The Viral Marketing Experience

This blog’s goal was mainly to contribute to the debate around Viral Marketing, gathering the opinions of field experts and marketing “loonies” alike, in order to get the feel of what practitioners think of Viral MKT, thereby avoiding the regular literature clichés – or, at least, trying to.


Aware of our time and resources’ limitations, we felt that the only way to gather a relevant number of opinions was (you probably have already guessed) going viral ourselves. And so we did – making use of social networks such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and The Star Tracker, we asked different marketing discussion groups the million dollar question: after all, 'what’s up with Viral Marketing'?


We placed the question in over a dozen discussion groups; below you’ll find a glimpse over the feedback we’ve received, showing different perspectives on what viral marketing is and what it is good for.

For instance, Carla Silva (Direct marketing specialist) defined viral marketing as «a set of marketing techniques that explore social networks to generate an exponential increase in brand/product awareness, in a similar process of an epidemic». Bill Ratcliffe (CEO @ High Level Research, Inc.) sums its application stating that «news/ads/products go viral when they surprise and please people to the extent that they want to share their learning with others». Both would agree with Flávio Gart (Creative @ Bazooka), who told us that «viral marketing happens whenever a brand offers valuable contents to potential customers/stakeholders, who – having recognized the message’s worth – will spread it to their own network, thereby leading a chain reaction».


On the other hand, João Botelho (student @ AIESEC) presented us a somehow more emotional view. His first thought regarding viral marketing was «thinking in those advertisements that everyone talks about, because they fit to our real life! Those campaigns that not only make us want the product, but also mess with everyone, because they create curiosity and desire! I think this is the kind of marketing that makes people write in their blogs, spreading the word about the product, commenting ‘Oh! Did you see that advertisement?’ ‘Did you see that new product that appeared?’»


On this position, we’d add a relevant observation: although it is true that new media and social networks make it easier for one to share brilliant ads, the fact is that a TV advertisement isn’t exactly what we’d call viral marketing – even though it may ultimately be “transmitted” that way – unless it is created specifically for that end (e.g., Cadbury’s ads on this blog). It is important to set things aside, otherwise one might wrongfully take every virally shared message as viral marketing, subtracting it from its strategic dimension, making it no more than the creative impact of an advertisement conception. The thing is that viral marketing is turning into a discipline itself, gathering concepts such as «Recommendation Boosting, Reputation Management, Buzz Marketing» (Markus Roder @ viral marketing expert).

Altogether, viral marketing tools might lead to a lot of benefits; but whenever misused, they might also lead you to a deep hole. Hugo Morais (Yard Manager) shared his perspective on the ups & downs of viral marketing:

Thumbs up:

- Quickly spread
- Wide possible coverage
- “Buzzability”
- Super-low cost
- High/fast response rates

Thumbs down:

- Hard to pick a specific target
- Bad messages will also be spread quickly
- Might be faced as pure SPAM
- Minor control over the campaign

So, not everything is perfect in “ViraLand”. As our colleague Rui Carvalho (Magellan MBA) reminded us, Viral Marketing «doesn’t come without drawbacks (at least potential ones). In Portugal there’s a saying that goes something like this: ‘Who tells a tale, adds a sentence’. Relying on an epidemic to promote something may reach disproportionate and uncontrollable dimensions in which reverting a biased message may prove to be a daunting and perhaps impossible task». As shown, good viral marketing might turn into great publicity, but the wrong message might lead to a PR disaster – as Debbie M. (VP Marketing @ Eli’s CheeseCake) puts it, «the distinction between Marketing and PR is being blurred in social media, knowingly or unknowingly. It will be interesting as it unfolds».

In the end, one must give viral marketing a careful thought. One should look for its advantages, but beware of its downsides – as with everything in marketing (and life, for that matter)! The really important thing here, as always, is to send the right message and, beyond that, give people what they want. As Spencer Wendt (VP @ Brand Power Exchange) told us, if you have to choose «’going viral’ versus building a great product that adds value to people’s lives, shoot for the 'adds value': it's the shortest distance between point "A" (You) and point "B" (success)».