Since the dawn of the consumer age, companies have endeavoured to come up with new and innovative ways to promote their brands and services. James Walker learns how the huge technological developments that have taken place over recent years - particularly with regard to the almost unbridled propagation of the internet - have resulted in the creation of a new and powerful platform for businesses to harness non-traditional marketing techniques. Enter, the viral age...

The term ‘viral marketing’ was coined by Harvard Business School professor Jeffrey Rayport in December 1996, who used it to refer to marketing techniques that take advantage of pre-existing social networks to produce increases in brand awareness or to achieve other marketing objectives - such as product sales - through self-replicating processes analogous to the spread of pathological and computer viruses. It can be delivered by word-of-mouth or enhanced by the network effects of the internet.

Based on the claim that a customer tells an average of three people about a product or service he or she likes, viral marketing is a phenomenon that facilitates and encourages people to pass along a marketing message voluntarily. Promotions under this marketing category may take the form of video clips, interactive Flash games, advergames, eBooks, brandable software, images, or even text messages.

"Viral marketing has been around since the start of organised commerce," said Imran Hassan, vice-president of business development for New York, US-based Blueliner Marketing. "It is by no means a new strategy but it has evolved with changes in socioeconomic conditions, cultural norms, lifestyles and advent of new technologies."

Hassan draws attention to three underlying factors that have allowed viral marketing to evolve: first, that consumers rely on the opinion of their friends and family to make purchase decisions; second, that in today’s culture of consumerism our social identity is often shaped by the brands we use; and third, the fact that marketers realised at a very early stage that it is impossible and very expensive to reach everyone in the market.

"The combination of these three factors resulted in marketers utilising a small subset of the target segment to propagate the message and influence as much of that segment as possible," he said. "However, it is only recently that social scientists and marketers have been able to use much more sophisticated techniques to shape and control the way we communicate the value proposition of the brand to our friends and family."

Tracing the history of this ‘viral’ phenomenon through the years, one could argue that the multi-level marketing popularised in the 1960s and 1970s - Amway and Mary Kay Cosmetics, for example - is essentially a form of viral marketing through which representatives gain income by marketing products through their circle of influence and give their friends a chance to market products similarly. When successful, the strategy creates a rapidly growing network of representatives.

The true potential of viral marketing, however, only started to be realised through the fairly recent, yet meteoric rise of the internet. "The advent of new technology has enhanced the potency of viral marketing strategies to influence our decisions," Hassan continued. "Marketers are coming up with much more clever viral marketing techniques, and utilising social media, blogs, product review sites and mobile technology to increase the speed at which marketing messages are been dissipated. These technologies have also allowed marketers to more effectively measure, monitor and track the results of viral marketing campaigns."

Bruce Lamb, managing director of UK-based media firm BoxnDice, also drew attention to technology’s role in the viral marketing renaissance: "Viral marketing in itself has always been here in plain language - it is ‘word of mouth’ marketing," he said. "The advances have come in the technologies that have been created and how we now have large groups of people entering the workforce using these technologies from a very early age. By the time they reach adulthood they are competent social networkers able to use their social groups or circles to their full advantage."

Viral marketing is, and has been, used by an extremely diverse range of companies and organisations. Although the fast-growing Web 2.0 start-ups such as Facebook.com or MySpace.com are the most often cited examples, consumer brands ranging from the very big to very small are also conspicuous in their use of viral techniques. In 2005, for example, Apple unveiled a spoof advert for the iPod Flea - the ‘world’s smallest’ MP3 device that is the size of a breath mint and holds just one song. Although the product was entirely fictional, the viral simultaneously drew attention to the ever-shrinking size of Apple products and also self-consciously parodied the company’s own ultra-hip style of advertising.

One further notable example of viral marketing was undertaken by the British police force. In May 2008, graphic images of real injuries inflicted by knives featured in a £3m government advertising campaign against youth violence. The first phase of the three-year campaign featured newspaper and radio adverts, as well as two viral internet videos. The first featured the shocking images, taken from a medical photo library, as slides in a fictional medical lecture given by a surgeon who has to deal with such injuries. A second viral shows CCTV footage - performed by actors - of a knife stabbing on a shopping street. Both adverts were distributed to young people through social networking websites such as Bebo.com and on mobile phones.

Each specific element of a viral marketing campaign is critical, be it strategy, creative production, seeding - which includes distribution and media planning - and tracking. However, a successful viral marketing campaign is ultimately driven by a strong idea. Sometimes, the campaign itself may appear wholly out-of-sync with the end product or message. Cadbury’s Dairy Milk advertisement in 2007 is perhaps the best example of the sometimes-incongruous nature of viral marketing. The advertisement, which was heavily popularised on YouTube.com and Facebook.com, saw a gorilla - or, rather, a person dressed up in a realistic-looking gorilla suit - playing drums along to a Phil Collins song. This image could not be further dislocated from the chocolate being advertised, but it has since become one of the most popular virals to have entered the British consciousness.

"Virals rely inherently on appealing to some common emotion or bond, which will give the user the licence to pass it on to their friends," explains Tom Church, marketing and business development manager for online marketing and publishing company Babel Interactive. "Because it has to appeal to this emotional factor which may differ from one demographic to another, each viral must be targeted at its general audience, thereby reducing the potential of its appeal across the board."

Indeed, with the Cadbury’s advert, the image of the gorilla passionately hitting the snare drum superseded the product entirely. Yet the complete surprise that it generated when the consumer realises it was advertising chocolate arguably keeps the brand in his or her mind for much longer than the more typical image of, say, a woman sitting on a sofa simply eating a chocolate bar.

Viral marketing has become a key watchword throughout online industry circles, so it is important to ascertain to what extent these new techniques are more effective than traditional marketing methods. Lamb was adamant that viral techniques remain more powerful than other modes because its success is expressed in the personal view of an individual. "If I recommend a film or a book to someone it comes with a personal seal of approval," he said. "If I do not like a place or item or service and send that virally it will have an opposite effect."

Others, however, prefer to take a pluralistic stance when it comes to viral and traditional methods. When asked whether he believed viral marketing was more effective than traditional marketing techniques, Hassan told iNTERGAMINGi: "Viral marketing, whether online or offline, should be considered in conjunction with other traditional marketing techniques. Furthermore, any viral marketing campaign must be consistent with the overall branding and marketing goals. It is important to keep in mind that viral marketing is primarily a marketing communication tool.

"Once you reached a customer through viral marketing effort you still need to fulfil the promise, which requires the use of traditional marketing techniques. A well choreographed viral marketing technique will get potential customer to your website or store but then traditional marketing techniques such as in store promotions, customer service, product merchandising etc will come into play to get the customer to actually buy the product or service.

"Often marketers define the goal of the viral marketing campaigns as just reaching potential customers," Hassan continued. "In my opinion, the goal should be based on specific results that generate revenue for the company such as product purchase, lead generation, repeat purchase and increased frequency of purchase. By incorporating these ROI goals we are able to actually tie the loop in order to generate revenue."

Mery Blomqvist, public relations and marketing manager for Swedish turnkey software provider Boss Media, takes a similar view: "That depends on the product and segment," she said. "I would say the most important filter criteria for whether to choose viral marketing or not also depends on the segment age. Level of engagement will also vary depending on the level of financial investment and risk - this is low within FMCG and high within internet gaming." Blomqvist touches upon a key point here, as age is often discussed in relation to viral marketing. Due to the internet-orientated nature of virals, the common belief is that viral marketing works best among the MySpace and Facebook generation. In reality, however, a sea change has started to take place.

"We will see a shift as those at the moment in the 16-36 age range grow older and we have a greater populous using these techniques to their full effect," said Lamb. "Social networking and viral marketing, I feel, will lead the methods adopted to promote goods and services."

Hassan added: "Viral marketing is not dependent on demographic variables. For viral marketing to be successful it needs to be deployed in a well-connected community with high level of online or in person social interactions. Thus, viral marketing can be equally successful in targeting an online music sharing community or even a retirement community because of the high degree of social interaction in both cases."

While viral marketing is by no means a new phenomenon, its success in recent times can be attributed to the many technological advances that have taken place during this period, and indeed marketers’ innovative reaction to those changes. Indeed, looking ahead, many industry observers remain sure that viral marketing methods will continue to evolve as technology becomes more advanced still.

"Indirect viral marketing will become more prevalent," Hassan said: "Blueliner has recently developed an online video sharing community for IZOD Fragrance to engage adventure enthusiasts. SeekAdventure.com gives people involved in outdoor activities and adventure sports a platform to interact by uploading and sharing their adventure stories and videos. This is an example of indirect viral marketing where we are building up the IZOD brand indirectly among this particular community."

While the future will always remain unclear in the fast-moving online world, there is no doubt that mobile platforms will play a large part in the continued evolution of viral marketing. Lamb is one of the key individuals behind one product that looks set to send shockwaves throughout the viral community. BoxnDice is currently working on a new viral platform based on Bluetooth wirless technologies as part of a joint venture. Through this mechanism, a company can create vouchers, competitions with ‘text back’ options and promote deals on facilities that entice potential customers.

"We have used Bluetooth ourselves to facilitate placing casino style and other games direct into the phone using vCard technology," Lamb told iNTERGAMINGi. "The unit ‘handshakes’ with the recipient’s mobile device and sends the hyperlink to the phone’s browser. The user then can download the desired content to the games folder within their mobile."

Viral marketing is a powerful tool. Used properly, it can have extraordinary results. Used thoughtlessly, is can be hopelessly unproductive, or worse, damaging to a brand or organisation. While the long-term future of such non-traditional methods has been thrown into question by many observers, it is clear that marketers will continue to follow the masses. Viral marketing is becoming increasingly sophisticated as bandwidths and access to content generation technology becomes more common. This, in turn, drives innovation.

Immersed in the burgeoning online world, digital virals continue to evolve and mutate in order to ‘infect’ the consciousnesses of as many individuals as possible - in exactly the same manner as their pathological cousins.