viral advertising

(noun)

a marketing technique that uses social networks and other technologies to produce increases in brand awareness or sales. It can be delivered by word of mouth or enhanced by the network effects of Internet and mobile networks. Viral marketing may take the form of video clips, interactive games, ebooks, images, text messages, email or web pages.

Related Terms

Examples of viral advertising in the following topics:

  • SIVA: Solution, Incentive/Information, Value, and Access

    • Information can include advertising, public relations, personal selling, viral advertising, and any form of communication between the firm and the consumer.

  • Consumer Privacy Issues

    • Many advertisers have an opt-out option to allow users to remove behavioral targeting advertising from their user experience.
    • Some websites use numerous advertisements like flashing banners to distract users or feature misleading images designed to look like error messages from a user's operating system rather than advertisements.
    • Websites that unethically use online advertising for revenue frequently do not monitor where their advertisements link on the web.
    • This allows advertisements to lead to sites with malicious software or adult material.
    • Brands are increasingly monitoring and analyzing consumer behavior on social media to refine behavioral and contextual targeting and encourage viral, word-of-mouth advertising.

  • Advertising

    • Advertising generates feedback that is analyzed and measured.
    • Current technology is forcing advertisers to move away from antiquated structure and practices.
    • No longer is a product limited by the scope and time-frame of a conventional advertising campaign.
    • If an advertisement is interesting, entertaining or helpful, the message goes "viral" via social-networking websites and blogs.
    • The key to successful advertising is to sell benefits, not features.

  • Social Media

    • All can be woven into a marketing plan rich with sales promotions, public relations outlets, advertising, and other elements of the "promotional mix."
    • The Internet has overtaken television as the largest advertising market, as banner and pop-up ads showcase a vast array of products and services.
    • QR codes, facilitated by mobile social media, online and in tandem with print advertising deliver extensive product and service information with a simple scan of a cell phone.
    • Internet and social media leaks frequently impact traditional advertising as ads often appear online earlier than they are scheduled to premiere and go viral.
    • They are seen more quickly and by more users without the time delays of traditional advertising methods.

  • Marketing Innovation Trends

    • Innovation trends in marketing include mobile marketing, viral marketing, and more efficient usage of branding and targeting.
    • Over the past few years, SMS (short message service) marketing has become a legitimate advertising channel in some parts of the world.
    • Viral marketing is involves the exponential spread of a marketing messages by online word of mouth (sometimes referred to as "word of mouse").
    • A major component of viral communication is the meme - or a message that spreads virally and embeds itself in the collective consciousness.
    • Viral marketing is closely tied to social media, since social media platforms and their sharing functionality are the main way that a message is able to "go viral" online.

  • Main Social Networks

    • YouTube- offers free content that is tagged with compatible advertisements to suit a target audience, reflecting a specific demographic's style and taste and in sync with the content of the video requested.
    • The ultimate goal is for a product to "go viral" and social networking is capable of delivering it when it is used as a marketing tool.
    • Going viral occurs when content becomes popular through the process of internet sharing.
    • Click through advertisements, seamless links and other platform components facilitate sales and foster "impulse" purchases.

  • Making Appropriate Changes to Product, Placement, Promotion, and Pricing

    • The shift from low agency accountability to greater agency accountability, particularly in advertising.
    • As a result of the viral publicity, NestlĂ© subsequently increased auditing efforts in its supply chain, and promised to cancel contracts with any firm found to be chopping down rainforests to produce the palm oil used in its products.
    • Amazon.com, the world's largest online retailer , allows third-party merchants to advertise their goods on the company's e-commerce site.
    • Amazon also allows companies to advertise their products by paying a fee to be listed as featured products.
    • Promotional activities include advertising (by using different media), sales promotion (sales and trades promotion), and personal selling activities.

  • Product Advertising

    • The stage of the Product Life Cycle (PLC) often determines the type of advertising that is used by advertisers for a particular product.
    • The stage in the Product Life Cycle (PLC) of which a product is in often determines the type of advertising that is used by advertisers.
    • The types of product advertising that marketers can choose from are:
    • This type of product advertising provides in-depth information of the benefits of using a product or service.
    • The type of product advertising a company chooses depends on where the product is in its life cycle.

  • Consumerism and Advertising

  • Top U.S. Advertising Agencies