here are the questions of our group for next Monday's ADV587 class.
1. Kristine:
Do you know any
viral marketing campaign? What do you think about it? You can analyze the
campaign of successful viral marketing with the five factors.
(The five
factors of successful viral marketing: the overall structure of the campaign,
the characteristics of the product or service, the content of the message, the
characteristics of the diffusion and the peer-to-peer information conduit.)
2.
Emma:
Do you ever receive a viral advertising email which was advertising about product/service or “group
send” emails? (jokes, stories or other information to groups of people they have organized in to email lists) What would you do about such e-mails? Under what situation, you would open it and forward it to your friend or family?
3.
Travis:
In the Hayes and Graybeal’s reading
material, they cited that giving away media content devalues the product as consumers
may consider free media products as inferior goods compares to those which
charge a certain amount of fee.
According to your own experiences,
do you support this assert or not? Why? (E.g. Free Apps vs. Paid Apps)
And there are still some other questions we may discuss on the class.
BTW, enjoy your nice weekend since we've all finished Dr. Duff's explication!
And there are still some other questions we may discuss on the class.
BTW, enjoy your nice weekend since we've all finished Dr. Duff's explication!
Do you know any viral marketing campaign? What do you think about it? You can analyze the campaign of successful viral marketing with the five factors.
ReplyDeleteHonestly all I can think of is this "getting annoying quickly" Gangnam style video... I think the ridiculous and over the top nature of it make it exceptionally well positioned for going viral.
Do you ever receive a viral advertising email which was advertising about product/service or “group send” emails? (jokes, stories or other information to groups of people they have organized in to email lists) What would you do about such e-mails? Under what situation, you would open it and forward it to your friend or family?
I actually always never read it. I seriously mean that :) If I see an email that is forwarded to many, I basically just delete it since usually I'm really busy during the day...
In the Hayes and Graybeal’s reading material, they cited that giving away media content devalues the product as consumers may consider free media products as inferior goods compares to those which charge a certain amount of fee.
According to your own experiences, do you support this assert or not? Why? (E.g. Free Apps vs. Paid Apps)
I don't think so because I'm ALL about free apps :)
1. Last year there was a really famous viral campaign in Brazil, where a guy made a video and posted it on YouTube (peer-to-peer information conduit). He was saying that he met the girl of his life in a bar and fall in love with her, but missed the paper with her telephone number. He was hopping that if people disseminated the video he would be able to reach that girl. The video was very imaginative, fun and engaging (content of the message), the idea was adequate (characteristics of the “product”), and the diffusion was exponential and fast (diffusion characteristics),
ReplyDeleteTherefore, the video had most of the factors for a successful viral marketing. For the first weeks it was very successful until someone found out that, in fact, it was created by a famous cell phone company. The video failed in the factor concerning ethical and legal issues, and after people spread another viral to discourage others to view that video!
2. I never, never open this kind of emails…I judge them as spams even though it is from a known sender.
3. I am pretty satisfied with free media contents and never really saw them as inferior. Actually, I never paid for any media content because I think that the marginal gain that I will obtain is not worth the price when compared to the free one.
1. In Korea, I saw this short dance video clip featuring "90Lady" who is one of the most famous female club dancers and it just spread throughout online website (peer-to-peer information conduit). At the beginning of this video clip, it says "If you want to be a hero at club, learn this skill!" and then this female dancer shows her amazing Kbros moves, one of club dance styles, following the ending copy "Another way to be a hero-The world of Wind." It turned out to be an ad of online company. The video was very exciting and eye-catching and the structure was brilliant in that it just throws one simple message; Want to be a hero? Play this game! Moreover, it doesn't look like an usual ad ("annoying").
ReplyDelete2. I never ever open that kind of email, even "seemingly suspicious" ones. I just sweep them as junks.
3. I do agree with the statement. Throughout my internship experience at a digital content publisher (a venture-backed business producing applications in App store), I analyzed almost every apps at that time and found out that the quality of paid content is way better than that of free one. This is probably because of the negative effects of ad that when I download a free app, 99% of the time I have to deal with this annoying sponsored ads in it and I naturally transfer my annoying feeling to the product or brand. I devalue both the free app and the product placement in it.
1.Yes, the education connection viral marketing campaign and the Badger campaign for Johnson automotive dealership. I thought these were two terrible campaigns.
ReplyDeleteOverall structure: The Education Connection campaign had three different commercials themes; none of the commercials had any continuity to them. You couldn’t tell whom they were trying to specifically target. They were annoying commercials that constantly aired.
The Content: One was just a guy in a dark parking lot threatening and insulting the viewers “what are you doing, setting on the couch, get up, get your degree”. The other one was a female who sang an annoying song “getting my degree online, taking my classes in my own time”. The third one was with Shannen Daughtry, a washed up actress with a dark past, promoting education? She is also bankrupt, seems like the common route of bankrupt celebrities…MC Hammer. None of the content was memorable in a good way; it all seemed annoying.
Characteristics of Product/Service: The product is education, but the advertising is so bad that the audience forgets what they are selling. The commercial with the girl singing the Education Connection commercial is annoying and it doesn’t make me want to go to college.
Characteristics of Diffusion: These commercials had a great amount of diffusion on the Internet and the television, but this migration was obtrusive to most.
Peer-to-peer information conduit: Everybody talked about these commercials, whether it was in a negative or positive way, the campaign received voluntary exposure.
2. Yes, I don’t like receiving forwarded text and/or emails from people, even if they are my close friends and family. Most people pass on a joke or a Bible scripture and that’s fine, but I have so much going on and my email is my personal space that I don’t want invaded with spam. I hardly ever forward emails to others unless they are truly worthwhile.
3. Personally, I love free stuff, but Graybeal is right, once it’s free, the good will never be the same. Once you set a price, then you increase it but you don’t increase the rewards or the service, then consumers will respond negatively. With my specific viral campaign, the education connection offered a free service. I don’t know if classes were free or if the academic advising was free, but the fact that they connected free and education, in this day at least, seems sketchy.
1.
ReplyDeleteThe viral marketing campaign recalls me about the very famous event happened in China in 2009. The WOW game post bar had one post that "Jia Junpeng, your mother asks you to go back home for dinner." Within 5 or 6 hours, this posts had more than 50,000 times comments. Till 2011, the click rate of this post was more than 47,607,000 times. In fact, during the time when the post came out, the game WOW stopped its service. In order to stimulate WOW players' enthusiasm, a professional company was hired to "make some noise" in the post bar. Everyone knew the sentence at that time. It even showed in CCTV in the China's Spring Festival Party. It really became the top 10 topics in 2009 in China. And it makes the WOW very famous at that time.
2.
I have an account in Douban which is a very famous BBS in China. I always receive dou-mail through that BBS. Sometimes I will open some emails if I am interested in the topic they are talking about. Sometimes it is about travelling and sometimes it is related to some activities in the city I live in, such as climbing mountains or parties with people who they don't know each other before the activities.
3.
I don't think the free media products is inferior.
I have seen a lot of viral videos, but to consider any of those a campaign is a matter of its coworking factors besides the video itself. Many of them actually fail to do so. The one that impressed me a lot is the evian's video, live young. They made wonderful animation and used great music in that ad. As for it's following ups, I didn't pay much attention.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately (or maybe fortunately), I haven't. But I know some people doing their daily work by sending these emails. Basically I would ignore these emails, but the only reason that may make me click it open is that the email is sent to me by someone important, probably a very good friend or a superior.
People judge things( including people） by their price. FREE is good, but sometimes it make convey negative message. The quality of the product is one things, another things is the feeling it brings to people who are using it. Take the app for instance. All the apps in my pad are free. Though I never deny the fact that some of them are really outstanding, but quite a lot of those free apps I ever downloaded were deleted right away when I tried them once. Those I'm still using now can be exceptions to this statement. But the ones I deleted are inferior, coarsely designed and function bad.
In Chinese, there is a saying, one-penny goods worth no more than one penny. My translation may be lame. Anyway, it means the price is a direct indication of the quality.
Hey guys, thanks for your great questions!
ReplyDelete1. To Kristine:
I think it's an excellent question, cause even the process of trying to remember some cases of viral marketing campaign is not that easy, since they are viral which make it difficult for me to identify their essence as ads.
Here's the most impressive one in my mind: The case of Haidilao, which is a hot-pot chain in China. In 2011, there's a popular saying in China, especially online:"Man can never stop Haidilao", mainly because one day, suddenly, countless anecdotes about Haidilao's crazily perfect service appear online, especially on social networking sites. For example, many people posted their experience of eating at Haidilao on their Weibo (Chinese Twitter) said things like "My boy friend and I went to Haidilao today, during which time I intentionally told my boyfriend the soy milk tastes wonderful, the waitress might just heard what I said and then packed two big bottles of their soy milk when we left without telling us in advance."
I personally went there once and said the tofu was delicious to my friend, and the waitress brought us another dish of tofu surrounded by rose petals, I was so touched that posted such experience on my Renen (Chinese Facebook) immediately with my iPhone with a picture of the tofu.
I think the reason why it's success is that the service is what lacked in China, and since it's positive and fun, also easy to tell, everyone were just crazy about it, wanted to experience their service, the appeal was so explicit.
2. To Emma:
Definitely yes! Unfortunately, I never open those emails cause I am afraid there're virus in such them, actually, it's kind of a daily routine for me to delete such emails after a glimpse of the senders' name every day.
3. To Travis:
I totally agree with this assertion, that's why I jailbroke my iPhone, cause I want to get superior Apps for free : b
In my experience, commonly there are two kinds of free Apps. First kind are those basically bad Apps such as boring games or unpractical tools; Second kind are those only offer part of their service in their free version which basically are ads for their paid version.
Starcy
Hey! Thank you for Kristine, Emma, and Travis to give interesting questions!! This is my answers for your questions!
ReplyDelete1. Kristine: Do you know any viral marketing campaign? What do you think about it? You can analyze the campaign of successful viral marketing with the five factors.
I remembered a teaser advertisement of ‘Qook’, which is a New KT (one of the Telecommunications in Korea) brand of Cable Integrated Service. This was advertised in March 2009, and KT finally showed its new service brand in April 2009. I thought this sort of advertising is brilliant idea to get attention from general public. Copy “You’ll get trouble if you left home” with a scene of a few people who runway and get trouble! That was all. It was a hot issue among people, and many ask what the ‘Qook’ is. Many people thought that it is advertising for rice cooker, oven, home-shopping, etc., and this “fun & intriguing message” can be one of reasons for its success. Plus, every person was talking about: my family, friends, and other people passing by, this, ‘peer-to-peer information’ conduit seems play a key role for campaign. Last, it was hot issue not because it intrigued consumers’ curiosity, but also the copy “You’ll get trouble” was written in a word which seems like slang, and this advertising was a highly controversial topic. However, it finally turned out that the copy was written in standard language and people well-accepted this teaser advertisement.
2. Emma: Do you ever receive a viral advertising email which was advertising about product/service or “group send” emails? (jokes, stories or other information to groups of people they have organized in to email lists) What would you do about such e-mails? Under what situation, you would open it and forward it to your friend or family?
I usually do not receive a “viral advertising email” which advertises about specific product/service category, but get typical (direct) mails advertising by other brands I registered online before. Sometimes, I open the emails when I see the titles containing interesting stories or benefits I can take, or I just erase them all even though they are from advertisers whom I can trust.
I usually get funny videos or interesting stories to read from my family by email. I usually trust their emails because it’s from my family, but also they send me text message before forwarding the email. That’s why I can surely open the email from them. For example, my dad sent me various kinds of Gangnam Style flash mob videos by email and I shared those by Facebook. Also my mom sent me information about Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, and I also shared it with my friends (not by email).
[These days, people tend to share useful information by Facebook, not an email, and this paradigm would continue until a new media comes out.]
3. Travis: In the Hayes and Graybeal’s reading material, they cited that giving away media content devalues the product as consumers may consider free media products as inferior goods compares to those which charge a certain amount of fee.
According to your own experiences, do you support this assert or not? Why? (E.g. Free Apps vs. Paid Apps)
I do not think that free media contents or products are inferior to paid one. We all know good examples of free apps in the app store. Even though the apps are free to purchase, they usually functions well such as Kakao Talk, Line, You-tube, and other games. My i-phone is full of free apps and I do not have any problem or get irritated because it’s free. Technology has grown and ripened the tech-markets and this will made products and contents mature without paying too many costs in the future also.
This week's topic is really interesting! Thank you all for these questions (which made me remembered some great virals)
ReplyDeleteTo Kristine:
I remember the Annoying Orange, which was so annoying but insanely popular. It was a simple 1 minute clip. However, the main character: Orange kept saying “Hey, Apple!” for millions of times (I am exaggerating but I really don’t want to count how many times..) It was so popular that lot of my friends shared it on facebook. The clip content was mere hilarious with no other meaning but entertainment (but I would say it only applied to some of the people, some of my friend said it was like “American humor” that they did not like it) the speed of diffusion was exponential and it was spread virally by powerful conduit mix: YouTube+Facebook.
To Emma:
I’ve received a lot of viral email however, most of it was more like jokes and psychological tests which were popular to transfer among students. In my case, I never forward this kind of email because I thought it was annoying to bother friends with emails they may not interested. (and I knew some of the email was mere email list collecting tactics…)
To Travis:
I’ll just talk about smart phone Apps. For me, it depends on the type of the App, for the “Productivity Apps” I think the paid ones are better than the free ones since the function of the free ones are often limited (to encourage you to spend money to upgrade) However, for the Social Apps(What’s App, WeChat, LINE, Kakao Talk, etc.), I think there’s no difference between paid ones and the free ones.
Looking forward to our discussion!
1. The most recent successful viral advertisement campaign is LYNX's campaign in China last year. LYNX is a European brand of male body wash and body spray products, being introduced to Chinese market last year. This campaign consists a series of videos, in which the popular star from Hongkong called Edison Chan acted as a teacher and taught all the boys how to get girlfriend. I think the overall structure of the campaign is good, combined with both online and offline promotions. The content of the message is also good, as it matched the overall style of LYNX's products, using the theme of sexy attractiveness.Ane because of this theme, it was very popular among young people in China, thus the characteristics of the diffusion and the peer-to-peer information conduit are also well handled.
ReplyDelete2. I always receive viral emails, almost every day. I always delete them directly without opening them. As much annoyed as I am, I never forward them to others.
3. I'm all supportive for free apps, and I never find them inferior as there are tons of great free apps on the market. But it does annoy me when the app is only free for a limited time and starts to charge me after that.
To Kristine:
ReplyDeleteThe first thing that comes to mind with viral marketing is this really annoying music video called "Friday" that was popular a few years ago. It was so annoying and obvious that it was just to try to make this girl a teen super star. It got so bad that they had to pull the video off of youtube and there were reports the girl left her high school to be home schooled. It was a big failure!
To Emma:
I honestly never open any viral email if I can avoid it. I don't answer anything that is not from someone I know and if it's some sort of forward situation from my friends I look at the subject first to determine if it's a real email or something else.
To Travis:
I don't think that free content devalues it. Almost all of the apps on my iPhone and iPad are free and if there is an option for free and paid I will install the free app. Sometimes I think the best marketing is free marketing. People sometimes pay more attention to that than they do an advertising campaign.
Kristine,
ReplyDeleteThe viral marketing campaign that comes to mind is the Officemax “Elf Yourself” campaign where they created a video layout where anyone can put whatever pictures they want into the video and create their own elf music video. I feel as if this campaign was brilliant because of the peer-to-peer sharing network that it created. The whole method behind it was that the people who created these videos were encouraged to share them with the people whose pictures they included in them.
Emma,
I can’t remember any specific viral advertising emails that I’ve ever received, however any emails that I receive, and I don’t know the source of, I delete.
Travis,
I don’t feel as if giving away free media devalues the product. I just believe that it leads the audience to view the product differently. When the media is offered for free it is viewed more as an advertisement and less as a product in itself, whereas when people are asked to pay for the media they expect more out of the media and expect it to be less of an advertisement.
Kristine: I think Super Bowl ads can be considered viral, for example “Old Spice” (“the man your man could smell like”). I think it was viral because, first of all, millions of people watched it during half-time (diffusion: wide audience reach), many of them were surprised by it or otherwise touched (diffusion: fast spreading speed), people usually watch SB in groups, which results in conversations, e-mailing, texting others with the buzzworthy commercial (conduit; e.g., “have you seen that guy just now?”), the message itself was very funny, imaginative, and engaging – flowed one frame to the next (content), therefore being suitable to SB extravaganza (suitability), and, given all these factors, the overall campaign structure encouraged WOM (structure).
ReplyDeleteEmma: I receive many ad e-mails because I subscribe to my favorite e-retailers; I usually open these, assess if I’m interested, and delete. I sometimes get chain letters or Power Points with funny cats from random contacts, and delete most of them. If chain letters are about helping others or spreading a cause, I forward; if they’re jokes or animal PPTs I don’t, usually delete, because I don’t want to be seen as “that” person who fills people’s inboxes with junk. If I stumble upon a nice picture on the internet I know my friends would like, I e-mail the specific friend (not everyone). In general, for me it matters what a message is about rather than who it’s from, so I often delete “Fwd:Fwd...” even if they’re from by best friend.
Travis: I think they’re wrong. I think that nowadays people are highly critical and discerning visually, so it doesn’t matter as much whether the product is free but the way it looks. If the graphics in a spam e-mail or free sample are great, people tend to assume higher quality and not dismiss it outright. For instance, if you saw this really cool-looking game app, would you care if it was free or not? I think most of us would be glad it’s free & download it right away! (Plus, there’s also the perception –at least on my part– that the more high-end and popular a company is the more they can afford to hand out free samples. For instance, Sephora hands out free perfume vials to anyone who asks (but you have to know about this – thank me later :) and honestly, I as a consumer feel entitled to them, because S’ markup is often high, and, I feel, unjustified.)
1. I can't remember anything specific about viral campaigns, but the last time we said the word "viral" should be in Dr. Duff's Advertising Theory class when we were watching Gangnam Style...
ReplyDelete2. If such emails are from really close friends or family members I would probably open it and at least have a look at it. Otherwise I won't even see what was it about. Under no circumstances would I forward it to others. Maybe if I knew that product is very good,I would feel happy to forward it to others; however, that never happens up to now.
3. All my apps are free too. Obviously, some app makers give free basic versions of their apps to users, and charge for a price when users want more advanced and complete versions for more functions. Personally I like free app, even it's somewhat defective I think I can tolerate that because it's free anyway!
ReplyDelete1. At first i could not personally remember any viral marketing campaigns, but as i read these past blog posts i find myself remembering some. Liek the Friday campaign as Sarah said, and the Gangnam Style like Pu said. I find that both of these viral marketing campaigns used the five factors you talked about, yet they did not use them to a influential extent. I found the campaigns to actually be more annoying than anything else. I was deterred, and tried to find any way possible to ignore and avoid it.
2. Honestly, if i get any emails with viral messages i ignore them, and delete them right away. Even when my family sends them to me, if i see a message that is FWD then i get rid of it. I find that sometime i get consumed by these viral messages, so i try to ignore them. So, i would definitely not forward them to anyone else.
3. I personally love free apps. I tend to down load the free app, and if i find it to my liking i go ahead and and purchase the 'better' more expensive app. Thus, i dont believe that giving away free products will devalue the brand or product. I think in terms of apps it helps it. But it's different in terms of more expensive 'luxury' product.
Thanks,
Rebecca Routs
To Kristine:
ReplyDeleteYes, but all of them worked for movies (i.e. Inception, TDK, Transformers, I am Number Four…). Actually, most of these campaigns just convey the related information in a obscure way. If it is too obvious, then you cannot call that viral marketing anymore. But the key here is how to have a good grasp of the extent. Some of the videos seem to be too “irrelevant” and not recognizable thus the possibility is zero for people to “WOW” about the video after they watched the marketed movie. The techniques behind this should be tricky.
To Emma:
No, never. I consider these spams worthless. If the email is only about advertising, then I delete it. But if it contains jokes or “something interesting”, I will be fully alert and 1. Delete it 2. Add the sender to the blacklist. Under this condition, I may think it is an email with virus rather than a viral marketing email.
To Travis:
I agree with Thais. Though sometime you may concern about the meaning behind “the free lunch”, free products are free. On the contrary, only if I think the paid app is much valuable than the free one, I may consider to spend “some money” on that.
Kristine,
ReplyDeleteI think I have seen many viral marketing cases on Microblog in China...Businessmen post their advertisement and say that those who mention 5 friends when reposting this blog will get a free gift or get 20%off coupon.Then consumers will repost those advertisement and mention their friends who will be interested.
Emma:
I think these emails should be in junk box.For these emails, I will only read the title which appears on the email list screen,If I am not interested, i will not open it.
Travis:
I was suspicious to free lunch before, especially in China. I believe in the notion that price is an indicator of quality. However, When I am in USA, I found free lunch here as free trial of priced product is quite common. For example, I can apply on the official website and recive a free bottle or Nivea body wash. So I think I don't believe that free lunch is inferior to priced lunch. What's more, in the Nivea case, the distribution channel may be a factor...
1. Do you know any viral marketing campaign? What do you think about it? You can analyze the campaign of successful viral marketing with the five factors.
ReplyDeleteThere are lots of viral marketing campaigns in social network. A lot of examples have been mentioned above. My feeling towards those in social network is mostly positive, as long as they do not spread to my personal emails. Since most of them are fun, such as jokes, microfilms, enlightening articles, I would like to spend sometime watching them. It is a way to relax myself.
2. Do you ever receive a viral advertising email which was advertising about product/service or “group send” emails? What would you do about such e-mails? Under what situation, you would open it and forward it to your friend or family?
Yes, I do receive some, but not a lot. Whether or not I will open them depends on the content and titles. If it’s something interesting, I will open it. If not, just delete it.
3. In the Hayes and Graybeal’s reading material, they cited that giving away media content devalues the product as consumers may consider free media products as inferior goods compares to those which charge a certain amount of fee.
According to your own experiences, do you support this assert or not? Why? (E.g. Free Apps vs. Paid Apps)
I kind of agree with it. Thinking about my own experiences, I will cherish something that I pay, not only by money. If I put efforts on something, such as time and emotion, I always cherish it. I think it is a part of human nature. So, yes, if I pay for it, I will think it is better than others.