Viral Marketing Theory

EMAKINA Buzz Marketing & Viral Strategies and Viral Buzz Marketing Strategies Emakina Academy

Welcome Brice Le Blévennec President Emakina

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Buzz Marketing – An event or activity that generates publicity, excitement, and information to the consumer. – It's usually something that combines a wacky, jaw-dropping event or experience with pure branding, like tattooing your forehead. – If buzz is done right, people will write about it, so it essentially becomes a great PR vehicle. – Buzz marketing typically includes one shot of adrenaline and a chaser of product information. – Example: http://www.subservientchicken.com Source: “The word on Word of Mouth” by Dave Balter, President of BzzAgent

Viral Marketing – An attempt to deliver a marketing message that spreads quickly and exponentially among consumers. – Today, this often comes in the form of an email message or video. – Contrary to alarmists' fear, viral isn't evil. It isn't dishonest or unnatural. – At its best, it is word of mouth enabled, and at its worst, it's just another interruptive marketing message. – Example: http://www.virginmobile.com “Richard Branson is naked” Source: “The word on Word of Mouth” by Dave Balter, President of BzzAgent

Word of Mouth – The most powerful medium on the planet – It's the actual sharing of an opinion about a product or service between two or more consumers – It's what happens when people become natural brand advocates – It's the holy grail of marketers, CEOs and entrepreneurs, as it can make or break a product. – The key to its success: it's honest and natural. – Example: http://www.segway.com Source: “The word on Word of Mouth” by Dave Balter, President of BzzAgent

Summary Buzz Marketing Viral Strategies Word of Mouth Creating excitement Get your audience to do Your customers buildup leading to talk in your marketing for you becoming your brand the street evangelizers Focus = the talking about Focus = the spreading of Focus = on brand core your promotion your message values Mail, SMS and Web are Web is a key element Spontaneous peer-to- integrated in a peer brand marketing multi-channel campaign Authenticity & Credibility

Today’s topic “Viral marketing is like succeeding in Hollywood: every actor wants to do it, only a few succeed.”

EMAKINA Viral Strategies and Buzz Marketing

Sources – Viral Advertising in 2005 - Top 7 Tactics, How-Tos & Measurement Data MarketingSherpa Special – Online viral marketing: the strategic synthesis in peer-to-peer brand marketing Justin Kirby, Managing Director of DMC – The Word on ‘Word of Mouth’ Dave Balter, President of BzzAgent – Viral Marketing Russell Goldsmith, Prentice Hall Business – Buzz Marketing with Blogs Susannah Gardner, Wiley Publishing + Emakina experience…

EMAKINA Viral Strategies

Viral Marketing > Success stories Dreamteam Bets Trojan Condoms Hamlet Cigars 1 million visits 35 million views 1 million visits in 2 weeks in 3 months in 1 week MTV FORD KA Kozaks Game 280'000 ecards 200 sites have Top50 > Top10 in 3 weeks copied the clip! in 1 year

Viral Marketing > Key Ingredients Like succeeding in Hollywood – Everyone wants to do it, not everyone succeeds – There is no guarantee recipe for instant success but… Key ingredients for the success stories were – Huge fun factor, new factor, intriguing factor, sexy factor Creative copy writing and visuals – You should look cool when forwarding to friend Easy to forward – Praise should go to you as forwarder for finding it! Cool and easy to summarize story – Energy and drive of posters is crucial Selected and motivated underground posters working day and night – Credible look&feel (professional amateurism) Rumour should be believable; people are credible, corporations not

Viral Marketing > Definition – Definition – Viral ads are online promotional campaigns that (hopefully) spread \"like a virus.\" One minute nobody's heard of it, next minute, it's everywhere. – Characteristics: – Facilitates and encourages people to pass along a marketing message – Viral marketing depends on a high pass-along rate from person to person. If a large percentage of recipients forward something to a large number of friends, the overall growth snowballs very quickly. If the pass-along numbers get too low, the overall growth quickly fizzles. – If succesful, it spreads like a 'virus' and grows exponentially

Viral Marketing > What is not – Evangelism marketing – Your customers love you so much that they will tell others about you. Highly profitable and targeted, but also fairly focused and controllable. – Influencer marketing – Tightly targeted campaigns, often conducted offline, to get a very small, highly-influential demographic/psychographic to use your product, hoping the masses will then copy them slavishly. (Celebrities, ultra-trendy youth, ...) – Buzz marketing – A type of PR whereby you engage in either publicity stunts or plant content (Blogs, articles, message board postings) hoping to get a \"buzz\" generated about your brand. Often used as part of the \"seeding\" campaign to help get the word out about a new viral ad.

Viral Marketing > Differentiators – Key: unless you're actually marketing a related entertainment or charitable brand, most viral ad campaigns aren't focused on the brand itself. – Campaigns may raise sales or otherwise help your brand as a by-product. But, the main focus of the campaign is on the creative -- the thing that's so neat-o that people feel compelled to spread the word. – The heart of a viral ad campaign is the content. People don't spread the ad because they love your brand, they spread it because they can't help but adore your content. They're not evangelists serving you, they are self-serving.

Viral Marketing > History – 1995-2000 – Hotmail went from zero to 30 million users with a then-revolutionary viral email ad \"Get your own free email at hotmail.com\" – 2001-2003 – During the worst days of the dot-com-bust when no one could afford any other kind of online advertising. – 2004-2005 – Advertisers wanting to break through increasing clutter while appealing to \"cool\" consumers who otherwise hate ads.

Viral Marketing > Human Motivators Successful viral ad promos appeal to any one (or all three) of these basic human motivators: – Entertainment – Fun, humour, games, quizzes, videos, songs... anything to pass the time not working. – Greed – Sweeps entries and other free offers. – \"Limited free stock\" vs rest of catalogue for sale. – Charity (and/or fear) – You can help save the world. Ask all your friends to sign this online petition/buy this item/visit this Web page daily... etc.

Viral Marketing > Why? – Because consumers growing tired with advertising. – It's the same reason why product placements in movies, TV and videogames are so hot right now. – It's a way to put your brand in a context that consumers feel good about. (Instead of an ad they want to zap.) – Standing out in a cluttered world – Uniqueness catches the eye – Position your product in an original, creative way – The possibility of outrageous reach – If your campaign is a viral hit, you'll reach far more people than you ever dreamed possible. – Campaign can \"go viral\" ... exploding to hundreds of thousands of viewers.

Viral Marketing > Typical Elements – Give away products or services – Effortless communication to peers – Scalability – Exploits common motivations and behaviours – Utilizes existing communication networks – Use others' resources

Viral Marketing > The Maths ? – The critical factors: – likeliness to forward – amount of friends forwarded – Studies reveal – 25% of people sometimes forward messages – 75% never does (your handicap) – Exponential growth-rate: likeliness to forward * number of destinees > 1 – Examples: – 25% * 4 friends = 1 = status quo effect – 10% * 8 friends = 0,8 = no exponential – 15% * 10 friends = 1.5 = exponential effect – 5% * 20 friends = 0.8 = not exponential

Viral Marketing > Reasons to forward An online survey revealed the following reasons to forward: 1. Make people laugh 2. Recommend something 3. Competition (join or help you win) 4. Earn you some money / reduction 5. Call for charity, noble cause 6. Join a petition 7. Sex 8. Prank 9. Self appreciation 10. Chain mail ! Any of the above can be marketing vectors for your product

Viral Marketing > Tips – Encourage forwarding and do so both explicitly (asking) and implicitly (showing how-to) – Allow broadcasting via email copy/paste of groups of emails – Play on group/tribe factor appeal to their drivers/motivators/group characteristics – Look for news events / hot topics as carriers – Make sure that both forwarder and recipient get bonus – Forwarder should look cool / get praise – Recipient should laugh / be entertained – Make sure that recipient can become new forwarder – Easy forward link – Light or no personalization

Viral Marketing > Checklist 1. Plan the campaign 2. Define objectives: buzz or traffic 3. Research the audience - where and how to stimulate 4. Timing and phasing 5. Seed the viral spread 6. How to stimulate e-influencers & drivers 7. Measure and monitor 8. Attachments sizes and forwarding mechanisms 9. Incentives and legalities 10. Follow-up the campaign

EMAKINA Buzz Marketing

Buzz Marketing > Examples – International – Segway – Clio – Blair Witch Project – PlayStation2 – Belgian Marketeers – Lipton Green Tea – BiFi

Buzz Marketing > Definition – Definition – Excitement Buildup via ‘Word of Mouth’ – Objectives – A type of PR whereby you engage in either publicity stunts or plant content (Blogs, articles, message board postings) hoping to get a \"buzz\" generated about your brand – Characteristics – Mostly offline spread initiated by e.g. online campaign – Requires great product – Underpromise, overdeliver

Buzz Marketing > Background – Studies reveal that up to 67% of consumer purchases are directly influenced by opinion of peers – Human opinions are naturally more valued than advertisements

Buzz Marketing > Why – Over stimulated customers – Information overload via multi-channels – Relying on friends is natural filter – Skeptical customers – Ad-skeptical – Human vote – Connected customers – Direct friends – Friends-of-friends – New connectivity tools: web, gsm, messenger, blogs

Buzz Marketing > Success Parameters – Your product – Has to be innovative, really good – Segway vs paperclips – Your target audience – Stimulate leaders and followers – Your customer connectivity – Offline and online – Your marketing strategy – More potential if you're the underdog

Buzz Marketing > Minimal Ingredients – How to get people to talk about your product – Storytelling – Lead people to stories and anecdotes that are easy to remember and tell – Pass-along effect – Allow for indirect experience (video, interactive flash) that can be recounted as direct experience – Knowledge diffusion – Divulge news not in one go but carefully timed – Give upfront cool facts (“Look at this!”) but also rich behind-the-curtain facts (“Did you know?”)

Buzz Marketing > Understanding Networks – Networks are invisible – People link with similar others – Similar people form clusters – Buzz spreads through common nodes – Information trapped in clusters – Network hubs and connectors = shortcuts – We talk to those around us – Weak ties are surprisingly strong – The Net nurtures weak ties – Networks go across markets

Buzz Marketing > Techniques – Multi-site presence – Posted editorials – Created testimonials – Normal banner campaign – Blogs – Multi-channel presence – Orchestrated TV, radio, print and webcampaign – Desired effect – \"Everywhere you go, you hear people talking about it\" – No blatant ads, just omni-present presences

Buzz Marketing > Blogging as Rising Star – Blogging allows for – Authenticity: Easy and credible human testimonials – Linking: Rich networking and content syndication – Cost-efficient: same behind-the-scene message on many different formats & platforms – How to make successful blogs – Recruit good blogger – Credible and creative copy talks – Regularly updated – Listens to feedback – Create “leading blogs” and “follower-blogs”

Buzz Marketing > Successful Business Blogs – Commercial blogs are different from normal blogs: they exist to promote a specific product or brand and have a well defined lifetime. It can be implemented as a micro-site or an extension of a marketing site – The first large scale application of blogs was launched by Nike. It served as an exclusive medium to launch on a daily basis different video premieres for the full scale video promotion « the Art of Speed » – Other blogs concepts follow famous athletes sponsored by a brand. These sites assure more branding visibility than normal television coverage

Buzz Marketing > Successful Business Blogs – Brands can also create virtual blogs around their brands or one of their icons (logo, mascotte, …) – Commercial blogs are frequently used to communicate web exclusives or to frequently communicate updates – Example: movie shooting and cast interviews – The main risk with blogs is the target group: a blog has to receive all the normal promotion means to justify the ROI. Word- of-mouth works great but it needs an initial critical mass to take off

EMAKINA Conclusion

20th Century Marketing Paradigm Creates Main Brand and drives media Values Supports & Secondary reinforces media Distribution Below & promotion the line Personal experience Ever since marketers acknowledged that there’s too much advertising, and too many media channels, they’ve been looking for alternative ways to get consumers to buy into their brand and buy their products. Most of the solutions being explored try to re-engage and interact with “Didactic” consumers in an old-style, ‘top-down’ approach, whereby Above-The-Line (ATL) mainstream media activities focusing on the brand are driving the communication.

21st Century Marketing Paradigm “Authentic” The 21st century, ‘bottom-up’ word-of- mouth marketing approach focuses on personal experience of the brand and is driven by consumers. Brand Values Essential Supports & truths reinforces Continuing Extends & dialogue expands Personal On the ground Creates & experience reality drives

Quotes – “The most powerful selling of products and ideas takes place not marketer to consumer but consumer to consumer.” Malcolm Gladwell – “Online Consumer Generated Media such as blogs and forums have helped supercharge word-of-mouth marketing communications..” Intelliseek – “The problem with word-of-mouth marketing is that it only truly works if the product has some inherent ‘wow’ factor that people want to talk about.” Steve Knox from P&G’s ! So word-of-mouth marketing is by no means a complete panacea for the ‘much advertising no longer works problem. This is why marketers are now turning to online viral marketing.

Viral Marketing kills two birds with one stone – It avoids the need to have a product with a wow factor in order to raise awareness, generate buzz and kickstart peer-to-peer spread. ! Instead, the viral campaign’s communication agent is the element that needs a wow factor. – Viral campaigns ‘work’ the Internet to deliver exposure via peer- to-peer endorsement. ! The focus is on campaigns with material that consumers want to spend time interacting with and spreading proactively. ! Attention: The point of a viral campaign is not only to ‘go viral’, but also to benefit the brand strategically.

Viral Marketing The synthesis between top-down and bottom-up paradigms Advertainment Online Offline Word of ‘Mouse’ Offline Viral Online viral marketing provides the Word of Mouth missing link between the word-of-mouth approach and the top-down, advertainment approach to brand marketing.

Top 7 Viral Ad Tactics 1. Hoping email will be forwarded 2. Offering eCards 3. Online games or quizzes 4. Video clips 5. Audio clips 6. Tell-a-Friend offers on promo pages 7. Cool (independently branded) microsites

Top line guidelines to getting it right Three key factors will increase the likelihood of a successful online viral marketing campaign: 1. appropriate wow factor material that users want to seek out, talk about and pass on of their own freewill 2. appropriate specialist seeding to places where users already gather 3. strategically planned use of the technique as a means to an end ! Online viral marketing is definitely shaping up as a credible, strategic synthesis between word-of-mouth techniques and top- down advertainment-style approaches to brand marketing. Used wisely, with a strategic end goal in mind, it can be a key success driver within any brand’s overall marketing activity.

Quotes – “Our ongoing series of online viral marketing campaigns have proven their value in providing high brand exposure to a wide- as-possible audience, and ultimately contributing to car sales.” Steve Jelliss, CRM Manager for Mazda Motors (UK) – “Online viral marketing is best used not as a one-off tactical end in itself, but as an integrated strategic part of the overall marketing mix. It’s a means to an end whereby it not only generates buzz, but also provides ongoing, quantifiable brand benefits, such as increased awareness, peer-to-peer endorsement and ultimately more sales.” James Kydd, brand director for Virgin Mobile

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Viral Marketing Theory

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