Viral Marketing - International case "Batman - The Dark Knight"

Warner Bros' clever viral marketing campaign held in 2008 for the Batman flick is definitely worthy to be included in our Viral Markting examples.

The campaign started out with a simple teaser page featuring the image of a lone bat almost a year before the movie hit the theaters. When fans clicked on the site WhySoSerious.com, they were redirected to a page that featured a District Attorney Election promotional poster for a known character from the Batman Universe named Harvey Dent. Clicking on the page sent fans to another page with another promotional poster of a mocking Harvey Dent. The image is defaced and the users were asked to enter their e-mail address so they could be given a code that would reveal a few pixels of the hidden image.

Word about the campaign immediately got around and with hours, the page became a hit on various networking sites and generated blogs and newspapers coverage.

source: firstshowing.net, 09800530s.blogspot.com

Types of Viral Marketing

There are different ways to apply viral marketing strategy.

- Pass-along. This is the most common type of viral marketing. Web sites that ask their users to tell-a-friend about their products and services is an example of pass-along messaging. However, there is a risk of the message being labeled as 'spam' by email providers. Thus, it is important that the 'from' and 'subject" lines do not contain any word that may be tagged as spam.

- Incentivised viral. This is a marketing technique used by companies in which users are offered rewards when they refer somebody to the company. This becomes more effective when the referred person needs to take action for the reward to be given.

- Undercover. The most difficult viral to spot, undercover marketing sends a viral message that is disguised as just an unusual page or piece of news without obvious link citations.

- Buzz marketing. This type is most common in the entertainment world. A good example is the spread of different controversies, like getting married or divorced, involving the stars of a movie that is yet to be released. This is like a word-of-mouth advertising for the movie.

source: Internet Business Online, 09800530.blogspot.com

Viral Marketing Case: Sina Micro-Blog - Part II

The most outstanding advantage of viral marketing is low cost. Before the launched date of Sina Micro-Blog, Sina had invited 800 hundred people (including some artistes) to use the Micro-Blog. Through the word-of-month from these trial users, the registered blog users dramatically increased. Since Micro-Blog is an online public platform that users can post his/her messages, buzz spreads much more rapidly.



There is, however, one significance drawback of viral marketing. Once the message spreads, it cannot be controlled, especially some negative buzz. Many users feel dissatisfied with Sina as their messages are deleted and their accounts are removed when it thinks the contents include some sensitive political words. The voice of discontent widely spread via online and offline channels and that could not be stopped by Sina. There is no doubt that negative voice will affect people's desire to sign up to become a user.

Reference: http://t.sina.com.cn/, news

Source: alvinchan

Viral Marketing Case: Sina Micro-Blog - Part I

Sina Micro-Blog is developed and owned by Sina. The web site (http://t.sina.com.cn/) was launched in September 2009. Until now, there are over 75 million registered users. What is the reason causing so many people registered to become a blogger in few months? Because of the successful viral marketing strategy.

Sina Micro-Blog is a fully opened platform that users can post their messages, can read, follow, comment and forward other users' messages even they do not know each other. Therefore, information transmission in the blog is very fast. Also, since there is a verification system for artistes, singers and celebrities in Sina Micro-Blog, they are willing to become a member, willing to leave messages and photos in their blog. Due to these interesting features, the current users of Sina Micro-Blog are willing to invite and recommend their friends to sign up and use.

As the success of Sina Micro-Blog, the traditional broadcast media also reported and even used some information posted from the bloggers as their news headline. Therefore, more people know Sina Micro-Blog and are interested to sign up as a member in China and Hong Kong.

Reference: http://t.sina.com.cn/, hk news, china news

Source: alvinchan

Viral Marketing - International case "Hotmail.com" (PART II)

The NEW Hotmail - Next generation in personal email


Hotmail is the best example of most successful viral marketing strategy over full life cycle. In 1996, a new product, free web based email was launched by Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith. 'Viral Marketing' catalyst was involved that would exponentially increase the rate of flow of information; nothing to do with virus but the growth is rapid like virus growth through word-of-mouth.

Impact and results of viral marketing strategy over hotmail growth can be summarized as: most important is that Hotmail grew a subscriber base more rapidly than any other company in the world.

Now, Hotmail is the largest email provider in the world. Exponential growth of subscribers; unprecedented source of personal information as almost subscribers filled up demographic and psychographic profile.

Also, with expense close to $500K spent on branding, marketing, advertising and promotion, very less was spent in comparison to nearly 12 million users. It is not just spending money, but spending money in a smart way will work. Hotmail became email king at reduced cost, less expense using viral marketing catalyst. Hotmail viral message (free email services) was involuntary and spread through word-of-mouth.

source: Ezine articles, 09800530S.blogspot.com

Overview - "The Best Job in the World"

Viral Marketing Case Study (SPD4290) -

The Best Job in the World

by Tourism Queensland

in January 2009

The whole campaign has generated a huge amount of publicity with the website having an amazing 2,000 hits per second with over 400,000 unique vistors in the first day and half. The campaign to date has generated over 9,000 applications and 2.3 million visitors to site.

The campaign was first launched overseas, with small strategic ads placed in various nationals, supported by online marketing such as online PR, blogs (twitter), Youtube channel, social media sites such as Facebook, pay per click and natural search.  All marketing activity drives traffic to the website which is simple but seductive.  This campaign is a great example of how viral online marketing can work really well.

Sources from:
http://www.tq.com.au/
SPD4290 Viral Marketing by Wild Group
SPD4290 Online Viral Marketing

Viral Marketing Case: "Avatarize Yourself" - Part II

Viral marketing is a useful strategic and tactical tool in any promotional model. It is a speedy method of transmitting message via the web. Basically, the duration of a film showed in cinemas is just about few months. How to make the exposure of the film's messages grow exponentially must be the most important aspect for a movie. In this sense, viral marketing is a useful tool for promoting Avatar.

The film Avatar cooperated with McDonald's to create and promote this online application not only because it can reduce the promoting cost, but that can let people likely to be a part of the movie. When the user uploads his/her photo in the web site, it can create his/her sole picture that is different from the others. This individualization leads the users feel interested and then they are willing to send to their friends. Thus, once the viral marketing launched, the viral message does not require any resources input from the originating organization.

This viral marketing campaign not only bring a great box office record for the movie, but that benefits McDonald's for short term revenue and buzz.

Reference: http://www.avatarizeyourself.com/

Source: alvin chan

Viral Marketing Case: "Avatarize Yourself" - Part I

An application Avatarize Yourself, that promoted by McDonald's, suddenly became a hot issue in the internet. Likely everyone wanted to upload a picture in the website avatarizeyourself.com and become a member of "Pandora" nation Navi.



In fact, there is no Chinese version for this application Avatarize Yourself as McDonald's promoted this campaign in Europe only. However, there are many curious Chinese movie fans tried to use this website to turn him/her into an Avatar. They also posted many messages in the forums to share these interesting experiences with others. Besides, some of the users even more uploaded his/her photos in the Facebook as his/her own profile pictures.

On 18th of December, Avatar film was on show. At that date, when used Google to search the word "McDonald's", it was automatically linked up with "Avatar". Also, there were 1,600 search results in Chinese in Google and that cannot be found the day before. It can reveal that this campaign was so successful.



Reference: http://www.avatarizeyourself.com/, news

Source: alvin chan

Viral Marketing - International case "Hotmail.com" (PART I)

Hotmail.com is one of the first free web-based e-mail services. The strategy is simple:

1. Give away free e-mail addresses and services,

2. Attach a simple tag at the bottom of every free message sent out:" Get your private, free e-mail at http://www.hotmail.com/"

Here's what it looked like:

__________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at:
http://www.hotmail.com/

and,

3. Stand back while people e-mail to their own network of friends,

4. Who see the message,

5. Sign up for their own free e-mail service, and then

6. Propel the message still wider to their own ver-increasing circles of friends and associates.

Hotmail's practice was to append an advertisement of itself on each message that is sent using their service. When a recipient gets interested and clicks on the ad, it will lead to hotmail's website for him/her to signup. This will go on and on, and the growth is similar to an exponential curve.

In the first 18 months of being in business, Hotmail.com garnered 12 million subscribers with a total marketing budget of less than $500,000. That's a new customer acquisition cost of 4 cents per customer!!!

source: Xcellent marketing , 09800530S.blogspot.com , hotmail.com

Viral Marketing Case Study - Evian : Roller Babies

Viral Marketing : Roller Babies (Part I)

01st July, 2009 Evian adopted viral marketing approach to launch its Live Young campaign, Roller Babies video that started from the web and youtube. The video, which jokingly illustrates the youthful effect Evian mineral water, has on the body by showing a bunch of babies roller-skating. The adorable babies video speedy spread in large number on internet, discuss group, Facebook and even the traditional news program.

According the statistics from Neilsen and Youtube, there were almost 5,000,000 views of this video in only 5 days. Through 09th November, 2009 Evian’s Roller Babies has racked up a total of 45,200,000 online views worldwide, 1,000,000 comments and 500,000 Facebook fans across a number of Roller Babies fan page. In addition, as a video advertising, CCTV’s, TVB Peal & Jade, New Zealand etc evening news programs have reported it a new “viral marketing” for success.



The video of Roller Babies has forwarded in a large percentage recipients to another large number of friends quickly. Evian is a great successful example of adopting viral marketing approach to increase brand awareness and sale.


Source: http://09825420s.blogspot.com/ , www.emct.cn , www.emkt.com.cn

Definition of Viral Marketing

Viral marketing is also called buzz marketing (or word-of-mouth) and network marketing. It describes any marketing strategy or tactic that encourages individuals to pass on a marketing message to others. Successful execution means the message's exposure grows exponentially - like a virus and hence the word viral.

Viral marketing is a clever idea, a game, a shocking idea, or a highly informative idea which makes compulsive viewing. It can be a video clips a TV ad, a cartoon, a funny picture, a poem, song, political message, or a news item. It should be amazing and with perceived value that can make people want to pass it on. Finally, the originator of the message can benefit from its propagation.

Viral marketing highly depends on the pass-along rate from person to person. If a large percentage of recipients forward a message to a large number of friends, the snowballs can grow very quickly and can create unexpected outcomes in a short period of time.

Reference: Chaffey, Ellis-Chadwick, Mayer and Johnson, 2006 Third Edition, Internet Marketing Strategy, Implementation and Practice, Viral Marketing, P.400-401

Source: alvinchan