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spiceboy1199 2007-04-15

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6 March 2006

Viral marketing is spreading like, well, you know… as Simon van Wyk writes.

OK, hands up everyone who has received a funny joke, story, link or video in their in-box and thought, "Look, I normally don’t do this, but this is really funny!” and then forwarded it to some of their friends or family.

Now, keep your hands up if you do that every day. You may be surprised how many people still have their hands up.

According to a report recently released by US interactive marketing firm Sharpe Partners, 89% of adult Internet users have done it, and a staggering 25% say they do it every day. In total, 63% of adults say they do it at least once a week, and three-quarters of people answering the survey share their emails with up to six other people.

Not surprisingly, humorous emails are the most common type shared with others (88%), followed by news items (56%), health/medical items (32%), religious/spiritual (30%), games (25%), sports/hobbies and business/finance items (24%), and "sexually provocative" content (12%). (I’m sure if people were totally honest on the survey that last one would have appeared a bit higher on the list).

The good news for marketers is that the study found that adding overt brand messages only slightly reduces the likelihood that people will share the content. More than 40% said they are more or slightly more likely to send marketing-related messages, while only 5% refuse to share content that contains a clear brand message.

Nearly nine out of ten people who receive emails with brand sponsorships said they had no adverse feelings about the brand-related emails. A Sharpe Partners spokesperson told the eMarketer website, "It is clear that viral marketing is a low-risk approach."

Sharpe identified a group it called "Brand Fans", who, as eMarketer said, "are so viral they are contagious". More than 80% of them feel positively about brand-sponsored content shared at least once a week, and 35% share daily. Brand Fans are also the group most likely to share with 10 or more people.

The study of 1,017 US adults found that the most likely person to share content - and share it widely - is a woman in her late 30s to early 40s; 64% of the female respondents share content at least once a week versus 58% of the males.

The study also found that education is only a slight influence, with 64% of those without a college degree sharing weekly versus 61% with a college degree. Marital status, the presence of children, and household income did not prove to be factors, nor did the length of time someone has been using the Internet.

"We knew a lot of people were sharing content, but even we didn‘t expect it to be so pervasive," said Kathy Sharpe, Sharpe Partners‘ CEO. "But, the real challenge for interactive marketing firms is developing content that these people will want to consistently share with a wide, yet focused circle of acquaintances."

"Humour is clearly the golden child of viral marketing, but it is also very subjective," cautioned Sharpe. "That is why we recommend a viral conduit that allows the target to define the humour, rather than presuming that we always know what the audience will find funny."

"We also discovered that those who share content more frequently are less inclined to view brand affiliation as a negative, so the key becomes targeting those individuals."

Reallocating budgets

There are indications that business is already onto the viral marketing trend. A survey of top business executives recently published by Blackfriars Communications forecasts a 9% drop in the portion of marketing budgets allocated to traditional advertising in comparison with 2005, with most of the shift going to new media and, in particular, viral marketing.

The report, "Marketing 2006: 2006‘s Timid Start," cites dissatisfaction with existing marketing returns as a major cause for their reallocating budgets away from traditional techniques like advertising to approaches such as word of mouth, buzz marketing, and viral marketing.

Those non-traditional approaches are expected to see a further increase in their share of overall marketing budgets over previous years. According to Blackfriars, non-traditional spending nearly doubled from 8% of overall marketing budgets in Q4 2004 to 14.5% in Q4 2005.

The report projects a 13% increase in overall marketing spending in 2006 – an absolute increase that will offset the large percentage fall in traditional ad budgets, but Blackfriars reports the shift from traditional to non-traditional approaches is still ominous for old-school advertisers.

Blackfriars‘ 2006 report marks the first time non-traditional approaches have been measured in its annual analysis and forecast, out of recognition of their growing popularity among business executives.

Speaking of the decline in traditional marketing spend over 2005, Blackfriars director Carl Howe said, "We were tracking it for a while, and we watched it descend all year. The first time we saw it we thought it could be statistical variation – but it‘s not. It‘s large enough, and consistent enough, to be a major trend showing a big shift away from traditional advertising spending."

Howe also detailed a major difference in reported dissatisfaction between executives whose companies measured marketing results - for example, using click-through and impression rates in Web advertising - versus those who didn‘t. Executives whose companies measured results showed a 13% dissatisfaction rate, vs. 37% for those who didn‘t.

Interestingly, Howe pointed out that many of the increasingly popular "non-traditional" methods like buzz and word of mouth are not easily measured; he attributed their growing percentage of overall marketing budgets to an "experimental" attitude among business leadership.

Common threads for successful virals

Tessa Wegert writes on ClickZ: "Though it seems consumers haven‘t had their fill of sharable content, that alone doesn‘t make a successful viral initiative. And although overt brand messages may not deter consumers from sharing at present, the best applications skew more toward product placement than brand sponsorships.

These initiatives do more than make their way around the Web and tout a logo; they‘re integrated with the brand and represent it in a creative way. There might not be a true formula for developing a viral piece, but the common thread is brand and product relevance."

The ClickZ article mentions a few US campaigns that have been particularly successful in maintaining brand and product relevance. The Virtual Bartender, for example, is a site set up by the Universal Beverage Organization, which is apparently dedicated to getting people to drink more beer (like they need help?). The Virtual Bartenders are "real live" politically incorrect beer wenches who, like Burger King’s Subservient Chicken , follow (almost) any command you type into the request box. However, if you ask them to serve you a drink, the only drink they will serve you is a beer.

As Tessa Wegert writes, "It‘s difficult not to be heartened by the news consumers still spread content online, and equally hard not to be tempted by the apparent simplicity of the approach. Before you attempt to create your own viral offering, however, consider your product and brand. There‘s a clever angle out there just waiting to be exploited. Miss it and you could ruin the broth."

Simon van Wyk is founding partner of HotHouse Interactive – the company that builds businesses online.