A good definition of viral marketing and advertising has been provided by Dr. Ralph Wilson. He states:
Viral marketing describes any strategy that encourages individuals to pass on a marketing message to others, creating the potential for exponential growth in the message's exposure and influence. Like viruses, such strategies take advantage of rapid multiplication to explode the message to thousands, to millions.
Today, with the majority of internet users having high-speed connections and an ever increasing interest in social networks, this powerful marketing strategy has become all the more potent.
The origins of the term viral marketing are hazy. However, the term in its contemporary definition has existed for about a decade and is usually attributed to Steve Jurvetson and Tim Draper. Jurvetson and Draper were venture capitalists who wrote a paper about the meteoric rise of Hotmail – arguably viral marketing's biggest success story.
Hotmail's use of viral marketing was incredibly simple and cunning. They turned the users of their free web-based email service into powerful brand advocates by attaching a short message to the bottom of all sent emails. All it said was ‘Get your free email at Hotmail'. This strategy enabled the company to recruit 12 million subscribers in 18 months and they did all this with a budget of only $500,000 – a cost that works out at 4 cents per acquisition.
Since Hotmail there have been countless success stories for other companies that have adopted viral marketing strategies on a digital platform.
Viral Advertising has grown out of viral marketing. It is a means of increasing brand awareness by creating contagious advertising materials. These viral ad materials are now commonly referred to as ‘virals'. Virals are much cheaper to produce and distribute than television or cinema ads. And unlike television and cinema, once the ads are created and distributed, there are no further costs incurred. If the material is contagious enough it will reach a critical mass of exposure and will circulate through the inboxes of millions. It may even continue to wash about in cyberspace for ever.
Viral ads can come in a number of formats – they can be Flash games, pictures or even text. However, the most powerful format of ad has proved to be video. With the rise in higher bandwidth internet connections it has become much easier for people to view and distribute this media format.
The real strength in viral advertising lies in the fact that consumers and potential brand advocates are less inclined to believe that they are the ‘victim' of an ad campaign. Television and cinema advertising has proved over the last few years that it is massively inefficient. Fewer and fewer people are being affected by the messages in these ads. On the other hand, when someone receives a funny video clip in their inbox, and they see that it has been sent to them by a friend, they are far more likely to watch it and be influenced by its message even if there is a brand affiliated with it.
Viral advertising is here to stay, but so far we have only seen a fraction of its potential. Great things are just around the corner and Viral HQ will be here to tell you about them as soon as they emerge. It would be a good idea to join our newsletter so that we can tell you about all of the hottest ads as soon as they are in circulation.