Modern Marketing Activities - Essay Example

Viral Marketing Epidemic

Introduction

Under the conditions of increased demand and supply growth, the rapid change and the increasing role of the consumers' preferences determines the production and sales of goods and services' structure of modern enterprise to retain its position in the market. In addition to this, such an approach is to help win its substantial share. Thus, a special attention development and improvement of marketing activity should be paid.

Modern marketing activities of any company is revealed as a set of functions, which are related to the formation of knowledge, allowing to create forward and reverse communication channels that exchange, process and set the conversion of market and corporate information flows in tools which help improve the efficiency and maximize the specific market needs.

Using the modern technology of virus, the companies, by this, are engaged in an increasingly forced step, because advertising efforts do not apply the same means to attract customers as it used to be before. Traditional means of promotion, and, in particular, almost all forms of advertising and public relations, have been steadily losing their effectiveness. Currently, the global network allows to create high-quality viral message, which will operate under one condition – if the users like it. To cause this to happen, it is essential that viral content is relevant to the target audience. The viral marketing effectiveness is enhanced if the content and can be easily extended, for example, to place a link to it in someone's account in a particular social network. This situation raises the company in the eyes of potential consumers, because in this case the creator of the viral content is a beloved company that just amuses people, helping them share this funny movie or a joke. Thus, viral campaign can be positioned as a unique gift from the advertiser to potential and existing customers of the products. In general, the effectiveness of viral marketing impact on consumers can be determined on the basis of qualitative and quantitative indicators. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to reflect on the essence of viral marketing by means of a certain empirical case.

Personal Reflection

Viral marketing is generally believed to be the common name of various methods of advertising in which goods, services or their advertising affect a person to a great extent, so that they are 'infected' with the idea of ​​the spread of the product (service). Regarding this issue, Yang (2012, p. 3) states that “combining the strengths of Internet marketing and word-of-mouth communication, viral marketing represents the latest online customer-centric advertising, prevailing over traditional advertising channels.” Thus, methodical principles of viral marketing are generally based on the promotion of the product by means of the transfer of a marketing message to other people.

Similarly to viruses, such technology will use any opportunity to increase the number of sent messages. The term 'viral marketing' appeared about 15 years ago. Now this area is becoming increasingly popular. The basic idea is that viral marketing is using people's habit of sharing information. When a person gets a funny video, beautiful music, an unusual picture is primarily a hurry to share it with the friends. Viral marketing is based on this feature of human behavior, there is a cascade of proliferation effect. Currently, “viral marketing is at an early stage of development and much of the current viral marketing communication (VMC) literature research is concerned with understanding the motivations and behaviours of those passing-on email messages” (Cruz & Fill, 2008, p. 744).

Thus, viral marketing is the general name of various methods of dissemination of advertising, which is characterized by the proliferation in the progression which is close to the geometry. There, the main disseminators of information are recipients of information. They work by generating content, which is able to attract new recipients by bright, creative, unusual ideas or using natural massages. The viral marketing differs from the ordinary marketing by the fact that it features the use of creative thinking, along with some very simple methods of promotion of goods or services, rather than spend heavily on their advertising.

Personally, I watch such ads due to the reason that the virus may be a kind of a message, whose purpose is to maintain and attract the attention of new customers, the original goods or shares, audio and video clips, pictures that will attract attention and help quickly disseminate information about a product or service. Due to the fact that the majority of the population have a low level of trust in advertising in general, and especially coming from the manufacturer, the basic principle of viral marketing is that the person receiving the information message should be sure that it comes from a person, who is disinterested (for example, from an acquaintance, or a stranger, but in no case do not affiliate to the campaign). A man will to listen to another person's positive feedback about the product and will most likely buy this product. And vice versa: seeing the commercials for this product, a person will ignore it, as it is widely believed that advertising embellishes the quality of the goods. Thus, due to unusual feed source of information, its original, often encrypted content of viral marketing is significantly superior to conventional methods of advertising both in speed and in the spread of the scale.

As a consequence, I personally believe that the advantages of using viral marketing are a loan increase confidence in the company (goods and services) as well as the because of the fact that information comes from reliable sources (friends, acquaintances, which listen to the opinion of the consumer); by enabling users to participate in the process, usually unintentionally; no expensive. The main disadvantages of viral marketing is the difficulty in controlling the organization, a strong distortion of the initial information and the complexity, which is associated with the development of 'viral' idea. Furthermore, I find it interesting to surf the investigations on viral marketing. Thus, I liked the idea that “although there is some evidence on the usefulness of mobile viral marketing from the marketers’ perspective, it is surprising to find relatively few studies directed at the systematic examination of the motivations, attitudes, and behaviors of consumers engaged in this marketing instrument” (Rollins, Anitsal & Anitsal, 2014, p. 173).

Having researched for this topic, I came up with an understanding that viral marketing is used in various situations, such as in the derivation of a new brand (companies, products, services) on the market. Frequently, the companies change the brand in order to increase its recognition, in crisis situations or in order to draw attention to the specific product (service), as well as to test the loyalty of the public. Aggressive viral marketing is used during the advertising campaigns of competitors.

Marketer Application – The Plan of the Viral Video

The viral video which is going to be created and further discussed in this paper concerns the promotion of a brand by using the techniques of hidden massage and fun attraction of the viewers. Thus, the video starts with the depiction of two people sitting in the park. It is sunny and the light wind is blowing. Two people, a man who is aged 25 and a woman under her thirties, are discussing the way they spent the yesterday's party which was held by their friend. They recall a great variety of various funny moments they witnessed. One of the moments concerns the situation when their friend, Lucy, get undressed when she drank too much rum. This was a shocking situation due to the reason that Lucy has always been believed to be the calmest and the shyest person ever, who is totally incapable of behaving like that. When a couple are sitting and discussing this issue with a lot of smiles on their faces, all this time at their background there is a ma who is advertising Volkswagen cars and attracts the viewer's attention by the strange movements of his hands, when he is holding a huge banner which reads, “Volkswagen.”

Thus, when a person watches this viral advertisement, they pay the focus attention to the couple speaking about the party staff and the fun they had had before. However, the background of the picture is filled with the stimulus which attracts attention, and the viewers' subconsciousness records this and analyzes the actions of that man at the background. As a consequence, the advertisement's message is not communicated in the direct way, but is transmitted via the semi-obvious representation of the brand. This helps keep a viewer's attention to the video, since they would be particularly interested in the way the couple's conversation finishes.

Marketer Reflection

Due to the fact that the assessment of the effectiveness of viral marketing exposure is a quite complicated problem, it is possible to state that a company, which introduces the use of this marketing tool in its promotional activities, should not engage in parallel with other forms of marketing activity. However, this action is advisable only when the firm's greater interest is solely a research component, rather than the bottom line on the use of marketing communications, as a whole. In any case, the greatest effect of the use of viral marketing may be obtained by applying it to other integrated marketing communications tools.

In general, prior to the launch of a viral marketing techniques, represented in the part 2 of this paper, the company must accurately identify the target audience, which is aimed at a specific viral content in order to take account of possible changes in consumer preferences. Otherwise, the effect of use of this type of marketing communications will be minimal, since the launch of 'viral wave' initiates a high interest of potential consumers to the voluntary dissemination of information about the product or the company itself.

An important condition for the effective use of viral advertising (based on the video depicted in the previous part of this paper) is the harmonious interaction of the marketing department with the sales department in the part of the operational preparation and processing of information for the calculation of the performance's quantitative indicators. In particular, when using this video, it is necessary to assess the impact of the use of viral marketing to change the enterprise in sales, a comparison of changes in viral marketing with a change in the market (sales) response costs, etc.

Such monitoring of the market activity will allow to quickly identify possible shortcomings in the implementation of the virus technologies and to respond quickly to them, in order to correct them. An important aspect in the development of viral content is the testing to be carried out continuously in small groups of potential consumers. This test is particularly important when running on the scale of the global virus within a country or a few countries, because in this case the company loses the right to make mistakes that can occur due to a sharp discrepancy in understanding the company's needs and desires of the target audience.

From a consumer's perspective, viral advertising is not simply an offer to pay attention to a certain product, but it is communication, which involves it in the game, since it can surprise and cheer up. Also, as well, unsuccessful or too shocking viral message can cause the opposite effect and discourage potential buyers.

In the development of viral marketing strategy it is important to feel a line between originality and vulgarity, as well as to identify and take into account the expectations of the target audience. When using viral marketing it is important to be especially careful, because the clear market orientation of viral content can likely lead to a decrease in loyalty to this brand.

Given the above introduction of viral marketing on the market and the video in question (represented in the previous part of the paper) should be subject to the following rules: a competent definition of clear objectives and deadlines of the viral campaigns; a clear understanding of the needs and requirements of potential customers; use of the most low-cost way, because creativity with a twist is the best substitute for a large monetary investments.

Conclusion

Thus, viral marketing opportunities listed put it on par in popularity with major marketing communication tools. Its main feature is ultra-fast distribution and possession of a high degree of consumer confidence. Viral marketing creates the preconditions for its wide distribution on the modern consumer market. The basis of effective viral marketing is the ability to find unconventional and effective ways to promote in order to increase the level of sales, both by attracting new customers and by increasing loyalty in general. In this marketing tool, the main means of creating are not investments, but creativity and imagination. However, the advantages of viral marketing, in any case, can not reject the use of other traditional tools of marketing communications, as its independent application does not allow for maximum efficiency that can be achieved only at the expense of their synergy.

Thus, due to unusual source of information, its original, often encrypted content of viral marketing is significantly superior to conventional methods of advertising both in speed and spread. The advantages of using viral marketing: the increase of confidence in the company (goods and services) as well as in the information, which comes from the reliable sources (friends, acquaintances, which listens to the opinion of the consumer); by enabling users to participate in the process, usually unintentionally; not expensive.

The main disadvantages of viral marketing is the difficulty in controlling the organization, a strong distortion of the initial information and the complexity which are associated with the development of 'viral' idea. Viral marketing is used in various situations, such as in the derivation of a new brand (companies, products, services) on the market.