Guile Viral Marketing refers to a type of viral marketing that uses incentives as a means of being passed along from one individual to the next. The idea behind the strategy is that one person is more likely to pass it on to a greater number of friends and family within their social network, if they are given a reason or ‘gift’ to do so. To put it in simpler terms, “Viral marketing generally means producing a message with a quality offer or an incentive for pass-along�? (Web Marketing TODAY, 2005).
There are an ever growing number of companies getting involved in a guile type of marketing campaign. As the funds required to give out incentives to customers, in exchange for greater exposure to the public eye, is much less then what it would cost a firm for a more traditional style of promotional campaign. Just some of the companies that are focusing their resources on this type of strategy are EPIDEMIC.COM, FAVEMAIL and GAZOOBA.COM (Bannan, 2000).
One other point that must be noted is that “often, the smallest incentive works as well as a huge prize. Examples of successful campaigns, one with a large incentive (Tripeze.com), the other more modest (Danier)�? (Posman, 2001).
A prime example of a guile viral marketing plan is that put into play by VSO. As international development charity, VSO had an online quiz, based on the activities that the charity is involved with – for the chance to win a trip to Kenya. “Entrants are encouraged to recruit their friends using an 'email a friend' mechanism. As people sign up for the competition, they have to nominate three others to each answer a question to complete the entry�? Precision Marketing, 2004). Hence, by means of a relatively inexpensive advertising campaign, VSO was able to boost the awareness of the organisation to a larger community.
As a means of reaching hard-to-please demographic groups, this style of viral marketing has been adapted to less conventional advertising genres. One example of such a strategy is the Ball Skillz game (www.ballskilz.co.uk). The game is “aimed at men aged 16-30, requires players to juggle a football with a variety of moves to impress a girl�? (Booth, 2003, 10). The players are encouraged to play the game and get high scores, so they can submit them for a chance to win a home entertainment system. To add to this, they are also given further incentives if they forward the game to other users (proquest-above).
Bannan, K. (2000) “It’s catching�?, Brandweek. Vol. 41, Iss 23, pIQ20. ISSN 10644318
Booth, E. (2003) “Nivera For Men campaign rolls out viral footy game�?, Revolution. p10. ISSN 14605953
Posman, A. (2001) “Viral Marketing With Incentives�?, ClickZ Experts, retrieved 23 October, 2005, from http://www.clickz.com/experts/media/agency_strat/article.php/834661
“Viral Marketing�?, Web Marketing TODAY, (2005) retrieved 22 October, 2005, from http://www.wilsonweb.com/cat/cat.cfm?page=2&subcat=mm_Viral
“VSO rolls out viral incentive to build support�?, Precision Marketing. (2004). p3. ISSN 09550836
Daniel clark 09:06, 28 Oct 2005 (EST)
