Viral Marketing : How does the individual view a viral marketing message and what makes him or her pass it along?

Abstract: Viral marketing is a form of marketing that is based on individuals sharing of a message within their social network. When viral marketing works, it’s cheap and efficient and there are several examples of successful viral marketing campaigns that has given products or companies great success. Viral marketing is relatively unexplored as a phenomenon, and there are several different suggested paths to choose to form a successful campaign. One suggestion is that viral marketers base their campaigns on different feelings to make the individual share the campaign, or feeling, with its social network. This is one of the things that we are looking at in this report. With a quantitative study based on the replies of over 800 students, we try to determine which feeling is more efficient in viral marketing campaigns. We also try to determine how viral campaigns are received and handled as well as students view on viral marketing as a phenomenon. This report shows that receivers of viral marketing campaigns have a pattern in the way they act as a result of it. Receivers who view one viral marketing campaign as spam, block the messages sender or delete the message are likely to view all campaigns as spam, no matter which type of viral marketing campaign they receive. This pattern does not exist for those who choose to forward viral messages, nor does the strength of the feeling matter. However, we are able to distinguish that campaigns based on sadness, anger, fear and disgust are forwarded more than campaigns based on other feelings. These types of campaigns are often forwarded by women. Campaigns based on sick humor or surprise are more commonly forwarded by men. However, women are more likely to forward viral messages.