Viral marketing
Diploma thesis presentation
Academic year: 2008/2009
Author: Antonín Parma
Supervisor: Mgr. Pavel Hacker

“the medium is the message.”
Marshall McLuhan, 1964

tendencies in corporate
communication politics

passiVe communication form

linear communication model
Sender Message Medium Receiver Effect
Noise

media fragmentation
3 100
1960 2004
Number of TV spots needed for addressing 80 % of consumers
Data source: Business Week: The Vanishing Mass Market, 2004

actiVe communication form

Jakobson’s communication model
Context
Referential f.
Sender Message Receiver
Emotive f. Poetic f. Conative f.
Contact
Phatic f.
Code
Metalingual f.

“People influence people.
Nothing influences people more
than a recommendation from a
trusted friend.”
Mark Zuckerberg, 2007

Viral marketing means spreading
commercial message via social
networks.
It’s a planned activity that, thanks to its character,
motivates the recipient to turn into the propagator.

elements of Viral
marketing

elements of Viral marketing
Message Points of The
content spreading propagator

Content itself is a commercial
message.
It’s not announced by the ad stanza or by the line saying
„ad“, it’s not attached as a banner, print ad or TV spot.

message content
Story
Depth Stickiness
Content
hook Relevance
Timing Portability
Shareability

Choise of sufficient points of
spreading and their amount
increases chance of viral
spreading.
The higher amount of initializing points the quicker
spread of the campaign. And on top of that, we can
eliminate possible failure of some of them points.
Points causing avalanche effect are outstanding.

points of spreading
Search
Mobiles and PDAs Blogs
Messengery Websites
Video servers Word of mouth
Emails Social networks
Widgets Link integrators
Chats and
comments

The main movers are the users/
propagators themself.
Only if they accept the message, spread it and discuss
it inside the social network, then we can talk about viral
spreading.

the propagator
Emotional reasons Social reasons
(entertainment) (reputation)
Pragmatic reasons
(true value)

The spread of viral message is a
result of many random processes
and circumstances.
The character of individuals participating on the first
boom isn’t important for setting up the final effect, the
most important is the structure of the social network.

social network

mass media communication model
Source: Watts D.

“two step” communication model
Source: Watts D.

“The problem, I think, is that we
have been defining influentials
incorrectly. They are not a particular
class of people (...) Instead, the
title of influentialmigrates from
one person to the next depending
on the topic of interest.”
Duncan J. Watts, 2007

watts’s communication model
Source: Watts D.

Viral spread
Viral campaign
Traditional
campaign
Comparison of time progress of traditional and viral campaign
Data source: Hacker P.

The campaign results can’t be
properly quantifiable in many
cases. So it‘s success or failure
can be hardly measured.
Despite that viral marketing offers many possibilities
of observing the campaign ability of getting attention,
getting users involved and allowing them create added
value of the brand.

measurment and eValuation
Reach Likeability
Relevance Awareness
Dispersion Frequency
Attention Engagement
Loyalty

conclusion

Viral marketing principles allow
us addressing a huge group of
potential consumers and still
keeping the media budget low.
It’s redeemed not only by high demands of realisation
with doubtful result but even by the need of complex
change of thinking about the communication process.

Viral marketing can works
as a single tool only in small
percentage of usage.
Most effective is in combination with other tools of
communication mix, which can be suitably complement,
further develop and promote.

Viral marketing can be used
as a communication tool for
the majority of all types of
companies by the right choice of
propagators.
Propriety of it’s usage is determinated more by the initial
creative input, content of message and its meaning for
user than by concrete brand.

thank you for
your attention