How Viral Marketing Works

Viral marketing was termed by Harvard Business School professor Jeffrey Rayport in 1996 to describe 'marketing campaigns that use existing social networks to create brand awareness'. Whilst the term has been almost exclusively 'digital' in its connotations, viral marketing has been be around since the invention of money & commerce in the form of 'word of mouth'.

The Internet has however made is possible to pass information from person to person with 'no cost' and as a result, companies and organisations now use viral marketing to create brand awawreness very cost effectively. The viral video was the first form of viral campaign to be used by companies as part of �buzz marketing�. More recently, social netowrking sites such as Facebook & MySpace have created new social media marketing opportunities.

Viral Marketing in Disguise - Bridezilla

Often, consumer brands are promoted within viral marketing videos & animations with no reference to their 'origin' - for example, are you aware of the fact that the 'Bridezilla' video on YouTube, that had over 10,000,000 views, is in fact a marketing piece for SunSilk.

Youtube, MySpace & Facebook

Social media marketing is the new 'buzz marketing' darling, allowing viral advertising content to bypass the security in e-mail browsing software and to be openly displayed on peoples� Facebook and MySpace profiles. This new viral marketing strategy requires the creation of specific types of media, with video being the most common viral marketing medium.

Hugely popular sites like YouTube are a highly cost effective distribution channel for businesses using internet viral marketing campaigns as part of their overall marketing strategy.

Viral Marketing Examples

Viral Marketing Websites &
Information Capture

Chimney Packer was a free viral marketing Christmas game developed by E-creation after the success of SantaVsTheTurkeys (which generated a marketing database of over 30,000 e-mail addresses and names). Today, visitors to websites and recipients of viral marketing materials are much more sensitive about providing their personal details and therefore the emphasis for viral marketing campaigns has had to move away from information capture to awareness generation.

Viral marketing games needs to be incredibly quick to download without overhead on networks. The chimneypacker game, for example, is 180k, or 1/20th the size of a high-quality 10 megapixel digital photo!

To play the game full screen, please click here.

Distributed Viral Marketing Games

E-creation developed a 'juggling' viral marketing game for Confex that was sent directly to attendees and exhibitors. The original concept for the game was based around a 'top-down' game where the player is in charge of several exhibition hall managers whose job is to manage the flow of people into an exhibition hall through doors around the edge of the screen. This generates a �frenetic� arcade style game, with lots of �fast clicking� required in order to stop the disaster that happens when the hall gets too full. The �viral� element of the game would require some �humorous� edge to the characters or the results of failing to stop too many attendees. The concept was then revised to juggling in order to be link into the work activities of attendees.

A 'Space Invaders' viral marketing game that can be 'skinned' and the characters changed to reflect the specific branding of an organisation or company.

In 2001, E-creation�s SantaVStheTurkeys game produced a marketing database list in excess of 30,000 e-mail addresses as people passed the viral email (and attached viral marketing game) from person to person. Microsoft�s modifications to their e-mail browsing software such as Outlook (in order to avoid virus infection) has made it increasingly difficult to create effective viral email marketing campaigns and the viral email is becoming rare beast. Unlike traditional word of mouth marketing where geography can limit the �spread� of a message, online viral marketing is boundless and can travel as astonishing speed. Luckily, due to the �home movie� nature of much of viral advertising, companies can create viral campaigns on very limited budgets, the most effective commodity being creativity, something E-creation has in abundance.

If you want to try the potent power of online viral marketing, have a chat with E-creation for 15 minutes on the phone to brainstorm your viral marketing strategy and see what we can create for you.

viral video, buzz marketing, social media marketing, butterfly marketing, word of mouth marketing, viral campaign, viral advertising, viral email, online viral marketing, viral email marketing, viral marketing campaign, internet viral marketing, viral marketing strategy