Perspectives of Viral Marketing Among Managers: An Internet Based Assessment

University of Lugano Faculties of Communication and Economics Sciences MSc in Communication and Economics - Major in Corporate Communication, Minor in Marketing Perspectives of viral marketing among managers: an Internet based assessment Master’s Thesis by Veronika Kurucz 05-983-507 Thesis Supervisor: Prof. Albert Caruana SS 2007-2008 © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 1 Abstract This thesis investigates the concept of viral marketing. The study claims that viral marketing is becoming increasingly recognized as an important form of promotion, particularly within the online environments. In a world where consumers are showing increasing resistance to traditional form of advertising, the Internet with its online social and consumer communities offering interactivity and peer-to-peer connections plays a critical role in information distribution and consumers’ choices. New marketing activities – e.g. word of mouth, buzz and viral marketing – gained more attention while marketers are responding to the need of distribute their messages in new ways. Being a relatively new concept, viral marketing is multiinterpreted. It is often defined as a set of online techniques seeking to exploit preexisting social networks to produce exponential increases in brand awareness, through processes similar to the spread of an epidemic. The present study seeks to explore the factors and trends that are likely to enhance the chances to define and depict viral marketing. Introduction and literature overview are drawing from different types of fonts – both academic and professional. Furthermore the thesis examines findings from Internet based discussions executed in an international online professional network – LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com). Seven questions were employed in order to elicit a definition of viral marketing based on the online professional network’s users’ perspective of the phenomenon. Respondents are mainly marketing and communication professionals, some of them shared his/her valuable business intelligence based on a multi-year experience achieved by working with world famous brands. The findings highlight the further need for conceptualizing viral marketing. It was not clearly defined its relation to word of mouth, but it was figured out the potential impact of the context and the characteristics of the message on how fast can be a message delivered. Research limitations suggest to undertake a replication of the study with a different research design, namely based on focus group discussions. Therefore the findings are more tentative and based on a research sample of which results are not representative. However, they provide a useful framework for future research into the process of viral marketing and it revealed the opportunity to examine its relation to theories in social networking and computer-mediated communications. At the end of this study professional implications are also discussed, providing marketing managers with a better understanding of the main factors and applicability of viral marketing. The originality of this thesis consists of the research methodology applied – interview questions posted in an online professional network – despite of that realization and sample selection would require further improvements. Keywords: viral marketing, word of mouth, social networks, consumer community, web 2.0, “ideavirus”, LinkedIn © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 2 Table of Contents Abstract....................................................................................................2 Table of Contents ...................................................................................... 3 Table of Figures ........................................................................................ 5 Acknowledgements ..................................................................................... 6 Chapter 1 - General Introduction ................................................................. 7 1.1 Introduction to the phenomenon of viral marketing................................................................ 7 1.2 Shifts in traditional advertising................................................................................................ 8 Chapter 2 - Literature Review .................................................................. 13 Section One – The Context of Viral Marketing ............................................. 13 2.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 13 2.1.1 Virtual Communities and Social Networking ....................................................................... 13 2.1.2 Empowered customers in the Web 2.0 .............................................................................. 17 2.1.3 New tools open a new phase on the web .......................................................................... 21 2.1.4 From monologue to dialog – the power of blogs in disseminating messages .................. 23 Section Two – Frameworks for Viral Marketing ............................................ 25 2.2 A definition of viral marketing................................................................................................ 25 2.2.1 Seth Godin: Unleashing the Ideavirus ................................................................................ 26 2.2.2 Emanuel Rosen: The Anatomy of Buzz .............................................................................. 30 2.2.3 Gladwell: The Tipping Point ................................................................................................ 33 2.2.4 Science of Memetics........................................................................................................... 34 Section Three – Viral Marketing vs. Word of Mouth...................................... 37 2.3 “Viral marketing is a form of word-of-mouth”....................................................................... 37 2.3.1 Some definition of word of mouth (WOM) .......................................................................... 37 2.3.1.1 Managerial implications of word of mouth ...................................................................... 39 2.3.1.2 Behavioural implications of word of mouth in social interactions ................................... 40 2.3.2 WOM in the mirror of the diffusion of innovations theory of Rogers.................................. 41 2.3.3 Industries of WOM .............................................................................................................. 45 2.3.4 Electronic WOM and word of mouse................................................................................... 46 2.3.5 Other facets of viral marketing........................................................................................... 47 2.3.5.1 Measurability of viral marketing ...................................................................................... 48 2.3.5.2 The viral marketing mix................................................................................................... 49 2.3.5.3 Viral marketing instruments............................................................................................ 52 Chapter 3 – Research Focus ..................................................................... 54 Research Focus ....................................................................................... 54 © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 3 Chapter 4 - Research Methodology ............................................................ 57 4.1 The original idea – conduct online focus groups.................................................................. 57 4.2 Advantages versus disadvantages of online focus groups ................................................... 59 4.3. Preparation on the virtual venue - LinkedIn.com................................................................. 61 4.3.1 Challenges.......................................................................................................................... 63 4.4. Processing............................................................................................................................ 64 Chapter 5 - Conclusions ........................................................................... 68 5.1 Summary of the main findings............................................................................................... 68 5.2 Implications for management ................................................................................................ 86 5.2.1 “Remarkable” message seeded in the right context ......................................................... 86 5.2.2 Treat viral marketing as part of the overall marketing communication strategies............. 87 5.2.3 Main questions to evaluate in planning viral marketing campaign .................................... 88 5.3 Limitation of the study........................................................................................................... 89 5.4 Directions of future studies ................................................................................................... 89 Bibliography ........................................................................................... 91 References................................................................................................................................... 91 Further readings .......................................................................................................................... 98 Appendixes ........................................................................................... 100 Appendix 1 – Official invitation to LinkedIn.com members ................................................... 100 Appendix 2 – Official invitation to not LinkedIn.com members ............................................. 101 © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 4 Table of figures Figure 1. Figure 2. Figure 3. Figure 4. Figure 5. Figure 6. Figure 7. Figure 8. Figure 9. Figure 10. Trends behind viral marketing ................................................. 14 Web 2.0 Meme Map ................................................................ 18 The difference between Web1.0 and Web 2.0 ............................. 19 Three phases of the Web ......................................................... 22 Viral Marketing Instruments .................................................... 53 LinkedIn People Count ............................................................ 61 LinkedIn Network Statistcs ...................................................... 65 General Demographics of the Group of Respondents .................. 66 Viral Marketing Meme Map ...................................................... 71 Viral marketing (VM) vs. word of mouth (WOM) ......................... 77 © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 5 Acknowledgements I thank Professor Albert Caruana for the support I received during his supervision. He provided me not only lots of valuable suggestions but also wisdom. What is more important to me that he all the time believed me and motivated me throughout the dissertation process. Thank you for trusting me and for your patience. I would like to say a big thank to all the fifty-two persons who were interested in my thesis research carried out on LinkedIn.com. I received numerous positive comments and feedback, sometime thoughtful questions. I enjoyed the more this part of my thesis project. I am especially grateful to James, Brian, Fred, Rajesh, Regina, Maria, Eric and Mark for their encouragements. Thank you ALL! I thank Alberto who allowed me to use the office during the weekends and for his interest in my thesis work. Thank you for pushing me a bit sometimes. Finally and most importantly I want to thank Norbi, my husband. He was always besides me and he taught me to believe in myself. Without him I would have never undertake a second master in completely different disciplines from my original background. Without you I could not get it along and I would not be here where I am. © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 6 Chapter 1 General Introduction 1.1 Introduction to the phenomenon of viral marketing Every day we are exposed to thousand of advertising information, which includes many types of marketing communications: lots of printed ads being readers of some magazines and newspapers, free brochures received every week, television commercials, ads in the radio while we are driving between our workplace and home, billboards on the roads and buildings, billboards on the subway, bus and tram, printed ads in the ski-lift. Through our online connections we receive advertising in different forms: spams, pop-ups, banners, direct e-mails, newsletters. How many of them we dedicate time and energy to read, watch and hear not mentioning to consider them? How many of these techniques have already lost its credibility because of the way they reach us? What are the most reliable sources of recommendations of today? Has something changed from the old times in the marketplace? Similarly to our forefathers from centuries we like to share information with each other. Once upon a time consumers had a good experience with a marketer or his product, they would tell their neighbourhoods, parents and friends, who would often buy and use that product and then tell it to others – dispersing information and recommendations about somebody (producer, supplier, marketer) or something (product, animal, slave) via a social network. We behave in the same way in the today’s marketplace, as well. The phenomenon of passing the word – word of mouth – has been considered for many times as the unique reliable source of information. This seems to be remained constant. Word of mouth rather considered as the most powerful way not just to make the purchase decision easier but to help to make it (Silverman 2001). It is supposed that this old power – the power of word of mouth - relies on the bottom of a marketing technique called viral marketing. The pronounced word about a product or service expressed in the right context appears to have the characteristics © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 7 of a virus. One manifestation in the right ambient starts to self-propagate itself with such speed that thousands of people will become informed about the message. What mechanisms need to be happened until the purchasing is the objective of another thesis? This study aims at discovering the real features and perspectives of viral marketing through and exploratory research in an Internet based social and professional community. 1.2 Shifts in traditional advertising It is a notable trend that online information is altering brand opinions and purchasing behaviour and it is affecting online and offline sales (Dellarocas, Zhang and Awad 2007). Due to this fact more and more companies discover the importance of a larger investment in online branding (Raney et all. 2003; Daniels 2002). To map these information flows and evaluate their relative importance to new consumers is an essential part of branding that requires understanding of customer dynamics, which allows firms to improve web, retail, brand and communication strategies. Once equipped with this knowledge of the phenomenon, advertising agencies have to deal with these new tendencies of spreading on-line information – such as “branded entertainment” amalgamating new tools in their portfolio. Advertising which wants to reach the “viral” effect grew out of the need of creating entertaining content, which is often sponsored by a brand – or directly built around it - and is trying to boost brand awareness of a product or service (Adamson 2007). These viral commercials often take the form of funny video clips, or interactive Flash games, advergames, images or even text messages. Lumpkin and Dess (2004), who consider how the Internet adds value to technology-driven business initiatives, argue that video games were already popular before the Web had strengthen its presence in the business era. The Internet however allows the featuring of new digital technologies in order to create more interesting messages in the online context, thereby raising consumers’ interest. Advertisers that combine the interactive character of online solutions have got the power to involve and entertain their costumers. Online advergames - transferring message, which are no longer ‘static’ – are able to generate buzz and weave consumers into an experience during a flash game, for instance. One of the most important © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 8 characteristics of an advergame is its relevancy to the product that the game is trying to promote. There are many well-known big brands (Coke, Nike, Heineken, Mentos, Volkswagen, to mention just some of the most famous ones) that have launched a new product through an integrated marketing communication campaign using advergames in combination with a microsite. For example, BMW in 2006 has launched a campaign to promote the new X31. BMW in trying to reach a new consumer segment – one with a passion for performance and a need for space but at a lower price point – asked Skyworks Technologies, Inc. to create a game for its website. Skyworks is one of the best providers of sponsored digital entertainment, they are pioneers in the genre for more than ten years, having created over 200 sponsored games for many of America’s best known brands. The game for BMW X3 was designed to mirror the active lifestyles of the vehicles’ potential purchasers. In the game players could test drive the X3 on various terrains. While the game was loading players could view some of the features that the vehicle was offering. Exploiting opportunities given by new technological solutions – using Flash, widgets, blogs in order to make marketing more interactive – in combination with traditional advertising techniques has become an essential part of the marketing mix. New marketing trends indicate that it is not enough to invest exclusively in “image” advertising, but on the contrary, businesses are more and more aware of the complexity of today’s media map. Consumers are exposed to multiple experiences via multiple methods such as telephone, face-to-face, Internet, TV channels and print media. Consequently, there is an increasing need to employ new reaching techniques into the multi channel mix of communication (Stuart-Menteth et al. 2005). Marketers noticed that they can add value to the online context of investing in Internet based solutions, accessing the venue where people create bindings in order to exchange messages and create virtual social networks. These networks are the fruits of another typical phenomenon of today: people tired of not just traditional advertising but also such new intrusive advertising formats as banners, pop-ups, other eyeball techniques and direct e-mails (Mandelli 2005; Phelps at al. 2004). Researches are claiming that too many advertising messages fail to get the attention 1 http://www.bmwusa.com/newX3; last accessed on 23 December 2006. © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 9 their target group. The reason behind this is that people are annoyed by advertising. As a consequence more and more marketing managers distrust the efficiency of their measures (Edwards, Hairong and Lee 2002; Shen 2002; Tezinde 2002). While traditional advertising tools show an obvious sign of inefficiency, the variety of online marketing techniques have provided a new approach that has opened new perspectives for communication specialists. In the digital marketing era the Internet has empowered costumers to interact with each other or directly with companies (Chatzidakis and Mitussis 2007). Already in 2004 Jeremy Karnell predicted digital marketing trends claiming that “…offline spending to achieve less than 1% growth in overall expenditures, while projections for online show an increase of over 20%.” (Karnell 2004). The rise of new marketing strategies is basing on the augment of the Internet’s importance as the most important medium in the lives of modern customers. However the impact of the Internet goes beyond being a new medium between consumers and marketers. The Internet has altered the way how businesses are conducted making it possible to move from analog to digital technologies. The revolution of information technology has led to new ways of interaction and created new business opportunities. As a result, new marketing strategies has been developed in order to exploit this interactive relationship among companies and their costumers. Firms are trying to attract costumers through search engine marketing when the firm works with search engines (Google, Yahoo) to catch the attention of customers who have indicated interest in something through a search phrase. This practice is growing very quickly. From the consumer side, there is an active interest and demand to participate and be involved in the digital economy. Opinions, reviews, and discussion of products or services are omnipresent on the Web through blogs, wikis and chat rooms (Moynagh and Worsley 2002). Moreover consumers create their own ads for products. They reply to existing ads by creating parodies of the original ad and they are not inhibited to share them with the world (see Revolution and Slob Evolution as responses to Dove’s Evolution video on You Tube2). Interaction with customers is 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpXInB9aV7A&mode=related&search= © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 10 central to realizing the benefits that the Internet can provide in understanding customers and developing more personalised marketing communications. In creating this personalisation and providing the opportunity to create positive brand perceptions, customers need to be engaged within the online environment. The phenomenon of consumption related online interactions is commented by Hodders (2002, quoted in Moore 2003) and perceived as an important strategic pillar for those companies who wan to explore the opportunity of online branding through social networks: “Interaction is a deliberately chosen word, because people are connecting with brands in an increasingly two-way relationship. . . . Brands that thrive are no longer simply trying to publicise themselves in a monolithic way, they are inviting consumers to join them in creating meaning and being a part of the process. Interaction is key; e.g… Nike, who allows you to remix the colour schemes of their trainers online and brand them with your name. Consumers are becoming producers, which some herald as the next stage of the consumer revolution—masscustomisation. ‘Passonability’ is key in a multi-channel communication world full of phone calls, emails and text messages—if brands can involve people in playful ways which are passed on and disseminated organically, they are far more likely to be successful . . . Brands which are perceived to enhance our relationships and be worth sharing with friends are the ones which will prosper.” With the extension of interactive marketing activities another concept received a lot of attention: the so called “user generated content” (Kalyanam et al 2007). Here are just some of the most well known conversational and interactive platforms: MySpace.com, Technorati.com, Lulu.com, Bloggers.com, LinkedIn.com and Facebook.com (Klaaseen 2007). These communities provide information and social support for their users. The aim is no longer merely to look for product information or advices concerning a brand, but also to get together and share an experience (Cova and Cova 2002). Prior theory has already drawn attention to the experiential context of consumption (see Holbrook and Hirschman, 1982; Addis and Holbrook, 2001; Muniz and O’Guinn, 2001). Consumer tribalization and social networking are becoming an important supplement to social and consumption © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 11 behaviour. To gain insights in these important areas it is fundamental to understand the perspectives of viral marketing, the main purpose of this study. The following chapter tries to provide with a framework and history to understand better the term viral marketing, leading readers to a deeper introduction into facts and trends that made possible to coin a marketing strategy with the adjective “viral”. Chapter 3 will reveal the focus of the research, while Chapter 4 presents us the research methodology used in this thesis – Internet based discussions among managers. The last section – Chapter 5 – will disclose the results of the research. Managerial implications, limitations of the research, and further research development are also discussed. © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 12 Chapter 2 Literature Review Section One – The context of viral marketing 2.1 Introduction Viral marketing is a catchy expression always getting more attention. There is a lot of interests in viral marketing (Devin 2006). Sometimes it is used as equivalent to word of mouth, buzz marketing, guerrilla marketing (Carl 2006). Where does the concept come from? Is it a buzzword, or a new fancy expression for today’s marketers? This chapter looking for the answers is structured in two main sections. First, a discussion follows about the main trends and circumstances occurred in the marketing communication landscape, which make us possible to speak about viral marketing (see Figure 1). This introductory part will focus on two main domains that have changed significantly the way marketers approach customers: 1) social networks and virtual communities 2) customers’ relation to the Internet. This thesis retains that these two factors have significantly influenced marketers to develop new communication strategies. Three concepts will be emphasized: the concept of Web 2.0, new online tools and the diffusion of online blogs. Secondly, the overview of literature strictly related to viral marketing and theoretical framework are presented thereby provide a more comprehensive understanding of how the various themes studied come together and it facilitates the preparation of an Internet based discussions on the topic. 2.1.1 Virtual Communities and Social Networking The rise of virtual communities in on-line social networks has set in motion an unprecedented shift in power from vendors of services and goods to customers who buy them. Viral marketing can exploit existing social networks by encouraging © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 13 customers to share product information with their friends. Therefore the revelation of such social networks is vital both for businesses and for advertising agencies, which may use these networks in order to convey more effectively a firm’s messages. Figure 1. Trends behind viral marketing Yet most of today’s advertising agencies employ marketing which still focuses on how to use advertising to influence costumers individually in their home sitting in front of the TV. Rosen (2000) claims in his book – The Anatomy of Buzz – that purchasing is a social process that couldn’t be neglected by nowadays’ marketers. Rosen quotes Len Short, executive vice president of advertising and brand management at Charles Schwab: “The idea that a critical part of marketing is word of mouth and validation from important personal relationship is absolutely key, and most managers ignore it.” To make the best use of viral marketing techniques – both online and offline – it is crucial to understand and consider that products and services spread among the consumer public through interpersonal communication networks. Hagel and Armstrong (1997) approaching the dynamism of virtual communities from the e-commerce point of view, emphasise their attractiveness and how they add value to vendors-consumers dynamics. From the economic point of view, online communities are not only channels for shifting power from vendor to customer, but also it is a good tool in the hand of a community organizer for creating wealth. The fuel for an opportunity to growth and for value creation is given by its being “virtual” (Hagel and Armstrong 1997). According to the authors “…commercial success in the on-line arena will belong to those who organize virtual communities to meet multiple social and commercial needs. By creating strong virtual communities, business will be able to build membership audiences and use © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 14 these audiences to bring in revenues in the form of advertising, transaction fees and membership fees” (idem p.5). Now, at the beginning of 2008 we know they were right. The revenue based prosperity of online connectivity is confirmed by a professor of Operation and Information Management at The Wharton School, Eric K. Clemons (2005) who states: “As we learned from the first dot-com silliness, value is not in click-through or eyeballs. Value comes from revenues… Can you sell subscriptions to your data or your service? Can you charge for referrals or for purchases that result from referrals? Can you sell stuff? If not, your revenue is zero and your market value is zero.”3 The concept of virtual communities basing on social networks is not new. Yet in 1974 it has been mentioned and described in terms of how invisible communities of consumption evolve (Boorstin, 1974 cited by Dwyer 2002 p. 64). A number of articles can be found depicting the impact of social networks and virtual communities on marketing approaches (e.g. Addis and Holbrook, 2001; Muniz and O’Guinn, 2001). In the online context there are also studies recognising consumer groups as virtual communities (de Moor 2007; Kwai Fun Ip and Wagner 2007; Adamic and Adar 2003; Holme et al. 2004). For an Internet based marketing strategy the presence of chat rooms, blogs, virtual brand communities and message boards can be relevant. We often speak about marketing that is “viral” where the message was seeded in a virtual community and spread extremely fast under the influence of electronic word-of-mouth or the so called word-of-mouse. Since it is generated by consumers themselves there is more trust in the message, which is one of the biggest advantages of some viral marketing techniques. Forward-thinking brands are already using online viral marketing to generate widespread brand awareness, and ultimately to sell more products and services. Word-of-mouth is a common example to generate involvement and consumer responses. Thus viral marketing is often also referred to as "word-of-mouse" because it is the online equivalent of word of mouth, which has been working well in the real world for thousands of years. The important distinguishing factor as far as the online world is concerned, is the speed at which messages can to be communicated to huge numbers across great distances independently of time and place. 3 http://wharton.universia.net/index.cfm?fa=viewfeature&id=1156&language=english © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 15 Since viral marketing views social networks as important source of information and cues for behaviour and action for individuals, social informationprocessing theory provides a useful lens to examine the interpersonal influence (Koh et al. 2007; DiMaggio et al. 2007; Wellman et al. 1996). Prior studies examining the diffusion of innovations and the transmission of ideas in social networks have viewed the interpersonal influence as occurring largely from face-to-face interactions (Datta et al. 2005; Phelps et al. 2004). Subramani and Rajagopalan (2003), who focus their attention on the advantages of online social networks, describe three major computer-mediated interpersonal influences that are significantly different from those occurring in conventional contexts. First, as they say, there is a scale and scope of influences. This occurs by computer mediation that allows a much larger number of individuals to be connected by informational linkages than feasible through face-to-face or word-of-mouth contact or by other conventional media such as the telephone. As they explain there is a reduction in the effort needed to reach out others, which exponentially increases the number of occasions when individuals act on their natural impulse to share knowledge and pass along information they consider useful and timely to others in their social network. All these factors result in an enormous increase in the extent of influence through knowledge-sharing and information transfer in online networks. The second effect of computer-mediated communication is that there are two possibilities to make connect individuals: synchronously (for example, using instant messaging - chat) as well as asynchronously - via e-mail. According to this, one of the biggest advantages of online social networks is that the availability of recipients is expanded, literally enabling influencers to access connected others continuously. This connection can be realized in real time, and this is the third way of differing from traditional social networking. Online social networks provide instantaneous feedback on the impact of influence, “enabling motivated individuals to rapidly adapt their influence strategies and progressively enhance the effectiveness of their influence attempts. As a result, the ability to exert influence is considerably enhanced” (Subramani and Rajagopalan, 2003). © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 16 In general, what makes compelling viral marketing techniques based on online social networks and definitely distinguishes them from conventional interpersonal interactions is the ability to influence a large number of individuals. To make a single influence attempt it is required less effort; at the same time information technologies augment the flexibility to deploy a variety of influence strategies (Brown, Broderick and Lee 2007; Arbor 2007). To illustrate this with an example, we consider one of the best-known social online communities on the web: Facebook.com. The platform is generally used by young adult users who are the primary trend drivers in the society. Facebook.com takes into account the marketing potential of the presence of such variables as social class, and offers relevant and integrated advertising opportunities to engage the tech-savvy youth audience. 2.1.2 Empowered customers in the Web 2.0 What role does Web 2.0 play in people’s lives today, and how might the consumer experience change in the years ahead? This section tries to identify the answer to this question considering different existing definitions of web 2.0, from articles in popular press to blogs and forums. What does Web 2.0 really mean? The term analog to software developments where increasing numbers are added to their names, can falsely imply a new version of the World Wide Web. However, when Tim O’Reilly, founder and CEO of O’Reilly Media Inc., come out with the expression with his web pioneers at a brainstorming session between O’Reilly and MediaLive International, simply referred to an evolution of the use of the web. They identified a turning point of the web which was lead only partially by new technologies and applications.4 Along come the media who grasped the expression and spread it fast as new marketing buzzword “with no real understanding of just what it means”5. O’Reilly claims that the hurdle is continuing since many “buzzword-addicted startups are definitely not 4 Tim O’Reilly, “What Is Web 2.0 – Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software, 09/30/2005; http://www.oreillynet.com/lpt/a/6228 5 Tim O’Reilly, idem. © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 17 Web 2.0, while some of the applications we identified as Web 2.0, like Napster and BitTorrent, are not even properly web applications!” The following figure (Figure 2.) represents the meme map of the concept worked out in 2005 by the team of Tim O’Reilly: Figure 2. Web 2.0 Meme Map Source: www.oreillynet.com Such visualisation of the phenomenon shows the ideas captured at the brainstorming session around the core concept of Web 2.0, expressing it is being without strict boundaries. In its early stage of arrival O’Relly’s group identified the following principles separating Web 1.0 from Web 2.0 (Figure 3.). © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 18 Figure 3. Web 1.0 DoubleClick Ofoto Akamai mp3.com Britannica Online personal websites Evite domain name speculation page views screen scraping Publishing Content management systems directories (taxonomy) Stickiness Source: www.oreillynet.com The difference between Web1.0 and Web 2.0 Web 2.0 Google AdSense Flickr BitTorrent Napster Wikipedia Blogging upcoming.org and EVDB search engine optimization Cost per click Web services Participation Wikis tagging ("folksonomy") Syndication → → → → → → → → → → → → → → Another perception of Web 2.0 links it to the vision of Semantic Web (Ankolekar et al 2007). Semantic Web with simply words is presenting some or all of the information in the World Wide Web by machine understandable semantics. It is a “web of machine-readable information whose meaning is well-defined by standards” – says the father of the web, Tim Berners-Lee (Fensel, Hendler, Lieberman and Wahlster 2003). The emerging awareness to realize the semantic web is fuelled by the need to access and process metainformation on the web, having a common format for information about information on the web. It is especially required: first for relevant searching information, second for presenting information and last but least for electronic commerce purposes on the web. Why is it relevant to dedicate a session about Web 2.0 in considering the different perspectives of viral marketing? As it was discussed in the precedent section there is a change in how costumers use and approach the online interfaces. There is a new level of creativity, which is marked out by Tim Berners-Lee words as ‘inter-creativity’, which means building thing together on the Web” (Fensel, Hendler, Lieberman and Wahlster 2003). He continues: “I have found, that people think that Web already is “interactive,” because users get to click with a mouse and fill in forms. I have mentioned that more intuitive interfaces will be needed to © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 19 support this intercreativity.” This kind of interactivity, enabled by the Internet, that makes easy and rapid the interactions between customers and companies, has considerable results when used for marketing purposes. For this reason it is worth to consider the Web 2.0 phenomenon in relation to viral marketing. Consumers undoubtedly are empowered thanks also to an increased willingness from marketers’ side to open up and to involve them – they are not only “interact” but also contribute. It seems that users take an active part of this web experience, participating, contributing, tagging but even more, they are becoming creators (Catterall and Maclaran 2002). To some extent a new consumer society was born together with the Web 2.0, however no relevant literature on Consumer 2.0 was found. Instead another new trendy expression came out from online researches describing these always more conscious actors taking advantage of the opportunities of the “Web 2.0” as “generation C”. Trendwatching.com adopted first the name in March 2004.6 Afterwards Trendwatching.com has identified C as standing for content, creativity, celebrity and control. In December 2006 they added a new C to the list – the C standing for (C)ash. Money prizes for ideas – is a trend requiring the attention of the business world – to consumers becoming more potentially co-authors working with established brands. As Trendwatching.com reports big organizations and brands such as Intel, Nokia, Procter&Gamble increasingly show their appreciation by offering different prizes and awards the real value of consumercontributions.7 http://www.trendwatching.com/trends/GENERATION_C.htm http://www.trendwatching.com/trends/gen-cash.htm; 7 Read about Intel’s million dollars prize on http://www.intel.com/pressroom/archive/releases/20070416corp.htm 5 6 © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 20 2.1.3 New tools open a new phase on the web There are also some interesting scenarios for the future of viral marketing linked to a new, third phase of the web. With the arrival of widgets that consist of bits of code some authors envisage a new revolutionary phase in the Internet’s development. (Ante et al. 2007). Authors are claming that the future big deal for companies from media, publishing, technology, entertainment and communication is to tap into the use of these smart applications. Widgets “are tiny, highlighted lines of text or nondescript boxes running along the edge of the page” (Ante et al. 2007) In a more prosaic language they are small applications which can be embedded within a web page. Originally they were plug-ins or extensions that allowed desktop applications to access the web. Widgets are used by bloggers, social network users, auction sites and owners of personal web sites providing news, helping users buy products, telling information about favourite lyrics, cinema or brands within an online users’ network. Hence their power relies in bringing information to users instead of making them visit a website. On top of these features it is notable their simplicity to use, which represents a further attraction. The authors stress the opportunities to be exploited via widgets and depict how they can be embedded into brand building, e-commerce and entertainment purposes. Widgets fit well in the shifts taking place in advertising. Costumers are demanding and looking for more than information. Widget is an application used for advertising purposes, which basically makes possible the creation of involvement and unconventional purchasing experience. In some respect its aim is similar to what has been discussed about flash games or advergames. A common example of the use of widgets is represented by Reebok’s website, who is using it to embed consumers’ virtual sneakers, according to their preferences and needs. At the end of the “creation process” customers can process directly with the purchasing.8 8 http://www.rbkcustom.com/content.html © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 21 Ante et al. (2007), instead of stressing the difference between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0, simply differentiate among three phases: connecting, finding and spreading information in the Internet. Figure 4. Three phases of the Web Phase I – Browsing It was the banner ads’ era, when surfing in the Web meant to type in the address of the page wanted to visit, or going to portals categorized by subjects. Phase II – Searching It is the search engines’ golden era. Single websites are superseded by search engines such as Google.com and Yahoo.com. Looking for information is based on keywords, online advertisings are rooted in click through rates. Phase III – Sharing Web users are customizing everything – from home pages to blogs. In their hands there are new tools such as widgets and user friendly open source systems like wikis. The potential of these software and services relies on that they can be widely shared and spread. Source: “The Next Small Thing,” Business Week, (Jul 23), 58. Widgets have opened a new door in the way of how websites can be interpreted. Being extremely customisable and easy to use application they are clear manifestations of what it mean to be “intercreative”. It might be hasty to attribute the use of widgets and wikis to a new special era of the web, since they existed from the start of the World Wide Web.9 Nevertheless this study will seek the answer whether Web 2.0 is correlated to “viral marketing” because new and old technologies of the Internet have turned into essential part of new marketing instruments. 9 See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_widget and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 22 2.1.4 From monologue to dialog – the power of blogs in disseminating messages Viral marketing is often associated with e-mail marketing including the “tell a friend” options. However, one of the most potent forums for marketers to build customer relationships, expose products, that can take the pulse of consumer trends are weblogs (Dearstyne 2005). Like the concept of viral marketing, the definition of blogs is not unsettled. Dearstyne (2005) in his article collected some of the most relevant definitions of weblogs. According to this, Microsoft sees blogs as means that dramatically help both small and large companies to communicate their product messages. In the same article Accenture defines weblogs as interactive websites allowing the owners to publish ideas and information and create conversation spanning time zones and continents (Dearstyne 2005). The Weblogs, or blogs, mostly have been defined as online journals or diaries, published chronologically, with links to and commentary on various issues of interest. The number of online blogs has grown exponentially in the last decade - just the site Technorati.com tracks 112.8 million of them with over 250 million pieces of tagged social media. Blogs are omnipresent on the web, thanks also to their easy creation and to the infinite themes and reasons to publish them (Marken 2005). The role of blogs is essential in peer-to-peer communication; therefore it is a basic venue to spread messages, thoughts and opinions in the online context (Bloom 2005; Lyons and Henderson 2005). Technocrati.com claims that “Blogs are powerful because they allow millions of people to easily publish and share their ideas, and millions more to read and respond. They engage the writer and reader in an open conversation, and are shifting the Internet paradigm as we know it.” The earliest blog dated to the late 1990s, but the power of a diary form narration dates back from more than three Centuries. Paul Marsden (2000) in his PhD discussion argues about the prospective of media representations of suicide that could have some influence on a person’s suicidality. In the mirror of the 18th Century German writer’s novel, Marsden calls the contagious media effect “Werther Effect”: © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 23 “During the mid-1770s a peculiar clothing fashion swept across Europe. For no immediately apparent reason, young men started dressing in yellow trousers, blue jackets and open-necked shirts. This mildly eccentric fashion seemed to spread from region to region in a manner strangely similar to an epidemic of contagious disease. What was particularly curious about the spread of this fad was the fact that the young 18th Century fashion victims appeared to have had no direct contact with each other; pockets of this contagious fashion appeared to spring up independently in the most isolated regions. Only some time later was the vector of the contagion identified; - the first novel of Johan Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther. Goethe’s tale recounted the desperate plight of Werther, a young man hopelessly in love with a happily married woman called Charlotte. In this intense and romantic story, Goethe described in detail the hero’s rather peculiar penchant for wearing a colourful mélange of blue jackets, yellow trousers and opennecked shirts. The mystery of the peculiar fashion contagion was resolved as what became known as 'Werther Dress' spread across Europe.”10 Similarly to Goethe’s novel written in diary form, today’s online weblogs can become means of contagious communication. According to Dearstyne one of the power source of blogs lies in their quick and easy way to pursue additional information relating to a topic and “have the capacity to ‘swarm’ by sharing and spreading information quickly”. Blogs being specific internet-based interactive tools can be useful in achieving increased understanding of online customers. For example, blogs, which may be third-party creations, can be hosted at the company web site and offer companies a chronological record of customers’ views. If blogs offer engaging and relevant content they can be a powerful tools in marketers hand in promoting product and services or communicating with potential customers. Blogging is a crucial stage of information sharing on the Internet. They have become so popular because they are inexpensive or the software for blogging can be settled up at a very convenient fee, and they are easy to set up and maintain. At the same time weblogs are the main venue in the Internet sphere to foster knowledge sharing and productivity (Dearstyne 2005). Marsden, Paul: The ‘Werther Effect’ Fact or Fantasy? Media Contagion and Suicide in the Internet Age: Critical evaluation, theoretical conceptualisation and empirical investigation; D. Phil Research Thesis - July 2000; Available at http://www.viralculture.com/pubs/PhD.pdf Last accessed in January 2008. 10 © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 24 Chapter 2 Literature Review Section Two – Frameworks for Viral Marketing “Viral marketing is more powerful than third-party advertising because it conveys an implied endorsement from a friend.”(Steve Jurvetson, 1998)11 2.2 A definition of viral marketing Jurvetson’s definition about viral marketing is similar to the definition of buzz marketing by Greg Metz Thomas (2002): “Buzz marketing is defined as the amplification of initial marketing efforts by third parties (here this represents the endorsement) through their passive or active influence.” [Emphasis added] Thomas argues that some techniques used to achieve growing costumer retention called viral marketing is what people were alluding to with and viral marketing as term has been retired (Thomas 2004). Terms like “buzz marketing”, word-of-mouth and word-ofmouse are used as synonyms of viral marketing in the literature. Even though the concept is widespread, as a relatively new phenomenon definitions are unsettled and require further clarification regarding its use. Therefore the aim of this chapter is to conduct an extensive review of the existing literature on viral marketing in order to develop a conceptual framework for the concept. Through a selection of relevant literatures and articles this study tries to depict the various factors playing a role in marketing called “viral”. The idea of viral marketing is relatively new. Behind the concept there are other important dynamism already discussed in consumer behaviour and social psychology – such as motivation, involvement, customer referrals and consumer communities. One may interpret it as a new marketing mainstream including a wide range of online techniques to replace traditional advertising. However viral 11 http://news.cnet.com/2010-1071-281328.html © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 25 marketing does not represent just browsing the Internet with the purpose of gain information and then pass messages and does not consist of only Web-based advertising process, such as e-mailing, blogging and so forth. This may be a misrepresentation of what viral marketing is all about. So the question is what does viral marketing stands for? Is it possible to capture the perspectives of this concept? 2.2.1 Seth Godin: Unleashing the Ideavirus “Viral marketing is an ideavirus, but not all ideaviruses are viral marketing.” (Seth Godin, 2001) The starting point of Seth Godin’s book (2001) is the assumption that traditional advertising shows an obvious sign of inefficiency. Traditional marketing continues to employ interruption, he calls it “interruption marketing”. As a consequence customers are actively resisting of it. Godin claims that it is imperative to stop marketing at customers, instead his approach relies in taking full advantage of the spread of information from customer to customer, as he explains: “The idea is to create an environment where consumers will market to each other”. It seems to be mirroring back Jurvetson’s definition of viral marketing reported at the beginning of this chapter. Godin basically, refers to that ideas can spread like a virus when someone can get consumers to market them to each other. The central concept of the book – the ideavirus – is a “fashionable idea that propagates through a section of the population, teaching and changing and influencing everyone it touches” (Godin 2001). Godin points out that, in fact we are not obsessed with products but with ideas. Ideas are the engines of our economies and can much more influence numbers such as sales, than the product itself or the amount of money invested in traditional marketing (Chevalier and Mayzlin 2006). The book provides the expected examples of successful ideavirus marketing such as the Hotmail.com case. It is worthy to mentions since Hotmail is considered © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 26 as one of the best classical examples of viral marketing. Hotmail is one of the earliest firms to tap the potential of viral marketing. Based predominantly on publicity from word-of-mouse, the Web-based email service provider garnered one million registered subscribers in its first six months, hit two million subscribers two months later, and passed the eleven million mark in eighteen months. Hamel and Sampler (1998) reported this exponential growth in perspective by describing eight major ways of new expectations which will have an effect on every business and will echo throughout the economy. One of those eight ways was word-of-mouse and word of mouth illustrated by the Hotmail.com case: “Word-of-mouse and word-of-mouth has an upside and a downside for every company. Both the upside and the downside are magnified exponentially online, where opinions propagate like E. coli in room-temperature chicken. On the upside, consider Hotmail. Within 18 months of its launch, Hotmail had garnered nearly ten million customers for its free, advertising-supported E-mail service. In December 1997, Microsoft bought Hotmail for an initial payment estimated at more than $400 million. The secret of Hotmail's vertical takeoff? Word of mouse. Every time someone sent an e-mail to a friend, the message carried an offer to sign up for free E-mail. At Hotmail they call it viral marketing: Harnessing word of mouse, Hotmail's message spread like a contagion.” This kind of multiplier effect was generated by the advertising message “Get your free e-mail at Hotmail” at the bottom of every e-mail sent out. Of course all those emails contained an advertisement for the service. This made possible for Hotmail to spend a mere $50,000 on traditional marketing and still grew from zero. In a similar way, Google’s Gmail also captured a significant part of market share in spite of the fact that the only way to sign up for the service was through a referral. The Hotmail case in Godin’s interpretation is one example how to unleash the ideavirus, which infected tons of people to sign in. He argues that the “Get your free e-mail at Hotmail” message is the manifesto. Manifesto – the way how the ideavirus manifests itself – is another key concept of the book: “An idea manifesto is a powerful, logical “essay” that assembles a bunch of existing ideas and creates a new one. Sometimes a © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 27 manifesto is a written essay. But it can be an image, a song, a cool product or process… the medium doesn’t matter.” Thanks to the new technologies and the Net, today, people are more connected than ever before. This includes opportunities to influence others by serving as credible vectors of communications. Godin names these types of people “Sneezers.” But the real success of an ideavirus consists in the combination of eight components: sneezers, hives, critical velocity, vector, medium, smoothness, persistence, and amplifiers. Godin argues the idea of viral marketing is one very specific form of ideavirus marketing. “Viral marketing is an ideavirus, but not all ideaviruses are viral marketing. Viral marketing is a special case of an ideavirus. Viral marketing is an ideavirus in which the medium of the virus IS the product. It’s an idea where the idea is the amplifier.” Most businesses will not be able to engage in true viral marketing, but all can use the ideavirus approach. He concludes, “…viral marketing is merely a subset of ideavirus marketing.” In Godin’s opinion the product, which is subject of viral marketing has to be communication oriented or very public, otherwise it less likely will work. Therefore he believes that it only works for a selected group of products and services. Although he makes a distinction between word of mouth and viral marketing the use of the two terms is as if were synonyms. Godin distinguishes them from the concept of ideavirus, but not from each other, even it is not even the purpose of his essay. He also states that word of mouth is not new. It differs from the ideavirus in two features: one that it fades out after a few exchanges, secondly it is slow and tends to be analog. He calls word of mouse the online version of word of mouth, of which power is augmented by the online context and it is presented as amplificatory in spreading the ideavirus. Godin dedicates some post also in his blog to the question what makes an idea viral12. His arguments base on a fundamental supposition: for an idea to spread, 12 http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2005/09/what_makes_an_i.html © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 28 it needs to be sent and received. “No one “sends” an idea unless: a. they understand it b. they want it to spread c. they believe that spreading it will enhance their power (reputation, income, friendships) or their peace of mind d. the effort necessary to send the idea is less than the benefits No one “gets” an idea unless: a. the first impression demands further investigation b. they already understand the foundation ideas necessary to get the new idea c. they trust or respect the sender enough to invest the time” This is the logic behind how online ideas spread. He adds other key elements in order to make an idea viral: 1) The capsule containing the idea is essential, 2) the style that refers to the way ideas presented and if it fit into the worldview of those that spread, 3) the visual element of the idea can boost the spread of it. In a recent post13 Godin clarifies that word of mouth is different from viral marketing, sustaining that the latter is a compounding function, in which marketer is out of the loop, he or she does something which like a virus will scattering through a population. Word of mouth instead is a decaying function. Godin describes it likewise in his book – Unleashing the Ideavirus – word of mouth amplifies the marketing action and then fades, usually quickly. 13 http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seth_blog/2005/09/what_makes_an_i.html © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 29 2.2.2 Emanuel Rosen: The Anatomy of Buzz “I view Viral Marketing as a subset of Buzz Marketing, in which the marketer employs both online and offline tactics to maximize positive communication among consumers.” (Emanuel Rosen)14 What is called “ideavirus” by Godin is similar to the concept of “buzz” defined by Rosen. In his book Rosen (2000) defines buzz as “the sum of all comments about a certain product that are exchanged among people at any given time”. Rosen declares that buzz is in our genes. We are programmed to talk and consequently we talk to connect, to make sense of the world. We talk to different reasons: reduce risk, cost and uncertainty; we talk because it makes economic sense; and we talk to reduce tension. The same thought is described by Godin with the following words: “…spreading an idea is rarely a thoughtful, voluntary act. Instead, it is near the core of who we are, and we often do it without thinking much about the implications.”15 Rosen speaks about buzz in general terms based upon the assumption that marketers have to explore what consumers saying about the product not only in the moment of hype but also when one product is well established in the market (Engel 2006). Rosen assumes: “Buzz is all the word of mouth about a brand. It’s the aggregate of all person-to-person communication about a particular product, service, or company at any point in time.” In an interview published with Steve Lundin, Emanuel Rosen describes the difference between buzz and viral marketing as it follows: “The way I see it, buzz is the result of viral marketing. Buzz marketing is all activities including viral marketing (and even some traditional marketing) that are there to stimulate discussion about the product or service. Viral marketing was born on the 14 Exclusive interview with Emanuel Rosen on Viral Marketing, last accessed on March 24, 2008 from www.avantmarketer.com/index/print/emanuel_rosen_on_viral_marketing_page_iii 15 http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2005/09/what_makes_an_i.html © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 30 Net, so I feel that it refers to activities that are electronic in nature.”16 According to Rosen the basic force behind buzz is that people tell others about a product or service because they are impressed by it. It is important to understand that companies are not selling to individual customers but rather to networks (Adamic and Adar 2005). People are more connected than ever before, therefore buzz has become more important. Rosen argues that people pass a message about something will most likely occur if that something is somehow related to their lives. Therefore in his interpretation the real challenge of viral marketing is to stimulate “artificially” the pass along process. The question is: can a company successfully encourage consumers to pass the word about a new product? For this reason the first and fundamental step in spreading ideas to give costumers tools that make it embarrassingly simple. Firms must make it easy for people to spread the word such ad Hotmail made. Hotmail is a persistent example in the literature about viral marketing. Rosen also stresses the fact that the success of Hotmail relies in that they kept this simple. A new user could sign up in just 45 seconds. They also kept their message and the interface very simple. Viral marketing includes marketing activities which are “electronic in nature”. As it described in the 12th chapter of the book, viral marketing can be more effective in the fast moving Internet environment since several new technologies allow to apply the principles of buzz generation. There are three principles in debuting with viral marketing on the Net: 1. Make the product part of the communication process; This notion intertwines with the concept of Seth Godin according to which viral marketing is a special case of the ideavirus where the amplifier for the virus is built right into the product. It fits best for communication products. 2. Have customers interacting – returning concept of community. Rosen defines them as “network hubs”, are 16 Accessed at http://www.mobium.com/homes/rosen_buzz_window/interview.pdf. © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 31 individuals who communicate with more people about a certain product than the average person does. Network hubs are what researcher call opinion leaders. 3. Support customers to be prompt to spread the word by simply and user-friendly solutions. Speaking about The Anatomy of Buzz it can be sustained that many concepts of Seth Godin are represented in a similar way with different terms and shading. For example, persons called “network hubs” are named “Sneezers” by Godin. What Rosen refers to be “clusters” it is a very similar thought to what is called “hives” in Godin’s Unleashing the Ideavirus (2001). One of the biggest differences between the two authors concerns the way they see the role of traditional marketing. As it is confirmed by also a number of interviews released with Emanuel Rosen, he is convinced that viral marketing should be part of a larger marketing strategy mix. It should be combined with market research, PR activities direct marketing and distribution in order to effectively stimulate people to talk. © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 32 2.2.3 Gladwell: The Tipping Point “I read somewhere that everybody on this planet is separated by only six other people.” (John Guare 1992, Six Degrees of Separation) Gladwell’s book (2002) seems to be the most known font providing a theoretically framework for viral marketers, albeit it does not contain even the term of ‘viral marketing’. Instead Gladwell assesses it through descriptions of epidemics’ rules and theory of contagiousness. But the whole essay is tied to the pre-digital communication era, where epidemics are social and examples used in the whole book are planted into social-psychological explanations. Tipping point refers to the dramatic moment in an epidemic, when radical changes can take place from one moment to another. Applying the biological mechanism to the human behaviour Gladwell depicts how ideas, products and even behaviour patterns can spread amongst the population just like viruses do. Gladwell explains: “…if there can be epidemics of crime or epidemics of fashion, there must be all kinds of things just as contagious as viruses”. The classical case of Hush Puppies17 reported in his book (Gladwell 2002) illustrates how social epidemics work. Some kids infected other people’s sense of fashion just wearing the shoes in cafes and clubs and walking the streets of downtown of New York. They infected people with the “Hush Puppies virus” and the firm reached a critical mass without sending out any advertising message. It seems that similar implications are highlighted from these three books for marketers. These are to look for the right “connectors”, “network hubs” or “sneezers” to disseminate an idea, message about product or services hoping that the campaign would boost itself. These kind of people in the academic literature are called: opinion leaders or in the ultimate articles examining digital communication patterns there are referred to them as e-fluentials. 17 Hush Puppies is a division of Wolverine World Wide, the world's leading maker of casual, work, and outdoor footwear. Hush Puppies is headquartered in Rockford, Michigan. The firm is famous of its supple pigskin suede shoes in combination with lightweight crepe soles. © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 33 Gladwell groups a very small set of influential people into “mavens”, “connectors” and “salespeople”: “In a social epidemic, Mavens are data banks. They provide the message. Connectors are the social glue: they spread it. But there is also a select group of people – Salesmen – with the skills to persuade us when we are unconvinced of what we are hearing, and they are as critical to the tipping of word-of-mouth epidemics as the other two groups.”18 Gladwell builds upon his theory of social infections on these three sorts of people. Mavens, connectors and salespeople are represents socially gifted exceptional persons only and exclusively capable to start word of mouth epidemics. The success of any social epidemic is heavily dependent on the involvement of these particular people. This is the “Law of Few”, a consistently recurring thought of the book. Few people is enough to create radical changes. The Tipping point is a function of three rules: 1. The Law of the Few: it is explained by a concept referred to as six degrees of separation19. This means that a very small group of people are linked to everyone else in a few steps and everyone else is connected to the world through that small group of people. 2. The Stickiness Factor: Stickiness means that a message makes an impact because it is “sticky” and memorable. 3. The Power of Context: in the power of the concepts interpreted by Gladwell somehow returns the Werther-effect mentioned in speaking about blogs. Gladwell says that the power of context is an environmental behaviour is a function of social context20. He brings teen suicide and teen smoking as examples of how peer groups can affect behaviour. Indeed, teens apparently commit suicide and smoke because someone that they identify with does those things. Consequently, human beings are a lot more sensitive to their environment than they seem to be. Gladwell (2000), p.70. ibidem, p.36. 20 ibidem, p.150. 18 19 © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 34 2.2.4 Science of Memetics A paper by Paul S. Marsden (1998) suggests an alternative approach for understand, explain and predict the “infectiousness” of certain ideas and behaviours. His argument is based on the science of memetics and it suggests how this new discipline may be applied to design and development of effective marketing campaigns. Marsden (1998) speaks about an epidemic unreported in the medical press but sweeping through schools in the UK at an alarming rate. The contagion is originated back to Japan and the virus is identified as “Tamagotchi”. The virtual reality of Tamagotchi has taken the global children’s market by storm, explains Marsden. Children not only in the UK, but also all over the world have become obsessed with these little LCD displays. To explain the phenomenal success of the Tamagotchi the study suggests to consider an alterative approach in explaining the phenomenon, based on contagion rather than conscious choice of customers. Marsden (1998) claims that customer behaviour can be explained by the epidemiology of contagions whose symptoms are particular patterns of customer behaviour. He says that the Tamagotchi phenomenon can be understood as a contagion that spreads through the population throughout a process of imitation; consequently as we can catch a cold, we can “catch” a particular fashion trend and behave in a particular way. He asserts also “Fashions, trends and customer behaviour can all be explained by understanding them as mind viruses”. It is argued that the principal media for mind viruses is language, while the vector for them is the mass media, which is responsible for the explosive proliferation of many of the “mind viruses” have been spreading via television, radio, Internet and so forth. The paper, which is dated from 1998, affirms that most advertising professionals have not had the opportunity to learn what is about certain ideas, behaviours and products that makes them contagious, but Marsden assumes that all that is may be about to change. Well, it might be the answer for the awakening of this need the books presented in this thesis released around and from the 21st century? Is it possible that essays about “ideaviruses”, “contagious communication”, “viral marketing” and “social epidemics” represent the efforts to fulfil this need? © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 35 As it was pointed out by the author why we can speak about the science of memetics. The word derives form the term “meme” coined by Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene (1989). “Meme” refers to the mind virus, on the base of the study of mind viruses known as memetics. “Memes” therefore are not biological viruses, but are virtual mind viruses, agents of behavioural infections. Dawkins, cited by Marsden, argues about “memes”: “A meme is a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation. …Examples of memes are tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashion, ways of making pots or building arches….memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain via a process which, in the broad sense, can be called imitation.” (Dawkins, 1989 cited in Marsden 1998). Memetics’ implications for marketing professionals are quite profound. From the perspectives of “memetics” one problem for marketing are the minds suffering from information overload. The challenge of commercial success depends on therefore how infectious the message engineered around the product is. The tricks marketers have to deal with consist in designing a meme that codes for behaviour that is innovative and particularly infectious. The biggest difference between conventional marketing approaches and memetics is the focus: conventional marketing focuses on the costumer. Communication campaigns and advertising for a product or service are built with specific consideration of market needs and customer psychology. Memetic approach put the spotlight not on the customer, but on the message itself. Doing so, the commercial success does not rely exclusively on the customer’s comprehension of product attractiveness. © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 36 Chapter 2 Literature Review Section Three – Viral marketing vs. Word of Mouth 2.3 “Viral marketing is a form of word-of-mouth” “Word of mouth is a pre-existing phenomenon that marketers are only now learning how to harness, amplify, and improve. Word of mouth marketing isn't about creating word of mouth - it's learning how to make it work within a marketing objective.”(Word of Mouth Marketing Association)21 Word of mouth is a crucial concept in discovering what viral marketing does mean. The literature uses often the two terms as if were synonyms, frequently referring to viral marketing as the electronic version of word of mouth – eWOM (Datta et al. 2005, Phelps et al. 2004, Wasserman 2006). The question is: viral marketing would be really just an electronically extended version of the most traditional form of influence on a person’s decision – namely word of mouth? This section of the thesis sets out to examine evidences and opinions related to the facets of word of mouth, and tries to determine in which terms the two concepts are intertwined. 2.3.1 Some definitions of word of mouth (WOM) Word of mouth is defined in many ways. However the common element is the peer-to-peer aspect of opinion exchange. Businesses are consciously investing more into this communication form. The awareness of word of mouth has become more intensive with the advent of the Internet, which introduced a new platform for a traditional form of costumer-to-costumer communications – word of mouth (Godes and Mayzlin 2004, Mayzlin 2006). Internet extends the opportunity to reach an infinite number of people through a variety of venues, such as blogs, chat rooms, online communities. To generate major success for a new product, firms and 21 www.womma.com © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 37 advertising agencies often use the strategy to reach their target through the so called opinion leaders in peer groups (Mayzlin 2006). Marketers has discovered the potential of communication strategies built with the aim to reach these opinion leaders who informally influence the attitudes or behaviour of other people by means such as product related conversation (Lyons and Henderson 2005). Before entering into more details in the comparison of WOM’s contexts, we examine some definitions of the concept. One of the earliest researchers on word of mouth, Arndt (1967), described it as oral, person to person communication between a receiver and a communicator not necessarily related to a concrete brand or service. About marketing employing word of mouth he noticed (Arndt, 1967): “Word-of-mouth advertising has been thought to be an almost mysterious force, with its effects taken for granted.” Westbrook (1987) examining the role of product/consumption affect in postpurchase communications said that both positive and negative dimensions of the affect are related to the amount of word of mouth transmitted. He defines WOM as: “informal communications directed at other consumers about the ownership, usage, or characteristics of particular goods and services and/or their sellers.” Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) is one of the many of those who propagate viral marketing as a form of word of mouth. WOMMA’s definition concerns word of mouth also from marketers’ point of view: “Word of mouth: The act of consumers providing information to other consumers. Word of mouth marketing: Giving people a reason to talk about your products and services, and making it easier for that conversation to take place. It is the art and science of building active, mutually beneficial consumer-to-consumer and consumer-to-marketer communications.”22 The author of the book “Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking”, Andy Sernovitz (2006) it defines as follows: 22 http://www.womma.com/wom101/ © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 38 “Word of Mouth Marketing is a) giving people a reason to talk about you and b) making it easier for the conversation to take place. It’s C to C Marketing—when a consumer tells a consumer about you. Actually, it’s B to C to C. When it comes out of the mouth of a marketer, it’s marketing. When a real person repeats it, it’s word of mouth. It’s more than just marketing—it’s also product design and customer service. People talk about fantastic stuff and great treatment from companies they like.”23 To pick upon the last statement, people like to spread the word about what they dislike, as well (Sen and Leramn 2007, Richins 1983). Word of mouth can be both negative and positive exchange of information between individuals about a particular product or service. Negative WOM has been documented to spread quicker than positive WOM (Richins 1983). In the e-commerce word of mouth (WOM) often referred to as word of mouse, the electronic form of word of mouth (eWOM). Both expressions are often viewed as synonyms of viral marketing. Conventional WOM has a great role in understanding the dynamism of viral marketing. Word of mouth – both electronic and conventional one – therefore has to receive a fundamental attention in depicting what viral marketing really stands for. In particular, word of mouth in its on- and offline forms has recently gained more attention from both managers and academics (e.g. Godes and Mayzlin 2004, Keller and Berry 2006). The following paragraphs address three main fields treated by a variety of authors. 2.3.1.1 Managerial implications of word of mouth Managerial implications of word of mouth are presented in the article of Kumar, Leone and Petersen (2007). The authors distinguish between two types of costumer referrals in their study and combining it with customer’s lifetime value (CLV) and customer’s referral value (CRV) they try to predict the value of word of mouth – calculating with the prior mentioned measures of the person’s ability to 23 Andy Sernovitz, www.wordofmouthbook.com/freestuff.php © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 39 bring new profitable customers to one company. An analysis of Villanueva, Yoo and Hanssens (2008) based on the metrics of Kumar and Petersen confirms that future WOM customer acquisitions are better predicted from current acquisitions obtained through word of mouth than from current acquisitions induced with traditional marketing efforts. They created a metric that captures not only the dynamic effects of a customer in his or her tenure but also the customer’s influence on other customers – for example generating future word of mouth. As such, they could measure the impact of an additional customer on the customer equity of the firm. Dina Mayzlin in her article (2006) investigates how word of mouth became a perfect substitute of consumer recommendations in promotion campaigns using chat rooms. Firms enjoying the anonymity of online communities can disguise their promotion as peer recommendations. She argues that word of mouth and advertising are substitutes when advertising messages are anonymous. 2.3.1.2 Behavioural implications of word of mouth in social interactions Bowman and Narayandas (2001) explain in their paper that the quantity of word of mouth related to a product, brand or a service is conditional on a customer’s decision to engage in WOM behaviour. Brown and Reingen (1987) presented a network analysis of word of mouth referral behaviour in a natural environment. Through an investigation into the relational proprieties of social ties they arrived to the conclusion that strong ties (e.g. a close friend) are more influential and serve as bridge through which WOM referrals will more likely flow. A decade ago two authors focused on the impact of word of mouth in social learning. A study of Ellison and Funderberg (1995) examines two related environments in arguing that individuals’ reliance on word-of-mouth communication has interesting implications for their aggregate behaviour. Reingen and Kernan (1986) enlightened the importance of a relational database and stated that informal communication - such as word of mouth - should have a greater focus on relational data. Referring to previous works on WOM and on opinion leadership, they argue that relational data with its connections between individuals - e.g. information flow linkages, friendship ties, etc. - provide the foundation for a network analysis of those © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 40 customers of a marketer who have been generated by interpersonal interaction in which word of mouth was a key player. Researchers in the early fifties have revealed that word of mouth could not only influence consumers’ choices and purchase decisions but also shape consumers’ expectations, pre-usage attitudes and even post-usage perceptions of a product or service (Arndt 1967). Jeneanne Rae (2006) in the Business Week reported that the influence of word-of-mouth is greater than that of classic advertising media. She said this referring to customer experience as one of the great frontiers for innovation. Hence the other key element in generating word of mouth is to deliver excellent consumer experiences which creates buzz in the marketplace and generates more revenue than traditional marketing (Rosen 2000). 2.3.2 WOM in the mirror of the diffusion of innovations theory of Rogers The diffusion of innovations theory explains the process and dissemination of new ideas and innovations. It is applicable to analyse the dynamics of word of mouth, which can vary from the size of a group of close peers, to an organization or company, to even an entire cultural or social system. The potential of word of mouth in the diffusion of innovations is explained by Rogers as follows (Rogers 1962, pp. 13-14 quoted by Czepiel 1974): “the diffusion process consists of (1) a new idea, (2) individual A who knows about the innovation, and (3) individual B who does not yet know about the innovation. The social relationship of A and B have a great deal to say about the conditions under which A will tell B about the innovation and the results of this telling” The understanding of adoption of innovations is of great importance for marketers therefore this theory can significantly contribute not only to the science but also to give practical implications to the business side. While Rogers’s theory is fundamental in case of radical innovations, the main principles of it can elucidate what type of social and motivational power lie behind of spreading the word about a product and why it is possible that about certain information people start to be excited and proliferate it effortlessly to rich millions. © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 41 According to Rogers, the diffusion of innovations is “the process by which an innovation is communicated through certain channels over time among the members of a social system”(Rogers, 1995). Even tough this definition was criticised for being too subjective to be applicable for scientific descriptions of such phenomenon (Lyytinen and Damsgaard 2001), it is worth to relieve the key elements of the diffusion process - both for innovation and word of mouth – communication channel, time and social system. These are supposed to be crucial factors in passing messages between individuals. Gatignon and Roberts (Gatignon and Roberts 1991 quoted in Molesworth and Suortti 2002) argue that “there are considerable difficulties in operationalising this definition” because it relies on each individual’s perception. However this thesis study retains that new forms of market consumers such as viral marketing, independently of its multiple interpretation, it can be considered as a recent development and therefore represents an innovation to be adopted or rejected. The way to arrive to reject or adopt to diffuse information is a bigger process, which is called also “adoption cycle”, has been divided in five stages, despite of the fact that there could be fewer steps of the whole course of action: 1. Awareness is the first phase when “the individual is exposed to the innovation but lacks complete information about it”. 2. Interest is the second step and it refers to the raise of interest in the individual who starts to seek additional information about the new idea. 3. In the evaluation stage as Rogers explains the “individual mentally applies the innovation to his present and anticipated future situation, and then decides whether or not to try it”. 4. Trial phase it speaks to itself, the individual makes a full use of the innovation. 5. Arriving to the adoption phase means that people decide to use the innovation. These five stages of Rogers’s diffusion of innovations theory have been applied also for marketing studies with the purpose to find out what circumstances influence consumer behaviour in the buying process (see for example Molesworth and Suortti 2002). And if we suppose that viral marketing is really just an electronic extension of the traditional word of mouth process an understanding of how and © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 42 when the online context might be used in the diffusion of a message – including those with marketing intent - the diffusion theory may provide a framework for analysis. Therefore it is important to consider the four main elements which come together form the theory of diffusion of innovation for the perspectives of word of mouth and “viral” communications: the innovation, time, and the social system. The following paragraphs try to compare the concepts around word of mouth and viral marketing with the characteristics of the main elements of Rogers’s theory: Four main elements of the theory of diffusion of innovation: 1. Innovation The innovativeness of something does not need to be new in terms of being recently developed. According to the definition of Rogers it needs to be perceived new by the person adopting it. 2. Communication In Rogers communication is the process by which people develop and share information with each other in order to achieve common understanding. In his theory having the innovation element the diffusion starts with the communication about it. Most commonly, through different communication channels such as mass media, or nowadays the Internet involves one-to-one communication between people. 3. Time Time is crucial in the innovation decision process, which encompasses the time from when a potential adopter become first aware of the innovation and decide to adopt or reject it. Time is influenced by the type of adopters, who are differently incline to adopt new ideas respect to other members of the society. Rogers distinguishes between five type of adopters: 1. Innovators: seek innovations and are not afraid of risk Characteristics of WOM and “infectious” communications The innovation element of the diffusion theory is comparable to what has been defined by Seth Godin (2001) as ideavirus. It is not necessarily a new idea, there is no need to be a novelty. The way it is encapsulated and wrapped make it perceived new and revolutionary. On-/ off-line and traditional forms – written or oral - of the communication are the medium to pass words and induct word of mouth. The communication process is essential. Without it there is no way to spread an idea or a message. Marketing is communication. WOM and viral marketing seems to be conversational marketing. Time is important to the extent that the more people are connected through an on-line connection, the greater is the possibility that the message about a new idea or product spreads and reaches the “tipping point”. Thanks to new creative Web based venues this can happen in one night all over the world (see for example You Tube). As to the category of “adopters”, as many author wrote on the topic of WOM and synonyms, has developed his/her own © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 43 Four main elements of the theory of Characteristics of WOM and diffusion of innovation: “infectious” communications 2. Early adopters: are open to terminology. Just to recall the three main change, not so much risk takers authors’ book examined in this thesis: 3. Early majority: tend to adopt • Rosen calls Network Hubs the innovations just prior to the individuals that spread the word. average members of a social system He subdivides them regular, mega, 4. Late majority: tend to be sceptical experts, and social categories. about innovations Network hubs are what 5. Laggards: are traditionalists and researchers call “opinion leaders”. suspicious of new ideas • Godin labels people Sneezers. Sneezers are subdivided into Promiscuous sneezers and Powerful sneezers. Gladwell uses the term Mavens, refereeing to people who are similar to a data bank. Mavens provide the message. He calls Connectors functioning as social glue by spreading the message. Salesmen or Persuaders, who help when we are unconvinced of what we hear. 4. Social System Diffusion occurs within a social system The importance of social systems in the whose members share a common goal or mechanism of word of mouth is vital. objectives, which links them together. It This is how Godi puts it: “most successful can be of a network of individuals, ideas are those that spread and grow organizations, entities etc. because of the customer’s relationship to other customers.” From marketer point of view the power of social system relies in an environment, where consumers will market each other because they are linked somehow socially. We can see that Everett Rogers’s scholarly book about the Diffusion of Innovations (1995), which has become the standard textbook and reference on diffusion studies, provides us with solid framework in the twentieth first century to better understand the effect of the “tipping point”, the point at which a trend catches fire – spreading exponentially through the population. The idea suggests that, for good or for bad, change can be promoted rather easily in a social system through a domino effect. The tipping point idea and therefore the dynamism of word of mouth finds its origins in diffusion theory, which is a set of generalizations regarding the typical spread of innovations within a social system. © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 44 2.3.3 Industries of WOM Similarly to viral marketing, word of mouth is also the subject of applicability for marketing purposes and consequently it is often questioned for which industries is better to implement a word of mouth campaign. Rosen (2001) in his book nominates ten industries without a particular order, where word of mouth can have an important role in the purchasing process. He gives an explanation of why a certain industry can create buzz around, therefore it is more suitable for contagious communication: 1. Automotive: “Expensive, exciting and visible products have a better chance of being talked about, so it comes as no surprise that people talk about new cars. But they also talk about where to buy them.” 2. Consumer Electronics: “People love to talk about new things, and the consumer electronics industry provides us with a constant flow of innovative products. The key word here is New.” 3. High Tech: “The extensive buzz about high tech products is also driven by their complexity which makes them difficult to evaluate. Talking with current users of a certain software package helps customers reduce the risk associated with the purchase.” 4. Entertainment: “Fifty three percent of movie-goers rely to some extent on a recommendation from someone they know, according to a study by Maritz Marketing Research. No matter how much money Hollywood pours into advertising, people frequently consult with each other about what movie to see.” 5. Fashion: “More than half of the respondents who were asked by market research firm Yankelovich to specify sources of information about new styles, said they learn about fashion by observing what others are wearing.” 6. Health Care: “By asking around, we reduce the risk of getting a second-rate doctor or getting stuck with a physician we don't like.” 7. Publishing: “What's interesting about the book publishing industry is the role played by resellers in spreading the word about a new book.” © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 45 8. Travel: “Friends and family members are important sources for information about places to visit or about flights, hotels or rental cars.” 9. Toy and Games: “Children tend to socialize more and be more influenced by their peers than their elders. As a result they seem to talk more about products.” 10. Consumer Packaged Goods: “Do people actually talk about things like soap, detergents or toothpaste? They do. Of course, the discussion about Colgate is not as intense as the discussion about Harry Potter, but there's definitely constant exchange of information about these products, especially when they are new.” This list shows that a large variety of industries is suitable to make spread word of mouth. This is consistent with Gladwell’s argumentation in his book (2002), according to which the most incredible product in the less waited moment can tip out of a small group and reach the hive or hub of people. Gladwell completes it that to facilitate the achievement of the so-called “The Tipping Point” there are some facts and natural dynamism to be considered. 2.3.4 Electronic WOM and word of mouse Not only public organizations but also marketing and communications scholars show increasing attention to the word of mouth phenomenon and to the understanding of how firms can utilise word of mouth referrals in their marketing strategy (Godes and Mayzlin 2004). According to Godin (2001) traditional word of mouth can be augmented digitally which is called word of mouse. As he asserts certain products being advertised through electronic word-of-mouth increased big number of people, just because the online web context is ideal to carry the messages. Although word-of-mouth through electronic referrals can be a powerful factor influencing purchasing decisions, some services or products may require an alternative way to create buzz in the marketplace. The Hotmail.com case basically has become the symbol of a great success of this form of word of mouth marketing strategy, which has been named also as word- © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 46 of-mouse due to the act of clicking through the message on the Internet. Professionals often refer to this success story also as a big example of viral marketing, which is about quick achievements without a considerable advertising expenditure. However many practitioners suggest it is just a part of the marketing tools portfolio and it requires careful planning, market research and product analysis before tap into the application of such strategy. Watts and Peretti propose the so called big-seed marketing approach, which combines viral marketing tools with old-fashioned mass media in a way that yields far more predictable results than merely viral approaches like word-of-mouth marketing (Watts and Peretti 2007). This section aimed to represents ideas and theories about word of mouth more in detail for two main reason: firstly, because word of mouth is a most frequently combined concept with viral marketing. Secondly, it cannot be neglected that due to the development of communication and information technologies, word of mouth gained new significance in an enriched Internet communication environment. 2.3.5 Other facets of viral marketing “People don't engage with each other in order to exchange viruses; people exchange viruses as an excuse to engage with each other. It is not about convincing a few key individuals to sell products; it is about creating products that provide everyone [with] the currency they need to forge new social connections.”(Douglas Rushkoff)24 Before we move on to the research part of this study we close this section giving a perspective on what is said about viral marketing in different venues. Academic papers do not write a lot about the term, but if they examine or use the expression ‘viral marketing’ they do it in comparison to word of mouth or consider it suspiciously (see Datta et al. 2005, Thomas 2004). The term of viral marketing is not from the venture capitalist Steve Jurvetson and nor from the managing director of his company Justin Kirby, co-editor and 24 Rushkoff, D. 2006, “Get Back in the Box:Thought Virus #3: Social Currency”, last accessed on June 2007; http://rushkoff.com/index.php?s=viral+marketing&x=0&y=0 © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 47 author of the book “Connected Marketing: The Viral, Buzz and Word of Mouth Revolution”. Marketing which multiplies, as a virus – viral marketing – was first explained by the Harvard Business School Professor, Jeffrey F. Rayport, in an article of the Fast Company, December 1996.25 In this article Rayport introduced six fundamental principles in order to succeed at viral marketing: (1) Use stealth and subtlety to convey the message, (2) give stuff away free up-front, (3) exploit peer-topeer networks to spread the message, (4) make the message memorable and ‘sticky’ (stickiness factor at Gladwell), (5) exploit the strength of weak ties, and (6) work to reach a ‘tipping point’ (see also Wilson 2000). Therefore viral marketing refers to something which spreads fast and defines the method how the message is passed along. The standard viral-marketing model is based on an analogy with the proliferation of an infectious disease. It assumes that one starts with a seed of individuals who spread a message by infecting their friends. To make an ad message fast spreading as it would be a virus (Kelly 2000). It is about contagious communication. The aim is to get somebody or a firm’s message as fast as possible to tip outside of a small group. According to Steve Jurvetson, viral marketing basically stands for ‘spreading the word’. It is quite clear that the most of the definitions from the professionals’ side do not differentiate unequivocally viral marketing from word of mouth. Viral marketing has many ways of realization by a variety of techniques. The next paragraphs will present the most discussed features of viral marketing. 2.3.5.1 Measurability of viral marketing A good example of how something can be promoted throughout the Internet and catch fire is the seasons’ greeting of OfficeMax in December 2007. They launched for the second time the Elf Yourself campaign during the holiday season. It was created a microsite where users could turn themselves into a dancing elf. It has become a big hitting and the site was top-ranked in the Humor category. An 89% increase in traffic took place during the first two weeks of December 2007. This example addresses a commonly discussed feature of viral marketing – its 25 Jeffrey Rayport (1996), “The Virus of Marketing,” Fast Company, Issue 6, http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/06/virus.html?page=0%2C1; last accessed January 28, 2008. December. © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 48 measurability. Social networking guru Jonah Peretti (2005) notifies what is one of the most challenging sides of viral marketing: “an increasingly popular way of thinking about something that is usually random. A designer makes a dancing baby26 and is completely taken aback that it spreads everywhere. Or a silly video circulates all over the web. Much of that is completely unintentional. But now people are thinking, “How do we do this intentionally?” It’s still more an art than a science. Big, multinational corporations haven’t put much money into it because it’s not predictable.”27 [Emphasis added] Measurability can be a real challenge for advertising agencies (Taylor 2005). Although this can be an issue questioning the return on investments in such marketing technique, several professional articles affirm there are more than a few ways to quantify certain aspects of a viral marketing campaign. This assumption derives from the similarities between a viral marketing and any other online marketing campaign. Ways of measurability consist of the number of how many people download a file, view a video, or even visit the campaign landing page or microsite. Moreover there is the possibility to track inbound traffic from referrers through standard web site measurement and analysis software. 2.3.5.2 The viral marketing mix If viral marketing is a special form of marketing, it is supposed that it has a framework encompassing the four Ps and other features of a marketing strategy. John-Robert Skrob’s (2005) study approaches the concept of viral marketing from including the classic components of marketing. It is not published in one of the most acknowledged academic journal, but since if someone “Googles” the term viral marketing it comes up among the first results this thesis holds that it is opportune to have a short overview on it, exploiting the chance to compare it with other professional opinions on this theme. Skrob (2005) interprets viral marketing as a dancing baby was created with 3DStudio Max and Character Studio (from Discreet /Kinetix), with demo files that ship with the product. http://www.burningpixel.com/Baby/Babygif.htm 27 http://www.stayfreemagazine.org/archives/25/jonah-peretti-interview.html; Last accessed September 10, 2007 26 The © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 49 marketing tool used online, including different techniques via Internet. He dedicates a chapter to viral marketing mix and enlists the four Ps of it. It can be pointed out, that place and price may be the most misinterpreted characteristic of viral marketing. Regarding Place he argues: “Viral marketing takes place in the Internet and the place where contacts and trade take place is the virtual marketplace.” As other authors confirmed, it is worth to highlight again that tagging marketing with the word ‘viral’ does not mean that contagious communication can be done only via Internet (Gladwell 2002, Godin 2001). Concerning the second P, product Skrob puts it: “The service or product is free.” Another myth around viral marketing is the statement that products and services for viral marketing or word-of-mouth marketing are something necessarily free. Although the cases of the instant messaging service company - ICQ (“I seek you”) and Hotmail.com - have become the exemplary success stories of online “tella-friend” tactics where the service was free, it does not mean that every product and service promoted through viral marketing needs to be free. On the contrary, many companies from the automotive industry to pharmaceuticals exploit the opportunity of online promotion. For example, there is a studio – The Viral Factory28 – specialized in viral marketing campaigns for the web. Among their clients we can find firms from different industries, without mentioning all of their customers, they worked with Fiat, Ford, Orange, FIFA, MTV, Bacardi and Lycos. Firms that most probably does not provide free products and services. Price, another element of the marketing mix, gives rise to misunderstanding of viral marketing. Likewise product is not necessarily free similarly, the cost of a viral campaign is not automatically low. In the end, a viral campaign can rely on a variety of techniques such as flash-games, audio, mpeg etc. Certainly, to realize an audio could cost less than work on TV- advertising. Cost effectiveness of viral 28 www.theviralfactory.com © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 50 marketing stays in the vast number of people who is reached by it. However a good idea for a viral video or a flash game requires execution, at least one if not a group of creative and further staff. Accordingly, even if we do not speak in terms of a TV advertising budgets some form of viral marketing can entail a heavy budget (Atkinson 2006). A further contradiction between Skrob’s study and the literature regards the question whether there are products and services less or more appropriate for viral marketing campaigns. “Products to be distribute over the Internet fall into specific categories. Goods not suitable for e-commerce are car, houses, office machines and furniture which need to personally inspected.” Opinions are divided about what products or services can generate buzz. Some people think that not every kind of product or service is suitable to generate buzz around. Renée Dye (2000) arguing about the myths of viral marketing said: “…not only outrageous or edgy products create buzz. On the contrary, the most unlikely products, like prescription drugs, can generate tremendous buzz.” Opinion leaders have the role of hosting the ‘virus’ and carry it over analogically to a biological virus until the message reaches the epidemic portions. In this sense, Internet is the ideal hive for spreading a message because customer can reproduce information instantly and spread it to dozens or even thousands of others, independently of long distances in the “virtual atmosphere” 29. 29 see for example: “Social Network Advertising: Making friends,” New Media Age [serial online]. May 2007;19. Available from: ProQuest Information and Learning, Ann Arbor, Mi. Accessed August 20, 2007; “Social network users respond positively to presence of brands,” New Media Age [serial online]. April 2007;11. Available from: ProQuest Information and Learning, Ann Arbor, Mi. Accessed August 20, 2007 © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 51 2.3.5.3 Viral marketing instruments In the following table (see on page 53) we can find the most recognized marketing instruments used for generate different kind of word-of-mouth and buzz. These instruments have to be viewed as the most often associated methods and activities with viral marketing. They can be considered as venues matching the concept of the “medium” defined by Godin (2001) in the following statement: “In order to move, an idea has to be encapsulated in a medium. It could be a picture, a phrase, a written article, a movie, even a mathematical formula (e=mc2). The Medium used for transmitting the ideavirus determines how smooth it is as well as the velocity of its growth.” In case of the on-line tools the difficulty to obtain viral effect is lower as it explained in prior paragraphs. To conclude, viral marketing is often interpreted as a specific Internet tool used to promote product or service integrating third parties in the process. However the concept of viral marketing is applicable not only to an online marketing campaign, but also for an offline one. This was simply called word-of-mouth. There is little doubt that Internet multiplies and accelerates the possibility of spreading “the virus” – the message. There is a tendency in the literature to describe exclusively Internet marketing strategies with the name ‘viral marketing’. However this study suggests, that we should not exclude other traditional marketing techniques basing on the word-of-mouth effect because of its offline context. Anyway we could not deny the fact that opportunities are much higher via transactions on the Internet and this is mainly due to the presence of online social networks and communities. In fact, nowadays there are far less boundaries to reach a huge number of people via Internet and generate information exchange in real time than a hundred years ago. In spite of this, intentionally or unintentionally people during the last century were able to generate buzz around products or services just by word-of-mouth. Was this not a sort of ‘viral marketing’? © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 52 Figure 5. Viral Marketing Instruments VM Instruments Customer Recommendations E-cards Search Engines Links Communities Networks Chatrooms On-line √ √ √ √ √ √ √ Off-line √ Examples Clicking buttons such as “Tell-A-Friend”; “Recommend us to a friend” 2007’s best example: elfyourself.com Register firm’s site at Goole or at other search engine site. Google is providing special services improving the results, e.g. AdWords Register firm or product in link-lists, industry sites etc. √ √ Support or create communities such Nike’s Jogabonito Online examples: LinkedIn.com, Facebook.com, Xing.com, Myspace.com Employ opinion-leaders to mention and speak about firm’s products in chatrooms. Websites with written entries, blogs are a sort of online diaries. There are 5 main categories30: 1. Individual’s personal news and views 2. News/commentary/Journalism 3. Advertising/promotion/mktg./customer service 4. Business/professional insights 5. Internal information sharing/knowledge management “Wiki is a piece of server software that allows users to freely create and edit Web page content using any Web browser. Allowing everyday users to create and edit any page in a Web site is exciting in that it encourages democratic use of the Web and promotes content composition by nontechnical users.”31 A web widget is a portable chunk of code that can be installed and executed within any separate HTML-based web page by an end user. It can personalize one’s Facebook page, blog, or desktop. The power of widgets is that they bring information to costumers rather than making you visit a site. The use of video games to advertise products and services, eventually viewpoints. It is widely spread in the high-tech, software and sport industry. E.g. of firms employed this technique: Adidas, Sony. Blogs √ Wikis √ Widgest √ Online games or Advergames News letters Microsite Free services Affiliate programs √ √ √ √ √ √ Create a newsletter with links or engaging content. It is also called minisite. It is a separate page of a Web site that has a separate URL than its home page and it is used to provide information about and/or promote something that is related to the home page. E.g. offer free software, free downloads. It is about promoting web businesses (merchants/advertisers) in which an affiliate (publisher) is rewarded for every visitor, subscriber, customer, and/or sale provided through his/her efforts. E.g. Google’s AdSense. √ √ 30 31 Dearstyne (2005) http://www.wiki.org/wiki.cgi?WhatIsWiki © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 53 Chapter 3 Research Focus A review of existing literature revealed that the concept of viral marketing is characterised by competing definitions, epistemologies and applicability paradigms. Controversies exist about virtually all aspects of this conception including its origin, the mechanics and extent of its contribution to managerial performance. It seems that the existing cavalcade of notions around viral marketing has been augmented because of the advent of new technologies over the last few decades, which brought new methods, tools and techniques to marketers. Internet and other related technologies has created new, evolutional and dynamic ways to offer and enhance costumer value and this significant change is accelerating day by day. Technological innovation is followed by the renewal of the terminologies. At the end of the day there is not necessarily consistency in the use of these new terminologies, and in the case of viral marketing there are quite a lot of different interpretations and misinterpretations. Previous chapters sought to collect all the relevant literature written by academic scholars, professionals and marketing gurus in order to yield a portrait of the concept which is comparable and debateable with those who are practicing it in their every day life - communication and marketing professionals. It might be unclear what is the real difference between word of mouth marketing and viral marketing, whether it is a form of guerrilla marketing, or it is simply an online form of word of mouth, or whether it has characteristics that discern it from other marketing activities. It is often interpreted as a synonym of buzz and WOM marketing. Keith Bates, for over thirty years owner of a high tech advertising and PR agency, dedicated a lot of postings on his blog and different writings on viral marketing. What he says in one of his whitepapers (Bates 2005) only confirms how often viral marketing is brought under the umbrella of other marketing activities: “I am dividing word of mouth into several categories although in reality, according to Dr. Paul Marsden, WOMM/Viral/Buzz are all same thing, namely network enhanced Word of Mouth. For those who want nuances: viral marketing leverages digital © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 54 networks; buzz leverages media networks; and WOMM leverages social networks. Viral marketing can employ either an ideavirus or shockvirus approach, while social networking is typically managed as influencer relations. Keep in mind that pure word of mouth has no limits on distribution vehicles.”32 The Word of Mouth Marketing Association, to which Paul Marsden33 is an academic advisor, claims that viral marketing is encompassed by word of mouth marketing together with a dozens of other marketing techniques that are devoted to encourage and help people to talk to each other about products and services. Consequently there are some doubts around the appropriateness of the use of the term viral marketing: Does it really not make a difference as to which term we use? Can we refer to viral marketing as buzz marketing or WOMM (word of mouth marketing)? What determines viral marketing and what makes an advertising campaign viral? Do new technological developments influence whether a product or service can be communicated in a contagious way? These questions consolidated a range of other questions allowing the determination of the focus of the research. Therefore in order to avoid concluding this study with inadequate answers an Internet based research was conducted with the purpose to determine the viral marketing’s unique set of characteristics. Seven questions were identified to target the most relevant notions around viral marketing, namely: word of mouth, social networks, web 2.0, the presence of the Internet as context for it, and measurability. 1. Viral Marketing is very vaguely defined. What is the definition of your concept? 2. Some marketing gurus are saying Viral Marketing is nothing but just stimulating word-of-mouth in social networks. What do you think about this assumption? 3. A lot of people argue that Web 2.0. has changed the perception of online marketing techniques. What do you think about this? 4. In your opinion what is/are the most relevant component/s of Viral 32 K. Bates (2005), “An Introduction to Word of Mouth Marketing,” Last accessed March, 2008 from www.kbates.com/images/Word-of-Mouth-White-Paper-042005-v1.pdf 33 Paul Marsden is an academic advisor to WOMMA, VBMA and a part-time post-doctoral research at the London School of Economics into the economics of buzz – the impact of word of mouth advocacy on business growth. He is the Co-editor along with Justin Kirby of ‘Connected Marketing: The Viral Buzz and Word-of-mouth revolution’. © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 55 Marketing? 5. Do you think it is possible to plan word-of–mouth? 6. Can the effect of a viral campaign be measured? 7. Do you use the term: Viral Marketing? A. If not, why? © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 56 Chapter 4 Research Methodology The aim of the research is to provide a comparison of the perspectives of a variety of professionals to what is written in the academic literature and to see the extent, if any, that practice is divergent from theory. For this reason I employed a qualitative research method, consisting of Internet based interviews, because this allowed me to get up close to people’s opinion. According to the interpretive scholars, in order to understand how professionals and practitioners perceive viral marketing, I had to actively be engaged in the field (Daymon and Holloway 2002). To realize this engagement I undertook my research through an online professional network, LinkedIn.com. The method enabled me to conceptualize viral marketing from the point of view of those who are involved in it through their work, studies or professional experiences. Qualitative research seems to be the appropriate way to understand the world of lived in experience of those who were willing to share with me their thought about the topic and question of interest. It made it possible to depict the different perspectives of viral marketing and seek to understand of the concept. Despite the known disadvantages of qualitative research – subjectivity, problems of generalisation, lack of transparency in sampling and procedures, difficult to replicate etc. (Hoyle, Harris, Judd 2002) – an online form of interviewing practitioners proved feasible. 4.1 The original idea – conduct online focus groups The original idea was to create a “virtual focus group” exploiting the opportunity of an international online social network, LinkedIn.com. LinkedIn.com was chosen as research venue because it allowed me to contact many communication and marketing professionals from all over the world and from different firms and © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 57 environments. In particular, I took advantage of the Question&Answer section of LinkedIn.com. This is an option of each participant of the network, which allows every user to post questions and/or contribute to comments by others with his/her answer. Focus groups – both conventional and online – are a form of in-depth interviewing. The purpose of a focus group is never to examine a wide range of topics in one study but to concentrate on one or two concept or objects and discuss them more in detail (Hoyle, Harris and Judd 2002). Typical character of focus groups is the group dynamism, which can be generated by the group setting for itself, providing evidences from many voices on the same topic. The following definition highlights the same aspect of the method: “A focus group involves a group of people – often with common experiences or characteristics – who are interviewed by a researcher (who is known as a moderator or facilitator) for the purpose of eliciting ideas, thoughts and perceptions about a specific topic or certain issues linked to an area of interest. The ultimate goal in focus group interviewing is to see the topic (which may concern a service, product or issue) from the participants’ point of view.” (Daymon and Holloway 2002) Because of respondents can view the same thing differently, a focus group is ideal to stimulate thoughts in other respondents. This is a huge benefit because it generates interactivity. When participants hear or read via Internet about the experiences and opinions of the other members of the group, they can be motivated to expand on and refine their own ideas and perception of the topic. The advantages of this method in terms of “Ss” can only be multiplied in online context: stimulation, spontaneity, serendipity, structure and speed (Malhotra 2005). It should be noted that virtual focus group is a variation or specific format of the traditional focus group interview. This new form of focus group research has become more prominent in recent years and has been especially applied to research in e-marketing, to consumer goods industry to collect consumer feedback in early stages of product development and to explore lived experiences of pharmaceutical treatments (Sweet, 2001). The group discussion takes place in a virtual forum, for instance in a chat room, rather than in a traditional room. Some companies, for © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 58 security reasons, create a microsite for the online group discussions, which is accessible only by a selection of consumers. There are two types of online focus groups: synchronous or real time and asynchronous. In the real time form, six to eight participants respond simultaneously in a chat room or forum, while in the asynchronous focus group users can access a bulletin board or a virtual platform where questions are posted. This research is based on the second solution for two main reasons: 1. I did not have the time and resources to create a separate forum, which can be accessed with a password only by a limited number of participants. This choice would have required to be in the role of moderator and facilitator. 2. Having chosen the asynchronous method all participants meant having sufficient time to reflect on the topics proposed and then participate in the discussion, including eventually also reflections to answers posted by other users of LinkedIn. The asynchronous method allowed me also to reach a huge variety of people from all over the world, since users of LinkedIn could answer from their desired location and at the time which is most convenient for them. Topic, venue and purpose of the research According to the definition mentioned above, the specific topic was viral marketing, the platform of the interviews was an online international professional network, LinkedIn.com. The purpose of the focus group was to elicit a “definition” of viral marketing based on the e-users’ perspective of the phenomenon. 4.2 Advantages versus disadvantages of online focus groups Conducting qualitative research online is not new. The electronic revolution and the evolution of the digital world have just favoured the use of online focus groups. Online qualitative studies are used to evaluate on- and offline advertisings, to critique and test concepts, ideas, products, visuals and the possibility to continue the list is almost never-ending. The attraction of cyberspace lies in its versatility as a research forum allowing to involve people independently from their geographic location (Sweet 2001, O’Connor and Madge 2003). Moreover Internet permits © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 59 researchers to interface with delicate questions for those otherwise it would be difficult to reach answers via conventional research approaches – such as a face-toface interview (DiMaggio et al. 2001). Virtual settings decrease the fear of users and anonymity let often them say what they exactly think (Jones 1995, Curtis P. et al. 2005). Speed also remains one of the biggest selling point of conducting Internet based discussions, while traditional approaches would require months or more, an online market research literally can be carried out in one or two weeks depending on the objectives and complexity of the study. On the other hand the virtual interface undoubtedly encounters several disadvantages in front of the traditional interviewing practices. First of all, there is a need to ensure that all participants, the researcher included, are computer skilled enough in order to avoid technical complications. In case of users of an online network, such as LinkedIn it can be supposed this problem does not exist. Disadvantages associated with on-line focus groups, include under representation of the overall population because only Internet users are included. Moreover there is a loss of verbal cues during communication, a high no-show rate among participants agreeing but failing to take part in the online focus groups. Lack of nonverbal - facial expression, body posture etc., and paraverbal cues such as the intonation of voice, interjection, laughter, have been identified as another disadvantage to online focus groups. At the same time these weaknesses can reduce many of the biasing dynamics that can occur in real time, physical focus groups in detail (Hoyle, Harris and Judd 2002). Nevertheless other research has suggested use of common emotions and abbreviations can augment the lack of nonverbal and paraverbal cues in an online environment (Lane 19??). A further disadvantage attributed to online focus groups includes more abbreviated responses to questions and an overall lower level of individual dialogue in the discussion. This disadvantage is evident in synchronous online focus groups and may not be applicable to asynchronous focus group discussions. © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 60 4.3. Preparation on the virtual venue - LinkedIn.com LinkedIn, a professional networking site, was founded by Reid Hoffman – previously vice president of Pay Pal – in December 2002. The launch of the site ensued in May 2003, the actual CEO is Dan Nye. “LinkedIn is located in Mountain View, California and is funded by world-class investors including Sequoia Capital, Greylock, the European Founders Fund, and Bessemer Venture Partners” (source: www.linkedin.com). LinkedIn had to face a very slow start, after having achieved the “tipping point” the service has almost doubled its membership and as of this year LinkedIn members counts more than 17 million experienced professionals from around the world, representing 150 industries. This huge network has grown out from Hoffman’s own high-powered network. It took three years the proliferation of the site to the big boom. The following table shows that LinkedIn in December 2007 had approximately 3.6 million visitors and in respect of December 2006 it shows about 485% annual growth rate in visitors. Figure 6. LinkedIn People Count LinkedIn is all about business oriented networking, it helps to extend somebody’s existing network of trusted contacts and discover inside connections to recommended job candidates, industry experts and business partners. The network is built up on direct connections of the users, the connections of each direct connections are called © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 61 “second degree” connections. The connections of second degree connections lead to ones’ third degree connections. Through introductions trusted contacts can be introduced to other members of the net. Considering the three degree system, my network in the phase of the research project (January 2008) consisted in 37 direct connections and 1,429,800+ connections at third degree. In August of 2007 I posted the following question on LinkedIn: “Viral marketing is very vaguely defined. What is the definition of your concept?” The question triggered more interest than I thought from different types of practitioners from public relation firms, advertising and graphic agencies to marketing managers from different countries. Albeit there was no moderator and respondents were not sat down together in a room, the question was open and visible for all users on my network on from LinkedIn. This approach generated a kind of “virtual focus group” discussion without the possibility of physical interaction of the participants, but with the opportunity to react to each others’ answer. After an analysis of data received in this particular way I decided to examine the multiple aspects of viral marketing through a selection of responds received. But the particular idea to create “virtual focus group” has been matured four months later. From the very beginning it was clear that a focus group on LinkedIn would not be a traditional one, since there is no moderator and real time facility. I did not create a separate forum to which just a selection of people can only access. The topic is not delicate, therefore an Internet based “interview” forum, in this case the platform of LinkedIn seemed to be appropriate, convenient and rather an innovative research method. In the case of exploring viral marketing, which is in our days is strictly linked to the online environment it was inviting to carry out the research in the cyberspace. © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 62 4.3.1 Challenges As a first step, short letters - with a recall and invitation to participate to the thesis research - were sent out to those who answered to the first question in August 2007. After this an official invitation was prepared targeting two groups of people: one invitation approached those who already belonged to my network on LinkedIn, the other invitation had the aim of inviting persons to sign in to LinkedIn.com and participate or invite LinkedIn users to link up with me and have a look at the questions posted regarding viral marketing (See under Appendixes both type of invitations). Different facts weakened the success of the research that ended up with low return rate of the invitations sent. Once, given that invitation were sent out in a holiday period, I was not able to create a concrete group of people with eight to twelve participants for the starting date of the research. Second, timing was a crucial constrain having a limited period of time to carry out the discussions and conclude the research phase. Third, I encountered difficulties in getting back the invitations with demographics (data collecting information about age, gender, occupation etc. of the respondents) mainly from those members of my network who I do not know personally. In the light of these considerations, it should be noted that the main challenges encountered in this project included the hurdle of engaging all participants not just in a discussion but also having their official agreement to publish their comments, and the length of time over which the focus groups took place. The challenges that were faced in both the preparation and the processing phase for the focus groups can help provide suggestions for future application of a virtual focus group and can help develop better steps to improve the methodology in preparing the online venue. Consequences are treated under Limitations of the study (See Chapter 5). © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 63 4.4. Processing From of the literature review, all in all seven questions were elaborated in order to generate discussions and view points’ sharing on the network. The first question, as it has been mentioned, was posted in August 2007. The last six questions appeared on the Question&Answer section of LinkedIn during a ten days period. After the post of the last questions I left them open for ten days. The questions in order of appearance are: 1. Viral Marketing is very vaguely defined. What is the definition of your concept? 2. Some marketing gurus are saying Viral Marketing is nothing but just stimulating word-of-mouth in social networks. What do you think about this assumption? 3. A lot of people argue that Web 2.0. has changed the perception of online marketing techniques. What do you think about this? 4. In your opinion what is/are the most relevant component/s of Viral Marketing? 5. Do you think it is possible to plan word-of–mouth? 6. Can the effect of a viral campaign be measured? 7. Do you use the term: Viral Marketing? A. If not, why? B. If yes, in which context? When a user places a question on LinkedIn, he or she has the option to send the question only to selected members from his/her direct connection. If the recruitment of constituents for the virtual focus group were more successful, I would have opted for this solution. Instead I decided to leave open the question to everyone and apply the research method as Internet based discussion. This means that about 1,430,000 people could see questions inserted on the platform from many countries of the world. Fifty-two members decided to share their opinion with me and other members of the network. At that point of the research we can speak about Internet based © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 64 discussions rather than virtual focus group. In order to satisfy the methodology rigour, basic demographic data has been collected in order to give a general statistical description of the participants in the discussions. This request attracted a quite satisfactory return rate: twenty-four participants sent back their data, which implies the 46% of the total number of respondents. Generic statistics are provided also by LinkedIn, according to which the following description is available about the group of people who is registered on the network and could consult my questions: Figure 7. LinkedIn Network Statistcs Twelve answers were received for question one. From the first day of publishing the © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 65 second question until the closure day of all questions 40 answers were gathered for questions 2 to 7 all together. Some of them directly aimed at the question proposed, others contained reflections on opinions already placed on the platform. The twentyfour responses sent back by the participants containing their general demographic data allowed me to descript at least in part of the group of respondents. Country of work and name are disclosed on the network therefore percentages of gender and country describe the whole group, while data about general age and the variation of it are calculated based on data received from the individuals completing the short questionnaire. Figure 8. General Demographics of the Group of Respondents Average age: 39 Age varies between 21 and 66. 78% of the answerers were from leading positions (co-founder, owner, partner, president, head of, entrepreneur etc.) 94% of them manager or above. Major industries represented: Marketing (46%), Advertising (23%), Communication (13%), Consultancy (11%), IT (3%) Data analysis followed the collection of all answers obtained. It has to be mentioned that another disadvantage of qualitative research: data analysis tends to be the high © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 66 levels of subjectivity. In the case of this research project subjectivity remained an issue, which in further cases can be overcome by having another researcher checking all the quotations. In the circumstances given was I had to verify and decide about the representativeness of the answers. Data gathered through online discussions was not excessive, however the ability to copy participant responses from HTML to Microsoft Word can be considered as an additional benefit for the online research. This turned out to be an absolutely time and cost effective solution. The research findings are reported under the themes which emerged from the literature overview, reflections and opinions are evaluated in the light of the same. A summary of the findings and their implications for further researches are given in the following chapter. © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 67 Chapter 5 Conclusions This chapter integrates all the previous aspects referred to in the study. In Chapter 2 the background, the context and the motivation for the study were discussed. In Chapter 3 and partially in Chapter the objectives and the focus of the study were explained. The research was put into the Internet context involving members of a large international online community to answer some questions in the landscape of viral marketing. It was pointed out that viral marketing being a relatively new definition is truly multi-interpreted, drawing from different types of literatures – both academic and professional. A summary of the main findings, based on the answers elicited from the Internet based interviews, is more fully described in the following section of the study. 5.1 Summary of the main findings As the first question of the discussions on LinkedIn.com respondents were asked to reflect on the most debatable side of the term viral marketing, which concerns of its definition: Question 1: Vial marketing is very vaguely defined. What is your definition of the concept? Twelve answers were received to the question, all of the respondents were from North-America - USA and Canada, from different levels of managerial positions working with marketing and communication agencies, some of them on the creative side while others from a more operational level. Many of the respondents linked the concept directly to an on-line phenomenon. One typical comment was: © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 68 “If you look at Face Book and MySpace (and LinkedIn to a degree) you see viral marketing at work. My 17 year-old uses Face Book to get to a network of hundreds spread all over the country. If one person in that network sees a movie, for example, the review is spread - like a virus - to the network and to the networks of all the members of that network.” As far as other crucial aspects of the concept were concerned respondents drew the attention to the presence of a social process, and addressed people’s social networks as the basis for viral marketing. Social distribution has been suggested as the virtual dynamics behind the information sharing about product or services: “I define "viral marketing" as social (online or interpersonal) distribution (of a message, video, email joke, etc.) for the purpose of marketing. In fact I prefer to use the term ‘social distribution’.” (Senior Producer) “Viral Marketing is about having your business, brand, ad, message or idea spread through a community or marketplace.” (Telecom Specialist) In addition, similarly to some scholars’ opinion – for example a study mentioned in the literature overview (Thomas 2004) – the use of the term “viral marketing” was declared also as an allusion and defined as being more than an effect of a marketing strategy instead of being a standalone strategy itself: “Viral is really an effect, not a strategy. When something is truly remarkable, people will talk about it. That word-of-mouth is what leads to a campaign "going viral". Accordingly, "viral marketing" is really just a buzz term and it's misleading. Great marketing will hopefully go viral. You cannot, however, realistically build a "viral campaign". You simply build something great, and hope it takes off.” [Emphasis added] This answer states another important thought about viral marketing according to which viral marketing’s origin can be traced back to the most ancient form of passing information between people: word of mouth. Technology fostered the possibility to speak about “viral” effect, in terms of speed and exponential growth of the messages in reaching lots of individuals. “To me, viral marketing is the old Breck shampoo commercial …and they tell two people who tell two people and so on…. Breck only has to reach the first level of audience with their message and then the audience takes over to expand the message exponentially.” (Chief Sales Officer) © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 69 Other answers also suggested that fundamentally every kind of marketing which get people talk and rise their willingness to say about the product, could be called “viral”: “Viral Marketing is, basically, marketing that worked. Think about it - any commercial, promotion or other ad that gets you talking is 'viral'. Viral marketing spreads a message from person to person independent of the original advertisement or medium.” One of the respondents included in his comment what clients mean to be “viral marketing”: “When I hear clients ask me for something "viral," they mean something that gets a lot of attention without that attention being driven as directly by the size of the ad spend.” (CEO at GMD Studios) “Now people think viral is almost anything with a low cost associated with, or just a sub-type of "word of mouth" (despite the fact that anything related to spoken language could be described that way), or as some type of video or video delivery platform that includes forwarding. IMPO, guerilla, evangelization and referral -much older terms -- still describe those three examples above just fine (and viral doesn't help us understand those techniques too much more.)” Interestingly no one defined viral marketing as a subcategory of word of mouth, however it was mentioned its leading role in the message transfer in the consumer to consumer communication, which was felt to be both on- and offline process. It came along the notion of Gladwell: contagious communication, just as the Rushkoffian definition of viral marketing: “In more classic memetics, though, that's just the concept of "contagious". Viral had a more subtle meaning, a subtype of contagious. Viral memes have at least two readings -- one that is attractive and encourages consumption, and another that is hidden inside of it that is the true payload. So in the classic (let's call it "Rushkoffian") definition of viral marketing, you (1) wouldn't know it was marketing until it was too late and (2) the hidden message inside of it is clear but only upon analysis.” (CEO at GMD Studios) Given that this first question generated lots of concept in relation to viral marketing, definitions and suggestions were structured into a conceptual map © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 70 enlisting the main notions around it. (See Figure 9.) Figure 9. Viral Marketing Meme Map The conceptual map above has determined the direction of the next questions employed in the research. Therefore, it followed the second, somewhat provocative question: Question 2: Some marketing gurus are saying Viral Marketing is nothing else but stimulating word-of-mouth in social networks. What do you think about this assumption? This question got the most answers. Fifteen persons were interested in the topic; some of them were among those who posted his/her answer to the first question, as well. At the end of the day it was not clearly defined what is the difference between word of mouth and viral marketing, but most of them touched the infinite dilemma, whether viral marketing is the subcategory of WOMM (Word of Mouth Marketing) or vice versa. Some definitions were given in agreement with the guru’s statement: © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 71 “I agree with the gurus’ statement. Viral marketing is by definition worth of mouth in a social network - any social network, also an online network. With all the hype about 'virtual' internet based social networks it is easy to forget that there are 'real' networks out there (I will not start about what is the difference between virtual and real...) that behave in the same way.” (Fred) Other answers supported the idea that viral marketing actually is a very old concept, we just found a new term to how to name the phenomenon. Word of mouth has been felt and defined as the core concept in describing the principles of viral marketing. What makes the difference between word of mouth was considered to be in their execution: “… viral marketing is very old. Gossip does it. Conventional advertising is basically hoping for the same - influencing/informing those who read the magazines hoping to attract the complete crowd. With internet we only found a new medium, and a new term (and questionable expertise...?) for an ancient mechanism.” (Fred) “While I think that while the strategy is the same (inspiring others to talk about your product or service) the execution is very different towards on-line social networks or off-line communities. It depends on your target audience which execution fits best.” (marketing manager at U-Design) It still appeared from the answers that the common root for word of mouth and viral marketing lay in their occurrence in a social network. Social network is the hive making possible to pass along the message in versatile forms. Contrarily of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association many respondents contented word of mouth as part of a viral marketing strategy. Here is a typical example: “Viral is different than WOM and in fact WOM could be a small part of a well thought out Viral Marketing Strategy.” [Emphasis added] (Sean Hulin, Chief Marketing Officer at MobileCause) The following answer adds to this consideration how technology has changed the possibilities to share out information. Moreover, similarly to Seth Godin’s ideavirus (Godin 2001) it was supported that in the centre of the process there has to be a remarkable message: “It is easier to do Viral Marketing with the penetration of PC's, smartphones, and broadband. But with the average person being inundated with spam, email, calls, and other messages - on and offline - it takes a Remarkable message (usually wrapped in humor) to gain attention. I guess stimulation would be a synonym for remarkable in © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 72 this case. But viral marketing is more than WOM in Social Networks. If you read a funny cartoon in the paper, cut it out, photocopy and hand it around - that is viral. (Telecom Specialist) The following interviewee enlightened another considerable aspect of the debate around the definition of viral marketing: 1. Being a marketing strategy type inevitably there has to be a person, agency or an organization, which starts the whole process. 2. The success of an advertising campaign with “viral intention” will depend mostly on their capability to generate the dynamics of an “organic dissemination” avoiding every form of “manipulated dissemination”. Other respondents emphasised as well, that the “real” viral effect cannot be obtained through “stealth marketing”, which is a method to promote a product without disclosing the marketers’ involvement in the process (Creamer 2005). Deceiving the real intent of promote something will not make the distribution of the information “viral”. Rather it is said concerning word of mouth, which considered as the basis for viral marketing, that its power “lies in its honesty. It lies in the fact that it is about real and transparent opinions – both good and bad. Consumers continue to rely on the credibility of their friends’, family’s, and acquaintances’ opinions because they are pure and without manipulation,” (Balter and Butman, 2005 quoted in Alire 2007). “WOM can be considered a form of viral marketing, or buzz marketing, or guerilla marketing (although each of these terms are mutually exclusive). To many of the points here, this "guru" assertion is incorrect and very short-sighted. And yes, it's been around a very long time - as long as any recorded media. True viral marketing involves an "organic dissemination" of content more so than "manipulated seeding". VM can involve many of the components mentioned in this forum, but the concept isn't really reflexive (kind a like how Catholics are Christians but not necessarily the other way around). Anyway, pushing semantics aside (that's what these gurus don't do), true VM is the evolution and proliferation of a phenomenon built by the people, and spread by the people. At its core, it isn't really measurable, although its component platforms can be [Emphasis added]. …as you may have noticed, social networks are also ad-averse, so barring opt-in content, the viral buck pretty much stops there. The shift that is bridging the gap between what is considered branded messaging and organic phenomena rests somewhere in a cause-related sphere, and is based on utility. For example, State Farm created a microsite comprised of the phenomenon "What Now?" The site provides widgets and other features that are truly useful for © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 73 the user in understanding the circumstances involving crisis management (in other words, brand utility) and these components can be spread virally. The point is that the brand "sponsors" this phenomenon, but leaves its fingerprint off of the content itself (for the most part). Users then see a natural association and are willing to share the content with friends and family.” (Strategic partner) According to another respondent, the real intention of viral marketers is not hidden, on the contrary, they supposed to know where to start to spread the message finding the right venue with those people who are likely willing to tell about the idea (Lyons and Kenneth 2005): “You might want to read 'the tipping point'34 - It described how ideas can spread like a virus, under the right circumstances. Basically it boils down to people liking to share nice/interesting/important news/ideas etc. But not every person is the same has the same number of contacts or enthusiasm. Also, not every idea is worth being shared. So 'Viral marketers' are simply experts in informing the right persons about the for them interesting ideas” (Fred) Literature overview showed the significance of the shift in consumer behaviour thanks to new approaches and facilities, which fostered the recognition of the Web not only as network of links of information, but also as network, which connects people to people and people to content (Moynagh and Worsley 2002, Goldsmith 1996, Klein 1998). The essence of new marketing strategies is to exploit the opportunities given by the Web and discover how to target the collaborative mass of consumers teeming on it. Since viral marketing is often defined as an online marketing technique, the third question aimed to elicit whether the concept of Web 2.0 has to do with new marketing etymologies. Question 3: A lot of people argue that Web 2.0 has changed the perception of online marketing techniques. What do you think about this? As it can be seen from a selection of answers this question was approached in two ways: on the one hand part of the respondents tried to examine the real impact of Web 2.0 on online marketing strategies, on the other hand several participants were 34 Gladwell, Malcolm (2000), The Tipping Point – How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 74 concerned about the authenticity of use the term Web 2.0. It was discussed that Web 2.0 technically did not bring new things into the world, but most importantly empowered costumers by such improved features, which makes simpler the use of the Web for its “laic” users, as well. Most of the comments embodied the notion of the power given to costumer’s hands through new online techniques and highlighted the importance to recognise the shift in consumers’ role by marketers and advertisers and proactively respond to it (Moynagh and Worsley 2002, Catterall and Maclaran 2002, Denegri-Knott 2006). A selection of the most thoughtful argumentations follows: “A lot of the answers here focus on what "Web 2.0" is or isn't, but the meat of your question is really about online marketing, which itself is fairly broad. Fundamentally the overall marketing strategy on- and off-line, integrated or not, has to abide by good marketing principles and practices and make sense for the product and audience connection. If online marketing is advertising TO the consumer, I think of the "Web 2.0" (defined in my mind as social networking, collaboration tools, and virtual media, regardless of the technology behind it) as a *potential* means of marketing WITH the consumer by enabling a two-way (and sometimes multi-way) dialog with one another and with the consumer. It's risky and there are many examples of Web 2.0 marketing that has utterly failed or backfired, and it seems (perception!) that the best marketing practices are those that empower users and don't overtly advertise or promote their products in a way that is directed at those users but instead allow them to decide for themselves and express their opinions.” [Emphasis added] (Senior Producer) The following respondent drew the attention to other important traits of the online venue. Simplified or user friendly structure and design of the Internet enhances consumers creativity enabling them to make their own contribution and express their personal involvement in a process – that can be a promotional one, too. If the online context designed well, it creates ideal circumstances to an online proliferation of a “remarkable” message: “I think that many people who dismiss Web 2.0 as hype have some valid reasons to do so if they focus on the technology - yes, it's still just web pages technically, but the difference is in the involvement of the user in creating content. "Web 2.0" is simply a way to refer to web sites and applications that allow users to easily upload or create their own content and share it in unique ways without doing their own coding. © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 75 In that respect, it's shifting marketing efforts towards personilzation and towards getting the customer more involved in promotion itself. ... Web 2.0 allows users to get feeds, such as podcasts or "channels" of information on very specific and specialized topics, so marketing can be directed to affinity and interest groups in a much more direct way that broadcast media can't do. It's an extension of traditional advertising done in specialty publications or tv and radio program that appeal to narrow demographics. Also, Web 2.0 allows users to "spread the word" about products and services through reviews, creating a "mashup" of an ad, passing along an ad that they find interesting or funny or creating their own ads. … And I'm sure you've seen sites that let you make a custom funny ad to send to friends or for a contest. Of course, contests for advertising slogans or the ability to get custom advertising material to hand out is nothing new. Web 2.0 is just creating new advertising and marketing opportunities with these traditional methods and makes it easier for companies and consumers to go through the process. "Web 1.0", where creating websites was complicated and content was static was more like a broadcast medium; Web 2.0 gives advertising more of the interactivity and flexibility that you see in the "real world".” [Emphasis added] (Instructional Technologist) The first three questions tried to extract from professionals’ perspectives three main information: 1) A definition of viral marketing, 2) its relation to word of mouth, 3) to examine the role of Web 2.0 in creating ideal conditions capable to augment the possibility to spread information about a product or service among people from all over the world. Answers collected to Question 1 and 3 confirm the viewpoints given by academics and professional writers. Regarding Question 2, Figure 10 (page 77.) shows the difference in the perception of how viral marketing relates to word of mouth. While the literature often calls viral marketing an electronic extension of word of mouth (Datta et al. 2005) – eWOM – or word of mouse (Godin 2001), most of the respondents deemed word of mouth as an essential element of a viral marketing strategy and not vice versa. Question 4 aimed at to discover what other pertinent facets are considered elements of viral marketing: © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 76 Question 4: In your opinion what is/are the most relevant component/s of Viral Marketing? It was generally agreed that similarly to a biological virus the viral effect of a marketing strategy could be achieved through employing the right “virus” (not in the negative sense), in the right environment where the “virus” (a remarkable idea, message, product or service) will be hosted and offered by the potential to be accelerated and spread along in an exponential way (Rayport 1996). Figure 10. Viral marketing (VM) vs. word of mouth (WOM) “It's important to identify the `RIGHT VIRUS' and the way they deploy /use the medium. There are many individuals who create the Viral and are so networked that it can create the buzz in a shortest possible time...” (Rajesh Meta, Vice President Marketing Emami Limited) Answers to this question not only determined the most important components of viral marketing referring to metaphorical matches of a biological disease, but it was also felt the need to enlist qualities of a good advertising campaign. Basic principles of any other traditional marketing campaign were seen as main components of it, which can be summarised with a trivialised sentence: telling the right message to the right person at the right time. It seems that the question was interpreted in the following sense: “What makes a marketing campaign ‘viral’?” “- establishing credibility (tactics may include humility or brutal honesty...a hint of humor is always helpful) © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 77 - value that is apparent to the target audience - the target audience identifies with the product/service and message; they embrace it immediately and personally feel it is their responsibility to tell their peers (at minimum in a "did you know...?" context) - it is generally helpful, but not always needed, to acknowledge your target audience (if they are known for something they are proud of e.g. bargain hunters, shoe-shopaholics, etc)...the other thing is making them feel they are let in on something special that they would appreciate.” [Emphasis added] (Marketing Turnaround and Growth Specialist) Another typical answer focused on the “talkability” aspects of VM: “Without doubt, talkability – and the challenge is to weave in your message/ brand within the ‘talkable’ piece.” (Director of Martketing) “- A strong concept or phenomenon for an organic proliferation - Ease of use - Relevancy to the targeted consumer group (utility)” (Partner and Strategy Director) It was a recurring comment that the intent of advertising is something that in a “real viral” campaign cannot be revealed directly: “For it to be truly 'viral' (which is quickly becoming a worthless buzzword) it can not come off as advertising. People need to be emotionally engaged by it before they realize it is an ad….” (Co-founder) This statement however is supported neither by the real practice nor by authors on viral marketing. Rosen more than once stated in different interviews that viral marketing is part of bigger marketing mix35. Marketers who want to obtain viral effect do not achieve it hiding the real intention behind the message – which can be transmitted through different mediums – but truly to invent an innovative or exciting way to present it. “How it's presented is also key. Posting a video on your company website and calling it 'viral' is empty. Creating a site specific to the initiative and getting the URL spread via emails/forums etc. is a more reliable method, but again it can't look like your company's site trying to push something.” Certainly pushing techniques hold out little hope to reach the desired audience and sales, but viral marketing as it was stated earlier, is not paragonable 35 http://www.avantmarketer.com/index/live/interview/emanuel_rosen_on_viral_marketing_page_ii, Last accessed on April 13, 2008. © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 78 with the negative aspects of a biological virus, which can be hidden for many years in somebody’s organic system. Ethic and honesty is key to marketers’ success. How differs marketing “unleashing the ideavirus” is clearly summarised by Godin (2001): “Marketing by interrupting people isn’t cost-effective anymore. You can’t afford to seek out people and send them unwanted marketing messages, in large groups, and hope that some will send you money. Instead, the future belongs to marketers who establish a foundation and process where interested people can market to each other. Ignite consumer networks and then get out of the way and let them talk.” Other respondents mentioned elements leading us to another indispensable component of a viral campaign, the right group of people: “You need a great database with receptive people to send the first information to. Then the concept must be of such incredible and creative content, that people indeed want to be infected by the 'viral'. So, two components actually make or break your viral marketing contempt.” (Communication Specialist) Marketers who have successfully directed their promotional efforts to opinion leaders in traditional marketplaces in order to facilitate the diffusion of new products, services and ideas have discovered the potential implications of opinion leaders using the Internet as their global forum (Koh et al 2007, Kozinets 1999). Given that the success of a “viral agent” depends on the movement of verbal or online consumer recommendations, the next question investigated into the dynamism of word of mouth. From the opinions of professionals on LinkedIn, it was often implicated that at the bottom of the whole viral marketing process there is buzz generation or word of mouth about something, consequently it was set to drive the discussion toward the question whether it is possible to plan it intentionally? Question 5: Do you think it is possible to plan word of mouth? Respondents in most of the cases stated with great confidence that basically everything can be planned, included word of mouth. © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 79 “I think nearly everything can be planned, within certain limits of confidence.” (Engineering Manager) “Plan to engage the right mouths, plan to excel and exceed their expectations and the word of mouth will travel well.” (Sales and Marketing Manager) “Word of mouth is definitely planned for better or worse. Provide exceptional service/superior product and the purchasers will tell at least 8 people. Provide subpart service/crappy product and the purchasers will tell about 20 people. Businesses do plan word of mouth campaigns and small growing companies should also implement systems to get their best customers to tell their associates about the service/product. People choose restaurants and movies, and plays based on recommendations that word of mouth at work.” (General Manager) Somebody illustrated his conviction with a real example from Poland, evoking a marketing campaign where marketers obtained a huge word of mouth intentionally delaying the revelation of the message: “I recall a wonderful (big budget) ad campaign in Poland for a pre-pay cellphone card company. All over the country large billboards and small displayed a red "cartoon" hand with no logo, no message. Over a few weeks the WOM grew until recognition, particularly among the target market of teens to 30's, was huge. Then came a few cryptic words - everyone tried to figure it out. Then more information, and magazine ads, and TV ads. I believe that, once the cards hit the kiosks, they experienced the fastest growth and sustained business on record.” (Managing Director) This example hangs together with another thought discussed in this thesis in relation to a marketing campaign with viral effect, according to which this strategy can be harnessed combining it with traditional techniques, such as TV ads or printed media (Stuart-Menteth et al. 2005). Another respondent brought the examples of well-known companies such as Virgin, Nike and McDonalds who built their word of mouth upon catch phrases: “Yes. Look at all the big successes and you will see that they have all used something to make you buy, or want more. Richard Branson and Virgin - The UK did not see that much advertising but a lot of word of mouth in the beginning and then came the advertising. Of course a company that calls itself "Virgin" is not easily forgotten, so when he started his radio station and bought his own rail network he was already seen as a great businessman. If you also look at the music industry, especially in MP3/4 players, as much as there © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 80 is advertising there is also word of mouth and people in different countries buy different things, not just on look, but also recommendations. So word of mouth is also "Just do it" "Im lovin it" both of these most people remember, talk about and the catch phrase has caught on and the word of mouth continues. So you have to decide which word of mouth you want and how to focus the people. But catch phrases are definitely a form of planned word of mouth.” (Product Quality and Business Excellence Manager) Question 6: Can the effect of a viral campaign be measured? What is often criticised in relation to the success of a viral marketing campaign is its lack of measurability. However good data is obviously a key part of any successful campaign. The question did not differentiate viral campaigns through a traditional medium or a campaign employing the online venue, it only aimed to find out what professionals retain as the best measurement for describe the viral effect based on their practice. In respondents opinion there are relatively basic methods to quantify certain aspects of a viral marketing campaign, similarly to any other online marketing campaign. A selection follows from the most insightful answers: “Yes, it is possible to measure the effect of a viral campaign) - Either as awareness measurement (by measuring click through, traffic) - Or, as PR value computation method (how many publications covered it and its equivalent advertising cost)” (Marketing Director) “One can positively measure the effect of viral campaign. It could be either through: - Sales generation figures post the campaign - CTRs36 - Lead generation figures - Buzz of positive feedback received through the Target segment.” (Rajesh Meta, Vice President Marketing Emami Limited) One of the respondents based his comment on the biological virus metaphor: “Like a bilogical virus, I can think of several ways to measure it’s impact (think of 36 CTR: click through rate. The average number of click-throughs per hundred ad impressions, expressed as a percentage. It is important to distinguish what a click-through rate does and does not measure. The CTR measures what percentage of people clicked on the ad to arrive at the destination site; it does not include the people who failed to click, yet arrived at the site later as a result of seeing the ad. (Font: www.marketingterms.com) © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 81 how the CDC might measure a virus): - spread (number of people who pass the virus along - lots of ways to track that) - lifespan, how long does the virus live in real time- do people continue to spread it long after it reaches a peak in repopulation repopulation… The real difference to remember , is that a biological virus (as far as we can tell) has a goal of self propogation, and your virus may have other goals. Defining your goals well should enable you to establish the right metrics.” (VP Emarketing) “It depends on what you are looking for in your measurement, and what the components are. Most viral campaigns are created to bolster "brand equity", not to convert direct sales -- in this way, ROI methods are difficult to employ. With respect to the former, you can attract huge amounts of traffic (impressions) and track visitation behaviours. The best and most successful viral campaigns are those that are integrated and have multiple engagement points. Each platform has its own tracking standards (i.e. CPMs37, CPAs38, etc.), but at least you can get an idea of what your targets are responding to. Just do a Google search on the topic and you'll find some great examples, including those done for Coke, Sprite, Cisco and Mentos.” (Partner & Strategy Director) According to one answer the real question is not whether a viral effect can be measured, but the provability of that results are directly come from the marketing effort: “Yes, in a number of different ways. If you really mean the effect, than it is no different than any other non-ROI measurement task with all of the same tools available to it. For example, if you're looking for a perceptual shift (in a marketing sense) you can either do a classic pre/post interruptive test or use buzz tonality metrics measured before the campaign and after to even look at the affective expressions that prove perceptual shift. The more challenging question is "Can the effect of a viral campaign be measured in a way that proves which results were a direct consequence of just the viral effort?" In many cases, especially in an integrated campaign, that's much tougher, because of the way it interacts with overall brand experience and every other channel -- a search optimization person might count any referral link from google.com as their results, even if some of those people would have never searched on that keyword if the viral campaign hadn't produced the curiosity in the first place. The more impossible question, "And can you predict that in advance?"” 37 Marketing term CPM means: cost per thousand impressions. The CPM model refers to advertising bought on the basis of impression. This is in contrast to the various types of pay-for-performance advertising, whereby payment is only triggered by a mutually agreed upon activity (i.e. click-through, registration, sale). (Font: www.marketingterms.com) 38 CPA means: cost per action. Online advertising payment model in which payment is based solely on qualifying actions such as sales or registrations. The actions defined in a cost-per-action agreement relate directly to some type of conversion, with sales and registrations among the most common. This does not include deals based solely on solely clicks, which are referred to specifically as cost-per-click or CPC. (Font: www.marketingterms.com) © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 82 (CEO at GMD Studios) In another answer somebody proposed to create microsites, which can help to measure the effect of a viral agent separating it form the effect of the whole campaign. At the same time, this reply implicated that a viral strategy takes part of a bigger marketing communications strategy. “Landing pages, promotion specific feedback forms, and off-site offers provide hard numbers to viral campaigns. I have had customers use microsites very effectively to isolate the response from a single viral initiative.” As it was suggested there are several ways of measuring how many people download a file, view a video, visit the campaign’s landing page or microsite. Moreover, as respondents affirmed, there are standard tools and metrics making possible to calculate inbound traffic from referrers, such as seed routes, to a destination web. These solutions were regarded as basic elements of the online tracking. What can be the real challenge for viral campaign accountability is measuring how far the viral material has spread. It was emphasised that marketers can encounter that situation, when people viewed a material offline, and material can be repurposed thereby losing its tracking capabilities. About the measurements of sales in case of campaigns not implemented in the Internet context - such as trial distributions, affiliate programs - Marsden (2005) proposes to measure trial’s impact on sales. It is ideal to use a ‘control’ region or group, where the trial is not run, and measure differential sales performance. As to the online sales he advices: “to provide trial participants with a pass-it-on promotional discount code to forward to friends, who forward it to friends etc, allowing you to track the number of online sales the seeding trial generates.” Other measures include metrics to depict the effect of the trial, advertising or message, in increasing awareness levels. According to the major part of answers gathered this can be done by providing a special website (microsite), blog or discussion list and measure the number of visitors it receives. An alternative approach proposed by Marsden (2005) is to measure the © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 83 number of column inches, online and offline, that a trial itself generates, and calculate the reach of those column inches. After having posted questions encompassing several aspects of the topic, it was posed an intriguing question to extract a reverse side definition of viral marketing. It was expected to receive “real life” interpretations of the concept and reasonable explanations for the existence of the term. Discussions on LinkedIn.com was closed with the following question: Question 7: Do you use the term: Viral Marketing? A. If not, why? B. If yes, in which context? Predictably new definitions arrived to the last question, but since it suggested the option of being viral marketing an unacceptable term, many of the answers tried to justify the use of it giving somehow new horizons of its interpretation: “"Viral" is definitely…. THE most misunderstood and misused buzzword today.” “The term is in the context of any activity that is 'seeded' to gain attention and then be passed on and spread through an audience. It could be a physical stunt just as much as a Facebook application.” (Global Strategist) “Yes, I use the term. I consider viral marketing a methodology of attaining word-ofmouth publicity with the goal of making the product or a related subsidiary of a product an Internet meme.” (Search Engine Marketer) “Yes, but not as frequently as I have. The misunderstanding about viral marketing is that you shouldn't have to ask for the message to be spread at all. It just happens. Sure, you may offer incentives to do so, but as soon as you start trying to convince people to spread a message, the sooner they will lose interest, and the sooner you will come to the realization that what you thought would be a viral campaign was nothing more than a word-ofmouth campaign. Truly viral campaigns should encourage a certain portion of the market to pass-it-on, while at the same time dissuading others from doing so. .... I've seen some companies spend thousands of dollars trying to generate buzz for a product, while all that money could have basically been thrown in the trash for the amount of results it returned. The ROI was crushed because the consumer was easily able to distinguish that this hip, new whatever, was part of a larger marketing strategy instituted by the company.” (Product Manager) © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 84 “I prefer the term "social marketing." This refers to everything from forwarded emails to online social networks to virtual reality marketing to real-world WOM to street teams. If it involves consumers interacting with consumers (in most contexts), it's social, whether it spreads "virally" or is a more structured approach.” “I use it when I want to inflict pain on myself. Seriously. Marketing that works is viral. Marketing that flops isn’t.” This last comment draws us back to the original purpose of the thesis: What viral marketing is? The real question might not be even how can we depict viral marketing, but what really makes a marketing strategy viral? The conclusions from this exploratory type of research – based on informal interviews on an online professional network – suggest that the concept of viral marketing relies on a very antique intuitive demand of people: to share information with each other. It can be viewed in many ways, just to mention two of the most relevant implications resulting from the research: 1) a marketing strategy, being a tactic and technique of marketers, who discovered that they need to market WITH consumers and not TO consumers, according to the assumption of some respondents and the literature as well (Kozinets 1999, Stuart Meneth et al. 2005); and 2) as an effect, being the result of the exponential growth of a “viral agent” – or a message which is so remarkable that people are willing to spread it in their social networks. Viral effect realised in traditional ways is seen more as the equivalent of word of mouth, which is being in the physical context is limited in time and space to local personal interactions, therefore the reach of the message is lower. While the viral effect obtained through technological devices and accessing the World Wide Web is many times defined as electronic word of mouth (eWOM) that is because of its online nature is faster and unlimited in reaching people at different nodes of a network living at the most distant corners of the world. Opinions were divided on whether the “real” viral marketing is inducted intentionally by a marketer, or it tips out thanks to the exceptional nature of the product or service. On the contrary of the biological virus with which viral marketing is paralleled, it cannot be obtained unintentionally. Sometimes we simply do not know from where viruses come, we just discover them after they have found the right context to multiply and have caused terrible epidemics and diseases. Marketing, © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 85 which is by definition the case when the marketer has the intention to sell something, therefore intentionally wants to influence somebody - the consumer - in different ways to arrive to the decision to purchase his/her service or product. In the same way of a virus that starts to proliferate exclusively in the right milieu, a message will reach the most of the target only if in the right context. For that reason it seems that the biggest deal is how could a company make its message viral and how to identify and put into the right context. According to some answers the intention where marketers want to seed their message will depend on who is supposed to be the target of that message. For instance, if a firm designs a product, which can be relevant for “coach potatoes” the venue of the seeding can be implemented through a traditional TV ad providing additional info – such as web site – to facilitate the process of spread information further online. Consequently nobody can say that throughout a traditional marketing communication channels, such as a TV ad, cannot be reached the viral effect. Finally we can see, that viral marketing is a complex phenomenon and the proposed literature compared with the opinions of fifty-two drove at a variety of factors important in determining outcomes for marketers, which is summarised in the next session. 5.2 Implications for management 5.2.1 “Remarkable” message seeded in the right context Literature review on viral marketing and Internet based discussions on the topic provide a useful framework for managers want to tap into marketing technique called viral marketing. At the end of the day data provided suggest that the biggest deal for those who want to employ viral marketing in his/her marketing communication strategies is to find the right context and seed the right message. One can ask then what is the real difference between viral marketing and other type of marketing communication since this is the aim of every marketing communication? Yes, by the research results it was just strengthened how multiply approaches © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 86 and considerations make the concept of viral marketing by some means relative. However there are two aspects distinguishing it from other marketing methods: the way of influence exerted on consumers and the behaviour generated on the recipient of the message. Authors and opinions of professionals imply that on the one hand attributes of the product or service will determine the viral effect in the information distribution about it. On the other hand, even though product or service do not represents anything new or exceptional in terms of attributes, the way of how they are presented can generate the “ideavirus” or the viral agent that people will be willing to endorse in their social networks. And here comes another implication for marketers: viral marketing is a powerful means for both marketers and consumers to benefit from the inherent helpfulness of individuals in social networks. However, success depends on the recognition of the strong need for influencers to be viewed as experienced helpers in the social network rather than as agents of the marketer. Opinion leaders informally influence how other consumers seek, use products and buy into ideas (Lyons and Henderson 2005). It is suggested that marketers’ attempts to co-opt users to promote products and services can be expressed in an explicit manner (See for example “If you found this interesting, tell a friend” messages), but some extent scholars arm-inarm with professionals claim the likeliness to upset the balance and reduce the effectiveness of the approach on consumers who otherwise may have benefited from the influencers’ endorsement. Consequently firms should reflect on how overtly reveal its presence beyond the ad or message. It seems to be a real trade-off with which have to face all marketers in planning viral marketing efforts. 5.2.2 Treat viral marketing as part of the overall marketing communication strategies As far as answers received from the LinkedIn.com community concerned, viral marketing is widely perceived as an online marketing technique, because of the speed at which messages can be communicated to huge numbers across great © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 87 distances. Even though the strong relation of viral marketing to the online context was clearly highlighted by both the literature and practitioners, marketers should not look at it exclusively in the isolation of the Internet. As some opinions reminded, people spreading messages online also live and communicate in their real world. Therefore it is important that managers recognize that the viral mechanic in any online campaign is used to convey a message rather than become the message itself. The real goal of a viral communication technique is to create buzz that can get out of the Internet context into the real world. Another implication for management, that a viral campaign should be arguably integrated into the overall marketing communications mix. It can be used as a complement to the mainstream media brand awareness, and if it is targeted well it can provide some free brand exposure as well. Basically, the most important purposes and benefits of viral marketing applied in the right community of consumers, is the opportunity of boost the brand awareness in a cost effective way, but not without costs as it often misinterpreted. There are different approaches to realise it depending on the strategic viewpoint of the firm. One example is a webonly released viral material that retains the brand and campaign themes (see Dove “Evolution” campaign on You Tube). Another way to employ it pre-launch of something with the aim to generate buzz before the editing and launch of the mainstream activities (Sandler 2001). 5.2.3 Main questions to evaluate in planning viral marketing campaign What type of idea or message is likely to become contagious? Who are our “influentials” or opinion leaders and where they are? How can they be motivated? What is the ideal context for the message (to spread the virus)? What is the strategic basis of viral marketing? Does the strategy fit into the whole marketing mix? © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 88 5.3 Limitation of the study An important limitation of this study is the research design and methodology employed. The group of people responding to the questions posted in an online professional network is not representative for the whole community of those who are involved in their everyday in viral marketing campaigns. Therefore regardless of the convenience and innovativeness of this methodology, this sample and the results are not generalisable and do not represent the general perception of the whole community of marketing and communications professionals about viral marketing. The possibility to conduct on- or offline focus groups would be an improvement for a future research regarding viral marketing. The opportunity to organize more groups on the same issue, where all participants would consider all of the questions, analysis could compare also the discussion results among the different groups. Further limitation is that this study is general in terms, it does not concentrate on specific perspectives of viral marketing. This thesis provides a general review of existing literature about the concept, but does not derive an applicable conceptual framework of viral marketing distinguishing its different forms; to show how that framework can, by organising and integrating current knowledge, assist marketing planners in the development of successful viral marketing strategies. These weaknesses of the thesis however determine future directions of a study undertaking the examination of the same concept. 5.4 Directions of future studies Further studies could investigate into the operationalisation of viral marketing, which would allow to scrutinize how it relates to other concepts – such as customer recommendations, opinion leaders, online communities. A replication of this study could come out with an “official” conceptual framework of viral marketing based on an extensive content analysis. A complete study should explore the relation of viral marketing to word of mouth. It could be another interesting topic as well to examine © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 89 the viral effect in relation to negative word of mouth (Richins 1983). In addition viral marketing communication could be explored in the mirror of theories in computermediated-communication and in social networking. Future research could explore the interaction between online branding and the use of Internet based viral marketing techniques in various business contexts so that transferable knowledge can be built into specific online branding strategies and campaigns (Lindstrom 2006). In addition empirical researches in this topic could include face-to-face interviews and focus group discussions with marketing directors from such companies who are famous to be pioneers in viral effect generation in their marketing communications. 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Media Contagion and Suicide in the Internet Age: Critical evaluation, theoretical econceptualisation and empirical investigation,” DPhil Research Thesis - July 2000; Available at http://www.viralculture.com/pubs/PhD.pdf Last accessed in January 2008. Marken, G. A. (2005), “To Blog Or Not to Blog. that is the Question?” Public Relations Quarterly, 50 (Fall), 31. Mayzlin, D. (2006), “Promotional chat on the Internet,” Marketing Science 25(2), pp. 155163. Molesworth, M., Suortti, Jukka-Petteri (2002), “Buying cars online: the adoption of the web for high-involvement, high-cost purchases,” Journal of Consumer Behaviour Vol. 2, No. 2, pp. 155-168 Moynagh, Michael and Worsley, Richard (2002),“Tomorrow’s consumer - the shifting balance of power,” Journal of Consumer Behaviour, Vol. 1, No. 3, pp. 293-301. Muniz and O’Guinn (2001), “Brand Community,” Journal of Consumer Research Vol. 27, No. 4, pp. 412-432 O'Connor, Henrietta and Madge, Clare (2003), “Focus groups in cyberspace”: Using the Internet for qualitative research”, Qualitative Market Research; 2003; 6, 2; pg. 133 Paoletta, Michael (2006), “Making the Brand,” Billboard, 118 (Jan 28), 19. Phelps, Joseph E. et al. (2004), “Viral Marketing Or Electronic Word-of-Mouth Advertising: Examining Consumer Responses and Motivations to Pass Along Email,” Journal of Advertising Research, 44 (Dec), 333. Rae, Jeneanne (2006), “The Importance of Great Customer Experiences...” Business Week, (Nov 27), 32. Raney et al. (2003), “At the movies, on the Web: An investigation of the effects of entertaining and interactive Web content on site and brand evaluations”, Journal of Interactive Marketing, 17/4: 38-53 Rayport, J. (1996), “The Virus of Marketing,”,FastCompany.com, Issue 06, December © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 95 Reingen, P. and Kernan, P. (1986), “Analysis of Referral Networks in Marketing: Methods and Illustration,” Journal of Marketing Research, Vol. 23, Issue 4, pp. 370-378. Richins, M. L. (1983), Negative Word-of-Mouth by Dissatisfied Consumers: APilot Study. Journal of Marketing , Vol. 47, No. 1 (Winter, 1983), pp. 68-78 Rosen, Emanuel (2000), The Anatomy of Buzz, Currency-Doubleday: NY. Sandler, Rob (2001), “How to Create an Infectious Viral Campaign,” Digital Marketing, 2 (Feb), 14. Sernovitz, Andy (2006), “Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking,” Kaplan Business. Silverman, George (2001), “The power of word of mouth,” Direct Marketing; Vol. Sep. Issue 64, pp. 5 Stuart-Menteth, Hester, Simon Arbuthnot, and Hugh Wilson (2005), “Multi-Channel Experience Consistency: Evidence from Lexus,” Interactive Marketing, 6 (Apr-Jun), 317. Subramani, Mani R. and Balaji Rajagopalan (2003), “Knowledge-Sharing and Influence in Online Social Networks Via Viral Marketing,” Association for Computing Machinery Communications of the ACM, 46 (Dec), 300. Sweet, Casey (2001), “Designing and conducting virtual focus groups”, Qualitative Market Research; 4: 3, p.130. Taylor, Catharine P. (2005), “Psst! how do You Measure Buzz?” Adweek, 46 (Oct 24), 26. Tezinde, Tito, Brett Smith, and Jamie Murphy (2002), “Getting Permission: Exploring Factors Affecting Permission Marketing,” Journal of Interactive Marketing, 16 (Autumn), 28. Thomas, Greg M., Jr (2004), “Building the Buzz in the Hive Mind,” Journal of Consumer Behaviour, 4 (Oct), 64. Villanueva, J., Yoo, S., Hanssens, D. M. (2008), “The Impact of Marketing-Induced Versus Word-of-Mouth Customer Acquisition on Customer Equity Growth,” Journal of Marketing Research, Vol. 45 Issue 1, pp. 48-59 Wasserman, Todd (2006), “Word-of-Mouth Vs. Viral Marketing,” Brandweek, 47 (Sep 4), 34. Wellman, Barry et al. (1996), “Computer Networks as Social Networks: Collaborative Work, Telework, and Virtual Community,” Annual Review of Sociology, 22 213. Wilson, R.F. (2000), The six principles of viral marketing,” Web Marketing Today, 70. © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 96 © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 97 Further readings Anonymous (2005), “The Economics of Sharing,” The Economist, 374(8412), 72. Retrieved December 26, 2007, from ABI/INFORM Global database. Anonymous (May 03, 2006), “MySpace, Facebook and Other Social Networking Sites: Hot Today, Gone Tomorrow?” Knowledge@Wharton http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=1463 Bodell, Lisa and Carey Earle (2004), “The Yin and Yang of Marketing Measurement: Four Principles of Innovation,” Interactive Marketing, 6 (Oct-Dec), 130. Butman, John and Dave Balter (2006), Grapevine: The New Art of Word-of-Mouth Marketing. Turnaround Publisher Services Limited. Carù, Antonella and Bernard Cova (2006), “How to Facilitate Immersion in a Consumption Experience: Appropriation Operations and Service Elements,” Journal of Consumer Behaviour, 5 (Jan/Feb), 4. Chakraborty, Goutam, Vishal Lala, and David Warren (2002), “An Empirical Investigation of Antecedents of B2B Websites' Effectiveness,” Journal of Interactive Marketing, 16 (Autumn), 51. Clarke, Irvine and Theresa Flaherty (2005), Advances in Electronic Marketing. Idea Group Publishing. Conlin, Edited b. M. (2006), “The Best of 2006: Ideas,” Business Week, (Dec 18), 96.Introduction to Internet Viral Marketing.(2004), Althos. Daniels, Chris (2003), “Making online buys work: a virtual round table of online advertisers, buyers and sellers discusses the current state of online media buying” Digital Marketing, (March) 11-12 Hanson, Sarah (2002), “Making a big noise about your business,” Director; Vol. 56, Issue 2; ABI/INFORM Global p. 40 Hong, Weiyin, James Y. L. Thong, and Kar Y. Tam (2007), “How do Web Users Respond to Non-Banner-Ads Animation? The Effects of Task Type and User Experience,” Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 58 (Aug), 1467. Ian, F. (2006), “Viral Advertisers Play with Fire MARKETING: Companies Adopting Viral Campaigns Need to be More Creative than in Traditional Media - and Beware the Many Pitfalls, Says Ian Fraser,” Financial Times, (Aug 29), 10. “Letter: Viral Marketing Isn't always Bad News,” (2005), New Media Age, (Oct 13), 13. © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 98 “Microsoft Courts Trouble with Viral Marketing Push,” (2005), Marketing Week, (Oct 20), 19. “When Buzz Got Contagious,” (2005), Marketing, 110 (Nov 14), 4. “DIGITAL THINKERS: Social Connections,” (2006), New Media Age, (Sep 7), 25. “LETTER: Self-Regulation is Vital for Viral Marketing,” (2006), Marketing Week, (Mar 16), 20. “LETTER: Viral Marketing must be Given Room to Grow,” (2006), New Media Age, (Jun 1), 13. Lundblad, J. P. (2003), “A Review and Critique of Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovation Theory as it Applies to Organizations,” Organization Development Journal; Vol. 21, Issue 4; p. 50 Nolan, Hamilton (2005), “Debate on Buzz Marketing is about More than Words,” PRweek, 8 (Oct 31), 9. Owen, John (2005), “Make Something Compelling and Watch it Go Viral,” Revolution (Staten Island, N.Y.), (Jan), 7. Rushkoff, D. (1996), “The Media Virus!” NY: Ballantine Books Shang, Rong-An, Yu-Chen Chen, and Hsueh-Jung Liao (2006), “The Value of Participation in Virtual Consumer Communities on Brand Loyalty,” Internet Research, 16 398. Sen, Shahana and Lerman, Dawn (2007), “Why are you telling me this? An examination into negative consumer reviews on the Web,” Journal of Interactive Marketing, Vol. 21. No. 4. pp. 76-94. Thompson, Stephanie (2005), “Food Fight's New Fronts: Viral Marketing, Games,” Advertising Age, 76 (Jul 18), 3. “VIRAL MARKETING: Pass it on: Studies into the Spread of Virals,” (2006), New Media Age, (Apr 20), 21. “WORD-OF-MOUTH MARKETING: Spread the Word,” (2006), New Media Age, (Jan 12), 26. “WORD-OF-MOUTH MARKETING: The Global Rise of Word of Mouth,” (2006), Brand Strategy, (Oct 9), 42. “SOCIAL NETWORK ADVERTISING: Making Friends,” (2007), New Media Age, (May 10), 19. © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 99 Appendixes Appendix 1 – Official invitation to LinkedIn.com members Dear , As you know, I am a master’s student at the University of Lugano, Switzerland completing my thesis on Viral Marketing. LinkedIn.com, an international network of professionals, will be the venue to undertake the research part of my thesis. I am therefore delighted to invite your participation in a special “virtual focus group” that will seek to identify the various perspectives on Viral Marketing. I choose to use LinkedIn.com for my research because it allows me to contact many communication and marketing professionals from all over the world and from different firms and environment. In particular, I intend to exploit the Question&Answer section of LinkedIn.com. Each participant has the option of posting questions and/or contributing to comments by others with his/her answer. My “virtual focus group” will not be a traditional one since there will be no moderator and no real time facility. I did not create a separate forum to which just a selection of people can access. The topic is not delicate, therefore an Internet based “interview” forum, in this case the platform of LinkedIn.com, seems to be appropriate, convenient and rather an innovative research method. I will also make it possible for those who are not in my network to also post their comments. However I would primarily like to use the opinions of those in my network. Through a selection of answers I will compare the vision of practitioners with the theoretical perspective. This means that I may use quotes of contributions in my thesis while strictly respecting anonymity - without using your name or the name of your firm. Citations will appear in this form: “……” (Company owner) The contribution of my thesis would be to provide a comparison of the perspectives of a variety of professionals to what is written in the academic literature. I would like to see the extent, if any, that practice is divergent from theory. For the purpose of the research I need to provide some demographic data. If you accept my invitation, please send me back this e-mail completing the following information: Your age Gender Occupation (please specify it) Country of residence Citation title (if you would prefer, please © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 100 specify which professional title would you like me to use next to a quote from comments) I assure you that your data will be treated with strict confidentiality. I need this basic demographic data to give a general statistical description of the participants in my focus group. I will not use your name, or the name of your company (except if you wish that I use it, in which case, please let me know). I will post my questions on 29th of December 2007. I would appreciate if you answer them by no later than 18th January 2008. Your contribution is very important. You will allow me to finish my thesis on time and hopefully with some solid contribution to the discipline. Those who agree to participate can ask to receive the electronic version of my thesis analysis; moreover the slides of the final presentation will be published on slideshare.net. I thank you in advance for your participation and support. Best Regards, Veronika Kurucz P.S: your opinion, critical suggestions and comment are more than welcome. Appendix 2 – Official invitation to not LinkedIn.com members Dear , As you know, I am a master’s student at the University of Lugano, Switzerland completing my thesis on Viral Marketing. LinkedIn.com, an international network of professionals, will be the venue to undertake the research part of my thesis. I am therefore delighted to invite your participation in a special “virtual focus group” that will seek to identify the various perspectives on Viral Marketing. To be able to do so, you will first need to sign in and join me on LinkedIn.com at https://www.linkedin.com/home. Please have a look at on my profile to see what is all about at http://www.linkedin.com/in/veronikakurucz. If you wish to help me and decide to sign in, I assure you it will not be necessary to create a public profile as I have done. LinkedIn.com provides every participant with a new way to build and manage your professional network. Of course, how much information you want to share about yourself with other network users will depend on you. © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 101 I choose to use LinkedIn.com for my research because it allows me to contact many communication and marketing professionals from all over the world and from different firms and environment. In particular, I intend to exploit the Question&Answer section of LinkedIn.com. Each participant has the option of posting questions and/or contributing to comments by others with his/her answer. My “virtual focus group” will not be a traditional one since there will be no moderator and no real time facility. I did not create a separate forum to which just a selection of people can access. The topic is not delicate, therefore an Internet based “interview” forum, in this case the platform of LinkedIn.com, seems to be appropriate, convenient and rather an innovative research method. I will also make it possible for those who are not in my network to also post their comments. However I would primarily like to use the opinions of those in my network. Through a selection of answers I will compare the vision of practitioners with the theoretical perspective. This means that I may use quotes of contributions in my thesis while strictly respecting anonymity - without using your name or the name of your firm. Citations will appear in this form: “……” (Company owner) The contribution of my thesis would be to provide a comparison of the perspectives of a variety of professionals to what is written in the academic literature. I would like to see the extent, if any, that practice is divergent from theory. For the purpose of the research I need to provide some demographic data. If you accept my invitation, please send me back this e-mail completing the following information: Your age Gender Occupation (please specify it) Country of residence Citation title (if you would prefer, please specify which professional title would you like me to use next to a quote from comments) I assure you that your data will be treated with strict confidentiality. I need this basic demographic data to give a general statistical description of the participants in my focus group. I will not use your name, or the name of your company (except if you wish that I use it, in which case, please let me know). I will post my questions on 29th of December 2007. I would appreciate if you answer them by no later than 18th January 2008. Your contribution is very important. You will allow me to finish my thesis on time and hopefully with some solid contribution to the discipline. Those who agree to participate can ask to receive the electronic version of my thesis analysis; moreover © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 102 the slides of the final presentation will be published on slideshare.net. I thank you in advance for your participation and support. Best Regards, Veronika Kurucz P.S: your opinion, critical suggestions and comment are more than welcome. © Veronika Kurucz – MSc in Communication and Economics 103