Exploring the role of emotions in Viral Marketing

Exploring the role of
Emotions in Viral
Marketing
By
Maha Khalid
Research Supervisor: Shamila Nabi
MBA in Marketing and Finance
2014

Table of Content
• Introduction
• Literature Review
• Methodology
• Analysis and Findings
• Future Research Direction
• Managerial Implications
Exploring the role of Emotions in Viral Marketing - Thesis by Maha Khalid PMBA'14

Introduction
• Viral advertising - marketing technique that use pre-
existing social networking services to create surges in
brand awareness or to attain other marketing
objectives.
• Communicated by word of mouth or enhanced by
the network effects of the Internet and mobile
networks.

Introduction
• A good viral marketing campaign depends upon two
strong assets: excellent content and outstanding social
networking skills.
• Social media has become a powerful tool for decision
makers and marketers.
• Its manipulation and use is fully intended to draw in
consumers and to invoke and arouse brand loyalty and
increase brand equity.

Contribution of Study
• The scope of study is to test social media’s effectiveness on
emotional impact of audiences.
• What is the relationship between viral marketing and effective
social media marketing?
• Which social media tools are used by marketers?
• How consumers respond and use social media?
• Socio-psychological elements contributing to construction of
an effective viral marketing strategy?

Literature Review
• The value proposition of viral marketing is fundamentally
related to its use of existing digital networks, which are
comparatively low-cost, quick, and easy to use, and frequently
include a global viewership (Thevenot, C. and Watier, K.)
• Subramani, M. and Rajagopalan, B. defined viral marketing
as the tactic of creating a process where interested people can
market to each other, therefore developing into an important
means to spread-the-word and stimulate the trial, acceptance,
and use of products & services.

Literature Review
• Brennan, L. presented results from a qualitative study of
income support recipients with regards to how they feel about
advertising which overtly appeals to their sense of fear, guilt
and shame.
• Eckler, P. & Bolls, P. stated viral advertising as growingly
attractive to advertisers in recent years, exploring how the
emotional tone (pleasant, unpleasant, coactive) of viral video
ads affects attitude toward the ad, attitude toward the brand,
and forwarding intentions.

Literature Review
• Grifoni1, P. Andrea1, A.D. & Ferri, F. explained
that internet marketing includes a mix of methods; e-
marketing, social networks, viral marketing etc to
create awareness for the company’s brand, products
and services.

Methodology
• The main aim is to comprehend viral marketing as a
marketing process from a marketers’ stance, to
understand consumer’s online psyche.
• Data collection and information is retrieved via
survey questionnaire.
• A stratified random sample is tested to answer
research questions.

Methodology
• Target respondents are
− Internet users
− Marketing professionals
− Students of LSE, LUMS, BNU, Kanaird, UCL, Punjab University
• Sample size - 200 respondents
• The Survey questionnaire has been previously published by
Low Jiun Wee Xavier and Goh Yun Shuang Summer (2009)

Research Objectives
To study the relationship of
Emotional appeal of social media
advertisement and effective viral
marketing

Research Questions
1. What is the role of viral marketing in relation to
successful and effective social media marketing
campaign?
2. How viral marketing can be used to make social
media marketing successful?
3. How Emotional appeal in any social media ad can
trigger viral marketing?

Research Framework
• The scope of study is to test social media’s
effectiveness on audience’s emotional impact.
• Organizations have to select and design
message content in a way that invokes a
desired emotional state in the target audience.

Research Framework
• There are a few internal and external factors that may
impact the message content shared by
companies/organizations, for instance, a product’s
brand positioning or competition in the market place
• Company strategies about advertisements as well as
available resources play an important role

Research Framework
Message
Content
Social Media
Brand
Attitude
Towards
Brand
Emotional
Tone of
Message
Forwarding
Intensions
Viral
Marketing

Results
• Our sample size consists of 200 respondents
• 45% of respondents were Female and 55% were Male
• Majority of the respondents that is 48% belongs to the age
group of 21-30
• The general trend of time spent on the internet turned out to
be less than 10 hours per week
• On average our respondents spend 14.5 Hours per week on
internet

Results
• Majority of respondents do not want to be the first
ones trying out a new product or a service.
• Over 50 respondents agreed that through internet’s
word of mouth they learned a great deal about
branded products and services.
• Majority of respondents believe that internet’s word
of mouth promotes band awareness and loyalty.

Results
• Majority of respondents also view the messages,
video links or posts recommended by family or
friends.
• Approximately 70% of respondents do not open
unknown emails.
• A majority of respondents strongly agree that funny
content help them remember a brand better.

Analysis and Findings
• Independent variables were seen to positively
correlate to the dependent variable of viral
marketing.
• The hypothesis was proven true regarding the
connection between emotional arousal and
sharing online content.

• H1: Message Content, Social Media and brand have a
significant relationship with emotional tone of the
message being sent
• H2: The emotional tone has a statistically significant
impact on forwarding intentions
• H3: The forwarding intentions have statistically significant
impact on viral marketing
• Reliability & Correlation Test: Cronbach’s Alpha,
AMOS path analysis and Pearson Correlation Analysis.

• The main motivator for sharing content online is fun
or provocative content (e.g. humor, controversy).
• Majority of respondents share the common interest
of sharing online content that is funny or
provocative.
• Funny or provocative content invokes an emotional
response of excitement or happiness, as the results
of the research suggest.

• Internet word of mouth is perceived to be an
influential marketing tactic.
• Respondents are more likely to purchase products if
the information has been shared by people they
know, then viral marketing has become an
unintentional social phenomenon, that connects
people of similar emotional arousal states together
online.

Discussion
• An appealing advertisement has the ability to enthrall
audiences. However, if an advertisement focuses on
incurring an emotional arousal state, it has the ingredients to
become a viral campaign.
• A great viral campaign is in the planning and thinking and
the strategy which a "State of the Art" viral marketing
agency can give you. Good viral campaigns use social media
and consistently have a smart-phone mobile component

Discussion
• With content marketing, communication is the virus,
the transferals are viewers and a solid emotional
linking to the message is the promoter.
• Provoking an emotional reaction is a vital component
of all successful viral content marketing campaigns.
It’s human nature; individuals want to share the
experiences that stimulate their emotions by
interacting and sharing them with others

Discussion
• When people cultivate profound feelings of surprise, anger,
fear, disgust, sadness or joy, the experience of communication
becomes an impulsive social distribution
• According to research conducted by Jonah Berger and
Katherine L. Milkman of the Wharton Business School in 2010,
in their report, “Social Transmission, Emotion, and the Virality
of Online Content”, there is a strong relationship between
emotion and virility regardless of whether it is positive or
negative.

Future Research Direction
• Further research can be done on the marketing mix
for on-line content to see what other mediums play a
significant role in attracting consumers on-line to
viral it.
• How to entail the applications of interest that users
download on the cellular phones. It will ascertain the
interest and likes of target market consumers of
products.

Managerial Implications
• In light of the findings, it should not be surprising
that while emotions are triggered by content that is
worthy of virility, the continuous chain of virility also
depends on the relationship those individuals have
with the ones that came across viral content (such
that viral through email).
• On the other hand, those that filled the survey
questionnaire were friends of friends.

• Hence, research suggests to online marketers that not
only is content that triggers emotions worthy of
virility important, but also the type of social network
it is shared on is equally effective in harnessing the
potential of content virility.
• The emotions individuals attach to different
mediums also goes into play whence taking into
account the success or failure of content virility

• Demographic similarity of respondents may play a
vital role in the results of findings, however if the
same study took place in a more mature market the
results may differ.

Exploring the role of emotions in Viral Marketing

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