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What's Viral Advertising?
Viral advertising refers to marketing techniques that seek to exploit pre-existing social networks to produce exponential increases in brand awareness, through viral processes similar to the spread of an epidemic. It is word-of-mouth delivered and enhanced online; it harnesses the network effect of the Internet and can be very useful in reaching a large number of people rapidly. (Wikipedia)
What's a Viral Ad?
Viral ads voluntarily spread over the Web from one consumer to another via email forwarding, UGC (user-generated content) sites, blogs etc. due to their originality, creativity and high entertainment value. In other words, virals are ads that people not only want to see but are also inclined to forward and discuss with colleagues.
Is it Media-Free?
In theory, the creativity embedded in a viral ad replaces the need to buy media. When properly seeded, successful viral campaigns can reach hundreds of thousands to even millions of people on a voluntary basis and with negligible costs compared to traditional media.
Word-of-Mouth vs. Word-of-Mouse?
Word-of-mouth is the most ancient form of human communication. In the age of the Internet, our mouse does much of the “talking” for us.
What's Consumer-Oriented Marketing?
As opposed to traditional interruptive marketing techniques such as TV, print, outdoor signs, radio, etc., viral marketing takes the consumer-oriented approach (pull marketing) by focusing instead on creating an environment where consumers voluntarily promote brands to one another. As such, consumers inadvertently act as messengers of the brand.
What are Viral Elements?
Viral elements are the essential building blocks to make an ad "go viral" and spread like wildfire. Aside from elements such as Humor, Creativity, Originality, Sexiness, Surprise, Twist, Provocation, Smart Punch, etc…one has to dig deep into the human psyche in order to understand what really makes us humans tick and share information.
What's a Viral Factor?
Theoretically, if a viral clip reaches 10 million people when it was “seeded” to a base of 100,000 people, then its viral factor is 100. In real life though, things aren’t quite so clear cut.
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