W.O.M. - Word of Mouth Marketing Buzz Marketing Stealth Advertising

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Viral Marketing - an experiment set up by some University of Toronto (UTM) students in the MGD415 class in March 2008 - big thanks to Sol L. for setting this up with other group members Betty, Marg and Gord

Viral Marketing - a video created by some University of Toronto (UTM) students in the MGD415 class in March 2008 for the purpose of explaining how their company was providing services to the MMORPG industry - the video was done by taking existing components of an interactive video game and adding in characters from the class and their presentation for the purpose of having something they could use in the marketing of their service - which was targeted for people creating MMORPG. The fact that they named one of the characters in the game Witiger (an ugly little troll type), was not held against them!

WTGR explains

When you watch the video, you'll see some characters doing some things that have been controlled by the students. Ian uses the term "Machinima" Wikipedia describes Machinima by saying it "is a collection of associated production techniques whereby computer-generated imagery (CGI) is rendered using real-time, interactive 3-D engines, such as those of games" MMORPG - means Massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) and is a genre of online computer role-playing games (CRPGs) in which a large number of players interact with one another in a virtual world.

 

Viral  Marketing a def'n WTGR

Word-of-mouth marketing has been around for many decades before the internet, but like anything - technology can enhance capabilities to allow a simple situation to become more intense. Viral Marketing is a term which is used to describe how companies use the technologies of the Information Age internet and the world wide web cell phones, blackberries, palm pilots & text messaging GPS and other location oriented technologies to create an intense expansion of the older concept of Word-of-mouth marketing. WTGR

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Viral  Marketing a def'n KHNK

Viral Marketing focuses on content people would feel compelled to pass around, and as a result, "things that tend to spread in a truly viral way are things that most clients wouldn't necessarily want their brand to be associated with, says Bruce Sinclair, a national creative director from Tribal DDB Canada (a media company that plans, builds and sells client brands by generating brand demand). Sinclair also goes on to say, "You can create content that has a chance of  being shared, but unless you are looking at it for the sheer sake of entertainment and creative content, it is very difficult to do work that is truly viral."  Essentially, Viral Marketing is the phenomenon that 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.***

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As a result of being quoted in the October 31st 2007 CP story on Ad-blocking software,  Richardson's quotes ran in a number of newspapers (online and printed) throughout North America, including Yahoo.ca and msn.com see article at witiger.com/ecommerce/articleCPinterview.jpg

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During the 4th week of October 2007,  Richardson was quoted in a story titled  "Ad-blocking software could change online advertising industry". The quote was "There's so much advertising in various forms cluttering up the screen, it's become very irritating to people who are browsing, so they are shutting things out," says Tim Richardson who teaches about e-commerce at the University of Toronto. "So other companies are saying, 'We're not getting into the banner ad market, we're going to do things like viral marketing, and other creative word-of-mouth things."'

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In the 2nd week of Feb 2008, one of Prof. Richardson's students suggested that one of the best examples of Viral Marketing is the videos posted on YouTube about Obama

Obama girl  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekSxxlj6rGE

YouTube story about the original "I got a crush on Obama" and origins of Obama Girl vs. Guliani Girl"
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77yNLuji-rE&feature=related

Washington Post commentary on the Viral Marketing aspects
 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/15/AR2007071501378.html
 
 

After the initial explosion of interest, the makers of the video kept going with other "episodes"  youtube.com/watch?v=ENCRu-2d35g&feature=related

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In the 3rd week of December 2006, Richardson was interviewed by the Hamilton Spectator about the circumstances of viral marketing. Click on the scan to the left to read the article.

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In the 3rd week of January 2006, Richardson was interviewed by the Metro News about the MGTD06 course and in particular the circumstances of viral marketing and stealth marketing. Click on the scan to the left to read the article.

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Circumstances leading people to want to try Viral Marketing

Before delving into the details of Viral Marketing, it might be useful to step back and have a sort discussion about what are some of the circumstances that cause this form of marketing to be of such strong interest to marketers in the later half of the first decade of Y2K. Sidra K., a UTM student in MGD415 in March 2007 sent an interesting email in which she talked about certain technology she uses in recording media content. Basically her argument was that techniques used to avoid recording commercials may one of the incentives for more viral marketing because marketing people feel their traditional commercials are ignored, so why waste the money creating them? pic supplied by Sidra Sidra said I was thinking about how viral marketing is probably a way more  effective way to create brand awareness and to get the word out to  consumers. This is especially true now that there are new pieces of  technologies available, which are eliminating the need to watch  commercials and ads. I mentioned in class how I personally have a PVR system (Personal Video  Recorder) at home that allows me to pre-record my TV shows and also  allows me to pause, rewind and fast-forward through-out the shows.  This way, I choose not to watch any commercials. I came across an interesting article  (formerly at http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.showArticleHomePage&art_aid=45264) about how ABC executives are  looking to "kill ad skipping" in digital video recorders. According to ABC President of Advertising Sales Mike Shaw,  they want to disable the fast-forwarding feature when commercials come on in between shows so that people just do not skip through them. This  is a potential concern because they could likely end up losing their  customers if they disable this feature. This will be a significant  disappointment to customers. This is what Mr.Shaw had to say about this: "I'm not so sure that the whole issue really is one of commercial  avoidance," Shaw said. "It really is a matter of convenience--so you  don't miss your favourite show...." Sidra concludes Such technology devices hurt the commercial industries and therefore  many choose other techniques of advertising for example using viral  marketing, which may be more effective.

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KEY POINTS Pass-Along Rate

The percentage of people who pass on a message or file. Pass-along rates are a measure of word-of-mouth marketing.  Objects typically passed include email messages, Web pages and multimedia files.  Content typically passed includes humor and entertainment, late-breaking news, shopping specials, and technical gizmos.

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Word of  mouth marketing Before the Internet

Dr. A. Coskun Samli is a research professor of marketing and international business at University of North Florida. Author of more than 250 articles and 13 books, Dr. Samli is widely quoted as having done a study 3 decades ago in which the research showed that 40% of the consumers to an average retail situation, are attracted to a product based upon recommendations from friends.

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The  History  behind  Viral  Marketing

There was once a television commercial aired about a woman who loved her shampoo so much she went on and told two friends. Based on the convincing recommendation, the woman's friends who tried the shampoo were so satisfied with the product that they were compelled to go on and tell two more friends and so on.  Within seconds, the TV screen was filled with happy women with shiny, radiant and manageable hair. This commercial was a perfect example of word-of-mouth marketing, and the method works better today than ever, thanks in large measure to the Internet.

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The  History  behind  Viral  Marketing

Viral marketing was a term originally coined by venture capitalist Steve Jurvetson to describe the unique referral-marketing program created by Hotmail, one of the first free e-mail services. Steve Jurvetson (bio) is [2005] the Managing Director of 'Draper Fisher Jurvetson' www.dfj.com (a premier venture capital firm). This firm has created a global network of affiliated venture funds with over $3 billion in capital commitments and offices in the major technology centers around the world.  How Jurvetson helped Hotmail spread using Viral Marketing: Hotmail would include a promotional line for its free e-mail services at the bottom of every message. Users of Hotmail were automatically promoting the free service to their friends and colleagues every time they sent an e-mail message. The free service spread like a virus, and Hotmail reportedly received 12 million new subscribers within 18 months of its launch from this simple technique!!! Draper Fisher Jurvetson reported that Hotmail spent less than $500,000 on marketing, advertising and promotion during this period while its nearest competitor, Juno, spent $20 million for a fraction of the subscribers. Thus, it was originally Hotmail, who developed the concept of viral marketing.

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The  origins  of Viral Marketing in the  context of the Internet

Student Martin Braedy, in BCS 555 in October 2005, found a good newspaper story that discusses the origins of Viral Marketing. Martin says "Through my subscription to the Globe and Mail, I came across an article in last Thursdays business section (Oct. 27th edition, page B13) regarding the use of viral marketing campaigns to distribute creative and unique content using the Internet.  The article describes how the "Organic Trade Association" asked a marketing agency to design a short film for their message of food and agricultural issues in a lighthearted way. The result was a Star Wars spoof called "Store Wars: The Organic Rebellion" that has been viewed by 10 million people within 4 months due to viral marketing. There's even an incredible quote from the communications director of the OTA stating "It was amazing how quickly it went around the world...I got email from people who wanted to translate the work into Japanese, Portuguese, German, Polish and Spanish within 48 hours of the films launch." Amazing stuff. I'll be sure to bring the article to class ... I think it makes a great success story for the power of word of e-mouth."

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The  origins  of Viral Marketing - Internet based

The story Martin is referring to was written by Tessa Wegert of the Globe and Mail and titled "Advertisers get creative in bid to infect the Internet" Wegert explains "Viral campaigns are based on content that people latch onto and pass along to others, something like a virus." Holly Givens, communications director with the Massachusetts-based OTA says, "As a viral marketing effort, it's been a galactic success. The short film, was seen by about 10 million Internet users in its first four months, and has been forwarded to others via e-mail more than 300,000 times.". The Globe & Mail Permissions Coordinator told TR by phone Oct 31st, 2005 that the Globe does not give digital rights for reusing articles but they will allow quotes of up to 25 words.

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The  origins  of Viral Marketing

if you click on this screen capture, it will take you to the site that Wegert's article was talking about, and the video clip that was mentioned by student Martin Braedy. sometimes the link isn't working so you can watch it on YouTube at   http://youtube.com/watch?v=6rMA7qKm1bM

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Viral Marketing. You've been infected. How? 

There are 5 main types of viral messages:
(with notes from  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viral_marketing )
 

How to do Viral Marketing

There are 5 main types of viral messages:   1. Pass-along 2. Incentivised viral 3. Undercover 4. "Edgy gossip/Buzz Marketing" 5. Anonymous matching

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How to do Viral Marketing

1. Pass-along A message at the bottom of an e-mail that prompts the reader to pass it along (eg. chain letters). The success of this method depends on how interesting or exciting or believable the message is KHNK

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How to do Viral Marketing

2. Incentivised viral Offering rewards for providing someone's address. This can dramatically increase referrals. However, this is most effective when the offer requires another person to take action. Most online contests offer more chances of winning for each referral given; but when the referral must also participate in order for the first person to obtain that extra chance of winning, the chance that the referral participates is much higher.  KHNK

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How to do Viral Marketing

3. Undercover AKA Stealth Marketing A viral message presented as a cool or unusual page, activity or piece of news, without obvious incitements to link or pass-along. Particular effort is made to make the discovery of the item seem spontaneous and informal, to encourage natural memetic behaviour. Outside world "clues", such as graffiti appearing in cities with key viral words, is often used to direct people to search out the presented "mystery". Because of the large amount of unusual and entertaining content on the internet, this can be the hardest type of viral to spot, especially as companies try to imitate the style and content of amateur websites and authentic underground movements. KHNK

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How to do Viral Marketing

4. "Edgy gossip/Buzz Marketing" Ads or messages that create controversy by challenging the borders of taste or appropriateness. Discussion of the resulting controversy can be considered to generate buzz and word of mouth advertising. Prior to releasing a movie, some Hollywood movie stars get married, get divorced, or get arrested, or become involved in some controversy that directs conversational attention them. An example is the publicity campaign about the dubious love affair between Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes that came out just before each of them released a movie, or the controversy over who would be named the next James Bond.  KHNK

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How to do Viral Marketing

5. Anonymous matching This service requires each user to create a confidential list of friends and acquaintances they are interested in dating. A match only occurs if the object of their affection reciprocates by logging in and placing them on their own secret list; thus, each user has an incentive to get their crushes to visit the site. Most of these services allow users to email recipients anonymous messages informing them that an undisclosed person has a crush on them. On eCRUSH, one system using this methodology, 20% of the email recipients start accounts of their own. A Business 2.0 article noted, "eCrush is intrinsically viral – hopeful romantics become eCrush marketers as they try to find out if their crushes return their ardor"  KHNK

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Advantages

and

Disadvantages

of Viral Marketing
from www.corporateblogging.info/2005/04/viral-marketing-is-it-infectious.asp
 

The advantages of viral marketing are low costs, great reach, high credibility, high efficieny and the possibility of continuous campaign adjustments. The downfalls of viral marketing include the extent of the reach of failed campaigns, the lack of control, risks that the viral message is perceived as spam and the limited possibility for segmentation.   o Cheap and low cost (there's no printing involved!)   o Extensive reach   o High credibility   o High efficiency

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Pitfalls - things to avoid   o Brand Dilution   o Association with unknown groups   o Avoid making purely financial-based offer   o Large-scale spam issues Brand Dilution Viral marketing depends upon people not versed in your brand to do the "selling" for you. It is important to carefully craft a message that is strong enough to endure misinterpretations or make your communication brandless. Association with unknown groups Viral marketing's strength is its potential to spread exponentially from person to person. During this process, it is possible that your message could wind up in the hands of and passed on by someone you would rather not be associated with. The only way to partially counter this is to ahead of time define and limit what information you make available for your viral marketing. Avoid making purely financial-based offer The best viral campaigns work on the principle of value not greed. If you try to use money as an incentive there is a chance that 1) your offer will be spammed across the web and you'll be broke and left with the nightmare of figuring out who gets what; 2) your offer will be perceived as "too good to be true" and won't work at all. Spam threats If done poorly, viral marketing can lead to large-scale spam issues. Consider a company that pays individuals to email their friends to convince them to buy one of its products. In this case, the individual who receives the email had only given the friend permission to send email of a personal nature. The one friend's receiving an unsolicited commercial email can weaken his or her relationship with the person who sent it. This can lead to the recipient of the email dropping a friend and becoming angry with the marketer for sending an unsolicited message. Flames may result, leading to damage to the advertiser's reputation. In some cases, individuals who want to earn more money simply go out and spam people. This can be problematic for your company image.

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Pitfalls - things to avoid One of the things you definitely want to avoid is people being so repulsed at the message (either the words are sick or the images are disgusting) that they do not pass it on, and in fact consider the topic negatively in the wrong way.   During the 3rd week of August 2007, Richardson was interviewed by Ian Marlow of the Toronto Star about the effectiveness of using extreme imagery in an internet marketing campaign - the particular campaign was about raising awareness of child soldiers in Africa and used images of North American children pretending to shoot and kill each other. see www.campokutta.com

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Extremes of Viral Marketing   Richardson was quoted as saying This "viral" marketing strategy spreads the message widely, but could also distort the creator's original intent, said Tim Richardson, a professor of e-commerce and Internet marketing ...Still, "any kind of controversy that helps to get the message out can be helpful ... You have to be more extreme," he added. "It's kind of a sad comment on our society." witiger.com/ecommerce/articlechildsoldiers3.jpg

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Companies specializing in Viral Marketing

GFK NOP, a market research firm, has specialized in advising clients about word-of-mouth marketing and has done studies that show word-of-mouth comments by a friend carry twice as much weight in making a purchase decision compared to any information from mass advertising. "Face-to-Face Still Number One Way Consumers Make Recommendations According to NOP World Study" see www.nopworld.com/news.asp?go=news_item&key=159 NOP World announced in April 2005 the results of a national study uncovering where the "roots" of grassroots marketing lie. "The findings reveal face-to-face remains the strongest medium for spreading word-of-mouth" "When asked how they make recommendations, 80% of consumers say they make them in-person, followed by 68% who say they make them over the telephone. the study found that less than 40% of consumers use e-mail to make recommendations to others, including via personal e-mail (37%), by e-mail forwarding (32%) or through mass e-mails (12%)."   KEY POINTS So we can see that word-of-mouth is very powerful, and that it is the traditional (face2face) version which is still more influential than emails. While internet technology may contribute to marketing a product through word-of-mouth, it would be considered more productive if the IT circumstances could end up in a face2face situation at some point because then that message will have a higher chance of being received and acted upon. WTGR GFK stands for Growth From Knowledge. GfK has home offices in Nuremberg, Germany, The GfK Group is among the top-three market research organizations in the world.

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Companies specializing in Viral Marketing

www.matchstick.ca is a Canadian marketing company which has developed a good reputation in word-of-mouth launches Matchstick was hired by Ford Canada to help launch the Zephyr line of cars through creating situations were people could drive one of the cars for free if they agreed to talk about it with their friends.

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University of Toronto experts on Viral Marketing and Word-of-Mouth Marketing include Dr. Andrea C. Wojnicki who teaches at Rotman and has a Harvard PhD in which her thesis was word-of-mouth advertising.

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Famous examples of Viral Marketing mixed with web-based content

Terry Tate, Office Linebaker - a series of TV commercials sponsored by Reebok, which were very popular, and encouraged people to go to the reebok.com site to see more of the commercials online see a clip at www.thatvideosite.com/view/112.html   While the concept of a big linebaker running through an office proved to be very amusing and kewl, the bottom line is "did it sell more product for Reebok?". Several media sites suggested "it was difficult to determine the ad's effectiveness because the commercial lacked a strong connection to Reebok's brand."  http://espn.go.com/sportsbusiness/s/2003/0129/1500934.html The point being, it is great that people think your commercial is kewl, but it has to have a relation to buying the product otherwise you're just spending money on entertainment. Terry Tate's real name is Lester Speight, ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lester_Speight) a former pro football linebaker who now has his own site at www.mightyrasta.com/

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Examples of Viral Marketing mixed with web-based content

Nicole J. at UTM student in MGD415 in March 2007 sent an email with a good example of Viral Marketing being used by the movie industry in combination with web-based distribution Nicole emailed to say Hello Professor Richardson,... I thought I would share this article I found on viral marketing... the article shows how viral marketing is being used as an effective business strategy. Particularly, I found this article that states the motion picture industry, Hollywood to be exact, has found a new way to market their movie trailers and DVD ads by posting these mini web videos on popular sites such as YouTube. This way they are exposing their key demographics of teenagers and young adults, who frequently utilize these entertainment venues, to their range of product offerings. Paramount Pictures is one example that has used YouTube to now post at least three trailers per month. In this article http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-6091540.htmlit clearly explains that this is a strong marketing strategy in order to get the word out. “The move to promote DVDs through viral video sites is part of an overall shift to Web marketing by the studios.” Nicole concludes I think this is an interesting article as it helps us to see how businesses are utilizing viral marketing to get the message across to a broad range of their consumer base. I think given the new developments in the web entertainment arena, it is essential that they find ways to keep ahead with what their audience is interested in so that they can incorporate their product(s) accordingly.

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Audio clip (podcast) made by University of Toronto (UTM) students
Betty (Wan-Tzu) C. and Margaret (Tzu-Chiao) H. for
"Witiger Radio Show" in March 2008

Click on the girl's faces to hear the full clip in English and Mandarin - it contains some funny and amusing comments about earning class participations marks and their comments also about the course As Betty explained in an email March 30th, 2008 "We made this podcast called Radio Witiger for viral marketing  strategy. By using two languages, Mandarin and English, we establish  our target audience and attract both cultures’ attention, as the other  “foreign” language acts as a clue for them. We assume audience only  knows one language and by listening to snips of words in their  language, they will be curious to know the rest of the puzzle,  figuring out the context of the dialogue. In order to do so, they will  have to ask their friends who know the other language, thus, spread  the word of Radio Witiger and Professor Richardson. "

Click to the left to read the English / Chinese (Mandarin) script of the audio clip  (but do this after you listen to the audio clip) - it is funnier to hear the clip first

 

ETHICS of Viral Marketing

Gary Ruskin of Commercial Alert  www.commercialalert.org  has been quoted as saying "buzz marketing perpetuates large-scale deception upon consumers when people recruited to promote products by word of mouth don't disclose that fact" commercialalert.orgdiscusses Manipulating Teens  http://www.commercialalert.org/news-archive.php?article_id=816 www.tremor.com, a Procter & Gamble Web site that has enlisted a quarter-million teenagers as "word-of-mouth" marketers. "Tremor is part of a burgeoning trend in marketing: using "real people" to create a buzz for products and services. But teens who join the Tremor Crew aren't required to acknowledge the gig to anybody - even to their own parents." says  Jeff Gelles of the Philadelphia Inquirer "Tremor and other such marketers are under scrutiny because of a complaint by Commercial Alert,...some of their tactics may violate laws against deceptive advertising. Commercial Alert has called on the Federal Trade Commission to investigate such practices." says Gelles Gelles says "Tremor offers a marketer's dream: a large pool of well-connected teenagers, influential among their peers, who will talk up the products and services of its clients." Richardson received email from Ruskin of Commercialalert.org November 14th 2005 giving permission to link and quote. Copies of emails are in the permissions binder.

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