Viral Marketing Mba Project Report

For more Presentation, Notes, Project Reports visit a2zmba.blogspot.com

Viral Marketing and Viral Stealth Marketing: Similar but Ambiguous?

Lokesh Godwani (S2610936)

Table of Contents INTRODUCTIO

: ......................................................................................... 3

N

STEALT

MARKETIN

H

G

VIRA

MARKETIN

L

VIRA L

: .............................................................................. 3

: .................................................................................. 5

G

STEALT

MARKETIN

H

CONTRASTIN G

CONCLUSIO

:.................................................................... 6

G

MOTIVE : ........................................................................... 7 S

: ............................................................................................ 9

N

References and Readings: ................................................................... 10

2

For more Presentation, Notes, Project Reports visit a2zmba.blogspot.com

Introduction: Consumer responsiveness to traditional marketing and conventional communication tactics have begun to dwindle, thus diminishing the effectiveness of marketing and promotional efforts. In a move towards gaining consumer attention, organistions are beginning to introduce techniques that cut through clutter present in traditional advertising. One of the techniques that marketers are employing is the use of Word-Of-Mouth (WOM) or buzz marketing techniques. Some of the forms of Buzz marketing are Stealth Marketing, Viral Marketing, and Viral Stealth Marketing (VSM) etc. One important factor to note here is the relatively lower costs involved in this form of marketing technique (Thomas Jr, 2004). As an emerging marketing concept, VSM has begun to materialise in many different areas. VSM, similar to viral marketing, is distinctly different whereby some fundamental differences are present. The objective of this discussion is to compare and contrast these two marketing concepts and discuss their importance.

Stealth Marketing: The foundation of stealth marketing is based on the belief that most individuals respond to opinions, or views presented by their peers rather than a concentrated campaign targeted at the masses (Kaikati and Kaikati, 2004). Conventional advertising techniques have created an atmosphere where-in consumers tend to be hit with a barrage of advertising messages, all trying to garner their attention, and sell them some product. This overwhelming stream of advertising messages has resulted in consumers adopting a

3

generally distrustful attitude towards conventional marketing attempts (Kaikati and Kaikati, 2004). Stealth marketing looks to address this phenomenon by building a scenario wherein, sections of the target consumers are gradually discussing the product or the brand being marketed. Stealth marketing doesn’t look to make a loud statement but the product in question; rather it relies on the concept of “word of mouth” advertising, to create a gentle murmur amongst the members of the target group, convincing the target audience that the product isn’t marketed to them, rather they came across it and it is peer endorsed (Kaikati and Kaikati, 2004). This approach has one key difference from wordof-mouth advertising, this difference lies in the process by which the product is first introduced in the midst of the target audience; the product is initially endorsed by individuals who are intentionally endorsing the product at the behest of the organisation marketing the product. This endorsement is done extremely surreptitiously, without letting the targeted consumer know that the product is actually being marketed to him or her (Balter and Butman, 2006).

Stealth marketing has proved to be effective for a number of organisations that have indulged in this form of advertising, resulting in a growing number of organisations viewing it as a form of marketing their products (Kaikati and Kaikati, 2004, Martin and Smith, 2008). This growing adoption of stealthmarketing notwithstanding stealth marketing has come under scrutiny from academics, questioning the ethics of stealth marketing. The growing criticism of stealth marketing has been based on factors like; the moral implications, Corporate social responsibility, intrusiveness that is similar to telemarketing, deception of the final consumers, and the resulting perceptions consumers

4

For more Presentation, Notes, Project Reports visit a2zmba.blogspot.com

create about marketing and brands in general (Kaikati and Kaikati, 2004, Kennett and Matthews, 2008, Martin and Smith, 2008, Milne et al., 2008, Petty and Andrews, 2008).

The supporters of stealth marketing, argue that while this form of marketing is ethically questionable, it can be adopted as a technique as it doesn’t do any real harm apart from keeping the goal behind the endorsement a secret (Kaikati and Kaikati, 2004, Martin and Smith, 2008). It is also argued that, while the intentions of the stealth marketer are to garner sales, it also results in increasing consumer knowledge, imparting information, which the consumer would have avoided if a conventional form of advertising was used (Martin and Smith, 2008).

Viral Marketing:

Viral marketing stems from the well recognized principal of word of mouth (WOM) marketing, yet it is conducted through a digital format or information and communication technologies such as mobile communications, email and web logs, also known as blogs. Stemming from WOM, viral marketing represents word of mouse advertising where messages are targeted towards individuals that have an interest in the message content and who will hopefully pass the message along to other individuals, adding a personal recommendation (Helm, 2000).

The viral marketing technique relies upon communication that existing users of a brand or product have with other individuals. The influencing consumer in this case

5

endorses the brand entirely unintentionally; the viral marketing message usually comes across as an afterthought to the entire communication. As (Moore, 2003) has rightly put it, the brand, in a case of viral marketing usually comes across as underwriting the users’ communication.

Some authors have referred to Viral Marketing as form of stealth marketing (Kaikati and Kaikati, 2004), but this is not the case as viral marketing differs from stealth marketing in the fact that the brand or product being promote is explicitly stated in the communication message. Another differentiating factor is that the individual actually endorsing the brand or product doesn’t endorse it as per a pre-arranged understanding with the oraganisation in question, nor does the individual do it out of a material gain.

Viral Stealth Marketing: Viral stealth marketing (VSM) is an emerging marketing concept. As the name suggests it blurs the boundary between the concepts of viral marketing and Stealth Marketing wherein, it is a form of stealth marketing that is indulged in using viral marketing channels. It involves the use of paid endorsers of a brand or product, who endorse the brands using channels like social networking sites, blogs etc. Organisations in the past have resorted to VSM in order to market their products or brands. The classic examples of this would be the examples of Wal-Mart (Martin and Smith, 2008), and Dr. Pepper (Kaikati and Kaikati, 2004). Both Wal-Mart utilized blogs to promote their respective brands. While Wal-Mart claims to be just a sponsor of a specific blog (Gogoi, 2006), Dr. Pepper’s tactic involved actually recruiting young

6

For more Presentation, Notes, Project Reports visit a2zmba.blogspot.com

individuals who were part of successful blogs (Kaikati and Kaikati, 2004). The Wal-Mart sponsored blog was popular when it was active, the disclosure that the blog was actually sponsored by Wal-Mart created a severe backlash in the form of criticism from both consumers as well as influential consumer groups (Martin and Smith, 2008).

Contrasting Motives:

VSM, similar to viral marketing, is distinctly different whereb y some fundamental differences are present. The biggest difference as discussed is the fact that viral stealth marketing keeps the identity of the brand being promoted hidden at the first point of contact between the individual promoting the brand and consumer being targeted,. Viral Marketing on the other hand, doesn’t try to create any doubt as to the origin of the marketing message. The name of the brand or product is blatant and explicit in the entire communication.

Viral Stealth marketing has a more bottom-up approach to its strategy. It is primarily consumer driven, where the company comes into the picture at much later stage for the target consumer. This results in the consumer not questioning the attempt at marketing till a much later stage. Viral marketing on the other hand follows a more topdown approach which is essentially company driven. Neither of the two consumers i.e. the influencers nor the target consumers are involved in the marketing aspect intentionally.

7

The immediate chances of a viral stealth marketing campaign succeeding seem higher on paper as compared to that of a viral marketing campaign as consumers tend not to view the communication as marketing exercise, but rather as a peer endorsed point of view (Kennett and Matthews, 2008). Viral marketing on the other hand uses the marketing message as minor component independent of the actual message in the communication between two individuals (Helm, 2000, Moore, 2003).

Another important factor to note here is the fact that, the actual promotion here is carried out by individuals whom the consumers identify with as they are usually from the same demographic and also the same social set. The targeted consumers and the influencers usually share the same beliefs, which the reason why they are in contact with each other to begin with. This provides an extremely humane touch to the entire marketing campaign as there is a belief person endorsing the product is someone who knows the needs and wants of the other individuals in the same social set. Most of the targeted consumers also tend to trust the opinion of one of their peers rather than a random marketing message. This is something that Viral marketing where, the marketing message comes via a peer but is not endorsed by the individual per se apart from the fact that the individual is using it.

While the ethical considerations of VSM range from a number of concepts like deceit, intrusion, and exploitation to moral responsibility (Martin and Smith, 2008), a bigger question is the distrustfulness that consumers gain towards not only the brand or

8

For more Presentation, Notes, Project Reports visit a2zmba.blogspot.com

product, and the industry in general but also towards communication messages received from individuals who have in the past been party to VSM activities (Kennett and Matthews, 2008, Martin and Smith, 2008). Viral Marketing on the other hand is considered to be relatively ethical with issues being restricted to problems like SPAM.

Both viral and viral stealth marketing are aimed at the section of young adults known as ‘gen-y’, studies have shown that most teens are not averse to the phenomenon of viral stealth marketing (Ahuja et al., 2007). The literature on the subject states that most teens are actually open to the idea of trying out products and also of being able to influence other individuals. On the other hand they are also open to being the targeted VSM subjects, with only area of concern being that the product being endorsed shouldn’t be of poor quality (Ahuja et al., 2007).

Conclusion:

In conclusion it can be said that the ethical issues aside, VSM is here to stay. The main reasons for this are the minimal costs involved in any form of buzz marketing, the effectiveness of VSM campaigns, and also the fact that most of the target audience doesn’t view it as unethical. This probably is the biggest driving factor along with the costs discussion. the other important factor is the fact that VSM allows marketers to assign a humane touch to their promotions as the actual promotional aspect is carried out by individuals who are usually part of the same demographic and also the social set as the

9

targeted consumer. This doesn’t mean that this is the end of the road for viral marketing; this marketing technique is still extremely effective for certain products like search engines, and email service providers etc. The subject of VSM though still requires research in terms of whether its impact can be measured and also to check its impact on the individuals endorsing the products in the scenario where a product fails to live up to the endorsements.

References and Readings: AHUJA, R. D., MICHELS, T. A., WALKER, M. M. & WEISSBUCH, M. (2007) Teen perceptions of disclosure in buzz marketing. Journal of Consumer Marketing, 24 ,151 159. BALTER, D. & BUTMAN, J. (2006) Clutter Cutter.

Marketing Management,

15 ,49-50.

BALTES, G. & LEIBING, I. (2008) Guerrilla marketing for information services? Library World, 109 ,46 - 55.

New

FREEMAN, B. & CHAPMAN, S. (2007) Is "YouTube" telling or selling you something? Tobacco content on the YouTube video-sharing website. Tob Control, 16 ,207-210. GOGOI, P. (2006) Wal-Mart's Jim and Laura: The Real Story.

Business Week.

HELM, S. (2000) Viral Marketing - Establishing Customer Relationships by 'Word-ofmouse'. Electronic 10 ,158-161. Markets, KAIKATI, A. M. & KAIKATI, J. G. (2004) Stealth Marketing: How to Reach Consumers Surreptitiously. California Management Review, 46 ,6-22. KENNETT, J. & MATTHEWS, S. (2008) What's the Buzz? Undercover Marketing and the Corruption of Friendship. Journal of Applied Philosophy, 25 ,2-18. KHALID, M. D. & IAN, B. (2002) Marketing implications of webcasting and extranets. Marketing Intelligence & Planning, 20 ,223. MARTIN, K. D. & SMITH, N. C. (2008) Commercializing Social Interaction: The Ethics of Stealth Marketing. Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, 27 ,45-56.

10

For more Presentation, Notes, Project Reports visit a2zmba.blogspot.com

MILNE, G. R., BAHL, S. & ROHM, A. (2008) Toward a Framework for Assessing Covert Marketing Practices. Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, 27 ,57-62. MOORE, R. E. (2003) From genericide to viral marketing: on `brand'. Communication, 23 ,331-357.

Language &

PETTY, R. D. & ANDREWS, J. C. (2008) Covert Marketing Unmasked: A Legal and Regulatory Guide for Practices That Mask Marketing Messages. Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, 27 ,7-18. SMITH, M. M. & REYNOLDS, L. J. (2007) The street team: An unconventional peer program for undergraduates. Library Management, 29 ,145 - 158. SUBRAMANI, M. R. & RAJAGOPALAN, B. (2003) Knowledge-Sharing and Influence in Online Social Networks via Vir al Marketing. Communications of the ACM, 46 ,300307. THOMAS JR, G. M. (2004) Building the buzz in the hive mind. Behaviour, 4 ,64-72.

11

Journal of Consumer