UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK IN PRAGUE European Business Administration An in Depth Study of Viral Marketing for the Purpose of Creating a Guide of Best Practices by Aizhan Maulen 2015 William Pattison I, Aizhan Maulen, hereby declare that the material contained in this submission is original work performed by me under the guidance and advice of my mentor, William Pattison. Any contribution made to the research by others is explicitly acknowledged in the thesis. I also declare that this work has not previously been submitted in any form for a degree or diploma in any university. Aizhan Maulen, [9.12.2015] Acknowledgment I would like to thank my parents for support and opportunity to study in this university. Also, I am thankful for my friends, who were near me all 3, 5 years and helped in difficult times. Specifically, I would like to thank entire faculty of University of New York in Prague for all the skills and knowledge, which they gave me. Moreover, I would like to thank my mentor, William Pattison, who professionally introduced me to marketing and helped throughout the evolution of this work. Table of contents Abstract 1. Introduction……………………………………………………………………6 2. What is viral marketing………………………………………………………..7 2.1 History of viral marketing…………………………………………………8 2.2 Types of viral marketing…………………………………………………10 2.2.1 Organic viral marketing……………………………………...10 2.2.2 Amplified viral marketing……………………………………11 2.3 Advantages and disadvantages…………………………………..………12 2.3.1 Advantages……………………………………………….…..12 2.3.2 Disadvantages………………………………………….……..14 3. How to create viral marketing………………………………………………..15 4. How viral marketing works……………………………………………..……21 5. How to spread viral marketing………………………………………….……24 6. Additional successful practices………………………………………...…….30 7. Failed viral marketing campaigns……………………………………………34 8. Viral marketing typology…………………………………………………….39 9. Personal research……………………………………………………….…….40 9.1 Research 1………………………………………………………….…….42 9.1.1 Method………………………………………………………….42 9.1.2 Response rate………………………………………….………..42 9.1.3 Results………………………………………………………….43 9.1.4 Issues according research…………………………...………….54 9.1.5 Summary………………………………………………………..54 9.2 Research 2………………………………………………………………..55 9.2.1 Method…………………………………………………..……..57 9.2.2 Results………………………………………………….………58 9.2.3 Summary……………………………………………..…………64 10. Guidelines………………………………………………………………...…..65 11. Conclusion…………………………………………………………………....69 Work cited……………………………………………………………..……..72 Appendices………………………………………………………………..….79 Abstract Social media is one of the most popular communication channels in the twenty first century. Year after year the use of the Internet is dramatically increasing; people are able to communicate, share and gather information faster than ever. These new opportunities lead to the appearance of a new types of marketing namely viral marketing. This non-traditional, below-the-line marketing tool changed the rules of the marketing field and created more opportunities for companies. With viral marketing they can promote their products to larger amount of consumers in a smaller period of time and at a lower cost. This research paper explores how technological advances, to include growth of social media sites on the Internet helps marketing messages go “viral”. Moreover, this paper summarizes brief history of viral marketing, examines real life successful and unsuccessful campaigns and scrutinizes advantages and disadvantages of viral marketing. Furthermore, the work analyzes rules and features of viral marketing in order to help in creating future potential viral marketing campaigns. Research has shown that it is important for a given marketing manager to make sure that marketing message is understandable for consumers. Moreover, content is a key element of the future advertising as consumers are exposed to content before passing it to others. The viral marketing concept is a successful strategy in creating brand awareness, trust among customers while increasing rate of return of marketing campaigns. Maulen6 1. Introduction In 2014 students at University of New York created a congratulatory video for mothers on 8th of March, International Women’s Day. The creators asked 25 random people of different nationalities to say “I love you, mom” in their language. The video spread across the Internet, and became popular in Prague. This case leads the researcher, who was one of the creators to the question of; how companies could use Internet in their marketing strategies most effectively. Marketing can be referred to as satisfying market needs by the commercialization of product and services (Kirby & Marsden, 2006). Therefore, it is almost impossible to imagine successful company without it in a free market. Moreover, marketing is a complex science, which is evolving from traditional to non-traditional marketing strategies continuously. Above the line marketing which is traditional includes advertising through media, such as television, radio and newspapers. Below the line marketing, also known as a Guerrilla marketing or when company reaches its consumer directly. Guerrilla marketing is divided to ambient marketing, ambush marketing, and viral marketing (Hutter & Hoffmann, 2011). From year to year the Internet is being filled with new names and words, such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube. These represent social-communities, where people can communicate, share information and spend time. Because of the technological development and popularization of social networks, expensive traditional marketing strategies became an ineffective tool. The internet gave to people an opportunity to come closer to others more quickly, subsequently becoming a new Maulen7 platform for marketers. Due to the fact that the internet allows companies to reach a wider range of consumers for a cheaper price, in less time this channel is increasingly popular for companies seeking to engage with consumers. The focus of this paper is called viral marketing. Today people do not like to be manipulated and advertised toward overtly. Consumers are aware of tricks or gimmicks, which in the past have been used by marketers. However, viral marketing allows marketers to easily involve customers in the promotion without their awareness. 2. What is Viral marketing According to Justin Kirby, viral marketing is also associated with “word-of-mouth”, “creating buzz”, or “network marketing” is a trend that creates an exponential growth of the marketing message by encouraging people to spread it around (2006). The idea of viral marketing is to create a buzz around the product, to make people share and talk about your advertisement, without knowing that it is an actual advertisement (Kirby, 2006). The main advantage is that when implementation is successful, it can bring worldwide popularity and profit for small amount of investment. One of the perfect examples is the “Evian baby & me” video campaign. This video has been viewed almost 116 million times and had an incredible popularity among people (Evian babies, 2015). Most of the advertisements become viral accidentally, as an example someone creates a funny video and sends it to his friend. This friend sends it to another one and so on. Sometimes even an author does not expect it to be viral. David Meerman Scott an expert from the Wall Street Journal, states that viral campaigns should have some interesting web content, preferably free, which is unique, funny or creative, and celebrity would be an advantage. Also, marketer should have a group of people, who Maulen8 will start sharing it with all the links (2010). This being said it is almost impossible to forecast if a campaign will go viral or not. Marketers can use one or more of the different networks to push their content, such as blogs, Twitter, Instagram, and Youtube. Most of the networks on the Internet are free; therefore, this presents opportunity for companies with a limited budget. They only need to start sharing it, and other people will do all the work for them. David Scott names it as World Wide Rave, when people start sharing content with others and start talking about it (2010). David gives some advice to make your idea worth of sharing; he calls it Rules of the Rave (2010): 1. Marketer should create something interesting, which will entertain others. Most of the time, people start browsing Internet, because they are bored and have some time. They search for funny and unusual things, and sometimes something that will solve their problems. 2. You cannot force someone to share your idea, and you need to make your content free. You cannot use some traditional advertising tricks, such as sales, coupons or free presents. 3. Marketers should always remember that concept of the World Wide Rave is to make your product recognizable in the web. 2.1 History of Viral marketing PC User magazine was the first, who used the term “viral marketing” in its article in 1989 (Kirby, 2006). It was used to explain the phenomena when a person is more willing to do something after someone else does it. After, in 1996 Jeffrey Rayport, Maulen9 professor of Harvard Business School wrote an article “The Virus of Marketing”, where he named a new way of marketing: viral marketing or v-marketing. He asserts that virus as a “marketing program” one of the efficient ways to succeed with limited budget and time (1996). However, this term gained popularity only after successful Hotmail.com free email services (Kirby & Marsden, 2006). During that period people needed to pay for emails and could send them