pp. 449−456. Hannah, D.B., Sternthal, B. (1984). Detecting and explaining the sleeper effect. Journal of Consumer Research. 11(2). pp.632-642. Helm, S. (2000). Viral marketing – Establishing customer relationships by word-of-mouth.Electronic Markets. 10(3). pp. 158-161. Hennig‐Thurau, T., Gwinner, K. P., Walsh, G., Gremler, D. D. (2004). Electronic word-of-mouth via consumer opinion platforms: what motives consumers to articulate themselves on the internet. Journal of Interactive Marketing. 18(1). pp. 38-52. Hill, R.A. and Dunbar, R.I.M. (2003). Social network size in humans.Human Nature. 14(1). pp. 53-72. Ho, Jason Y.C., Dempsey, M. (2010). Viral marketing: Motivations to forward online content.Journal of Business Research.63(9).pp.1000-1006. Huang, J., Chen, Y. and Ming, H. (2006). Herding in online product choice. Psychology and Marketing. 23(5). pp.413-428. Kaplan, A. M. and Haenlein, M. (2011). Two hearts in three-quarter time: How to waltz the social media/viral marketing dance.Business Horizons. 54(3). pp. 253-263. Katz, E. and Lazarsfeld, P.F. (1955). Personal influence: the part played by people in the flow of mass communications. Glencoe, IL: The free press. Marsden, P.V. (1987). Core discussion networks of Americans. American Sociological Review. 52(1).pp.122-131. Palka, W., Pousttchi, K. and Wiedemann, D.G. (2009). Mobile word-of-mouth-A grounded theory of mobile viral marketing.Journal of Information Technology. 24(2).pp.172-185. Phelps, J. E., Lewis, R., Mobilio, L., Perry, D. and Raman, N. (2004). Viral Marketing or Electronic Word-of-Mouth Advertising: Examining Consumer Responses and Motivations to Pass Along Email. Journal of Advertising Research. 44(4). pp. 333-348.  Rayport, J. (1996). The virus of marketing. [Online]Fast Company. P.1. Available from: http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/06/virus.html. [Accessed: 28 Dec 2013]. Rimé, B., Philippot, P., Boca, S. and Mesquita, B. (1992). Long lasting cognitive and social consequences of emotion: Social sharing and rumination. European Review of Social Psychology. 3(1).pp.225-258. Tybout, A. M., Calder, B. J. and Sternthal, B. (1981). Using information processing theory to design marketing strategies.Journal of Marketing Research.18(1).pp.73-79. Van den Bulte, C. and Stemersch, S. (2004). Social contagion and income heterogeneity in new product diffusion: A meta-analytic test.Marketing Science.23(4).pp.530-544. Yap, K. B., Soetarto, B., Sweeney, J. C. (2013). The relationship between electronic word-of-mouth motivations and message characteristics: The sender’s perspective. Australasian Marketing Journal.21. pp. 66-74. Read More