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Customers doing the work for marketers
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 videoin their in-box and thought, "Look, I normally don’t do this, but thisis really funny!” and then forwarded it to some of their friends orfamily.
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 marketingfirm Sharpe Partners, 89% of adult Internet users have done it, and astaggering 25% say they do it every day. In total, 63% of adults saythey do it at least once a week, and three-quarters of people answeringthe survey share their emails with up to six other people.
Not surprisingly, humorous emails are the most common type sharedwith others (88%), followed by news items (56%), health/medical items(32%), religious/spiritual (30%), games (25%), sports/hobbies andbusiness/finance items (24%), and "sexually provocative" content (12%).(I’m sure if people were totally honest on the survey that last onewould have appeared a bit higher on the list).
The good news for marketers is that the study found that addingovert brand messages only slightly reduces the likelihood that peoplewill share the content. More than 40% said they are more or slightlymore likely to send marketing-related messages, while only 5% refuse toshare content that contains a clear brand message.
Nearly nine out of ten people who receive emails with brandsponsorships said they had no adverse feelings about the brand-relatedemails. A Sharpe Partners spokesperson told the eMarketer website, "Itis clear that viral marketing is a low-risk approach."
Sharpe identified a group it called "Brand Fans", who, as eMarketersaid, "are so viral they are contagious". More than 80% of them feelpositively about brand-sponsored content shared at least once a week,and 35% share daily. Brand Fans are also the group most likely to sharewith 10 or more people.
The study of 1,017 US adults found that the most likely person toshare content - and share it widely - is a woman in her late 30s toearly 40s; 64% of the female respondents share content at least once aweek versus 58% of the males.
The study also found that education is only a slight influence, with64% of those without a college degree sharing weekly versus 61% with acollege degree. Marital status, the presence of children, and householdincome did not prove to be factors, nor did the length of time someonehas been using the Internet.
"We knew a lot of people were sharing content, but even we didn‘texpect it to be so pervasive," said Kathy Sharpe, Sharpe Partners‘ CEO."But, the real challenge for interactive marketing firms is developingcontent 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 isalso very subjective," cautioned Sharpe. "That is why we recommend aviral conduit that allows the target to define the humour, rather thanpresuming that we always know what the audience will find funny."
"We also discovered that those who share content more frequently areless inclined to view brand affiliation as a negative, so the keybecomes targeting those individuals."
Reallocating budgets
There are indications that business is already onto the viralmarketing trend. A survey of top business executives recently publishedby Blackfriars Communications forecasts a 9% drop in the portion ofmarketing budgets allocated to traditional advertising in comparisonwith 2005, with most of the shift going to new media and, inparticular, viral marketing.
The report, "Marketing 2006: 2006‘s Timid Start," citesdissatisfaction with existing marketing returns as a major cause fortheir reallocating budgets away from traditional techniques likeadvertising to approaches such as word of mouth, buzz marketing, andviral marketing.
Those non-traditional approaches are expected to see a furtherincrease in their share of overall marketing budgets over previousyears. According to Blackfriars, non-traditional spending nearlydoubled from 8% of overall marketing budgets in Q4 2004 to 14.5% in Q42005.
The report projects a 13% increase in overall marketing spending in2006 – an absolute increase that will offset the large percentage fallin traditional ad budgets, but Blackfriars reports the shift fromtraditional to non-traditional approaches is still ominous forold-school advertisers.
Blackfriars‘ 2006 report marks the first time non-traditionalapproaches have been measured in its annual analysis and forecast, outof 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 thoughtit could be statistical variation – but it‘s not. It‘s large enough,and consistent enough, to be a major trend showing a big shift awayfrom traditional advertising spending."
Howe also detailed a major difference in reported dissatisfactionbetween executives whose companies measured marketing results - forexample, using click-through and impression rates in Web advertising -versus those who didn‘t. Executives whose companies measured resultsshowed a 13% dissatisfaction rate, vs. 37% for those who didn‘t.
Interestingly, Howe pointed out that many of the increasinglypopular "non-traditional" methods like buzz and word of mouth are noteasily measured; he attributed their growing percentage of overallmarketing budgets to an "experimental" attitude among businessleadership.
Common threads for successful virals
Tessa Wegert writes on ClickZ: "Though it seems consumers haven‘thad their fill of sharable content, that alone doesn‘t make asuccessful viral initiative. And although overt brand messages may notdeter consumers from sharing at present, the best applications skewmore toward product placement than brand sponsorships.
These initiatives do more than make their way around the Web andtout a logo; they‘re integrated with the brand and represent it in acreative way. There might not be a true formula for developing a viralpiece, but the common thread is brand and product relevance."
The ClickZ article mentions a few US campaigns that have beenparticularly 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, ifyou ask them to serve you a drink, the only drink they will serve youis a beer.
As Tessa Wegert writes, "It‘s difficult not to be heartened by thenews consumers still spread content online, and equally hard not to betempted by the apparent simplicity of the approach. Before you attemptto create your own viral offering, however, consider your product andbrand. 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.
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