The main obstacle associated with viral advertising campaigns is the risk from unsuccessfully connecting with its desired target audience, or any audience for that matter. The primary contributor to effective communication in an advertising campaign is the content that it’s made up of, as well as the ability of the content to articulate a consistent narrative that delivers a compelling story. According to Llopis (2014), content marketing is a powerful way to create a long lasting, fruitful relationship with consumers. This relationship holds particular significance to any company, not just for the direct components of the acquisition process as well as repeat purchase, but also for the indirect components, which includes word-of-mouth (WOM).
Word of Mouth Marketing is:
a) giving people a reason to talk about you
b) making it easier for the conversation to take place.
It is via WOM that information dissemination occurs rapidly (Woerndl et al., 2008). However, information that is passed on can take either a positive or negative form, depending on the satisfaction level of the consumer. Negative WOM communication has more of an impact when influencing consumers than positive WOM, significantly affecting a consumer’s views on a particular product (Solomon, 2014). Previous research conducted by Solomon (2003) has found that ‘90% of dissatisfied consumers do not purchase products or services of the company involved in the negative word-of-mouth communication’, further supported by Whitler (2014) stating that 92% of consumers believe recommendations from friends and family over all forms of advertising.
The realisation of ‘eWOM’ became apparent in the 1990s, the creation of Web 2.0 allowing consumers to generate content and thus spread information via a virtual community (Marsden, 2006). The best example of this is the website TripAdvisor, where consumers can review hotels they’ve stayed at during holidays, allowing others to see past the marketing and glossy photos many hotels post on their official web pages. Many hotel websites now feature the reviews they have received on TripAdvisor as a result. According to Varadarajan and Yadav (2002), the emergence of eWOM has led to four important transitions in the buying environment:
1. Facilitating access to the type and amount of information associated with price and non-price attributes of competing product offers.
2. Increasing ease of comparing and evaluating alternatives in the buyers’ consideration set.
3. Improving quality of information.
4. Organising and structuring information.
This new revolution in the way consumers communicate their opinions is leading to a change in the way marketers think too. Whereas we are used to reading about the 4 Ps, there is now a focus on the 3 Es; Engage, Equip, Empower. Mastering these techniques theoretically should lead to the company winning the popularity contest amongst consumers. To further elaborate on the 3 Es, this is what they stand for (Whitler, 2013):
Engage – Give consumers the gift of you, engage with them and listen to what they are telling you. Be part of the conversation about your brand. Be a presence in your fans’ lives. A prime example of a firm doing this is @NikeSupport on Twitter. They constantly respond to followers , answering queries on their apparel, Fuel Band or other products. Every few minutes they respond to someone new.
Equip – Make a consumer have reason to talk about the firm. It can be amazing products, great service, insider knowledge, social elevation, incredible stories, unbelievable facts or amusing disclosures. It depends on the company understanding their consumers and what they like about them, providing whatever it is they need. Apple revolutionizes technological devices and delivers amazing products to its consumers, allowing them to naturally rave about the newest iPhone. Another area to excel in and that’s on the rise is social customer service.
Empower – Give consumers different ways to talk and share. Make them feel special by letting them know they are important to the firm and that sharing their opinions is important to the firm. Lay’s is an excellent example to highlight how they empowered their fans to “Do Us a Flavor,” and allow consumers to create a new flavor of potato chips to hit store shelves. Over 3.8 million submissions were sent in 2013 making it one of the biggest marketing campaigns for PepsiCo owned Frito-Lay.
Given that this is not a new concept it is difficult to understand why it has taken marketers so long to grasp. A general consensus is that technology has made this concept a far more efficient tool, and learning how to adapt technology to suit this method has been the main stumbling block (Whitler, 2013). Given these changes, WOM, and indeed eWOM, will become more influential to advertising campaigns and it is this effect, sometimes known as the ‘snowball effect’ which allows an advertising campaign to go viral. An advert that has attempted to grasp the 3 Es is the clip below, which achieved over 6.5 million views on the day it was released.
References
Llopis, G. (2014) Top 7 Reasons Your Content Goes Viral. Forbes. 24 February, 2014 [Online] http://www.forbes.com/sites/glennllopis/2014/02/24/top-7-reasons-your-content-goes-viral/ [accessed 27 April 2015]
Marsden, P. (2006) Connected Marketing: The Viral, Buzz and Word of Mouth Revolution. Oxford: Elsevier
Solomon, M. (2003) Conquering Consumer space; Marketing Strategies for a Branded World. New York: Amacom
Solomon, M. (2004) Consumer Behaviour: Buying, Having and Being. New Jersey: Pearson
Varadarajan, P. & Yadav, M. (2002) Marketing strategy and the internet: an organizing framework. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science. Vol. 30 (Issue 4), pp. 296–312.
Woerndl, M., Papagiannidis, S., Bourlakis, M., Li, F. (2008) Internet-induced marketing techniques: Critical factors in viral marketing campaigns. International Journal of Business Science and Applied Management, Vol. 3 (Issue 1) pp. 34-45