Viral Marketing Discussion Assignment Paper

Viral Marketing
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Viral Marketing
Viral marketing or rather undercover marketing as it is being referred to is a marketing strategy where a product is not advertised through the traditional advertisement methods but rather people are contracted to act as regular buyers of the product and provide positive reviews about the product either on social media or websites that are linked to the product or by a word of mouth. Through this strategy, a company is able to create a buzz for the product. A word of mouth significantly influences customer’s buying behavior and decision. Although some people argue that viral marketing is unethical, their arguments do not outweigh the benefits that it brings to the company.
Those who are against this strategy argue that the idea of not disclosing their affiliation with the company which they are promoting leads to various ethical issues. They also argue that this is playing with the believes of the customers as well. The contracted people to do the advertisement spread positive word of mouth just because they are paid regardless of whether they know the attributes of the product or it meets the needs of the customers. Despite the various ethical issues that have been raised by those who are against this strategy, it has many advantages to the company.
The most notable benefit is the cost advantage that undercover marketing campaigns has to companies that are utilizing them. Most scholars have argued that “a viral marketing campaign has a relatively low cost for development, depending on its sophistication, and is within budgetary constraints of many city marketing organizations” (Wober, 2002). Contracting people to spread a word of mouth about the product does not need huge funds like other marketing strategies. This cuts down advertisement costs and significantly contributes to brand recognition and loyalty. So many companies have done it and they have benefited from it.
Undercover marketing does not have any intrusion and interruptions like other traditional advertisement strategies. The traditional strategies get interruptions from various factors such as government regulations, system failures and many other drawbacks. Viral marketing does not have many regulations making it a better marketing campaign strategy. According to Kirby and Marsden (2012), viral marketing “tend to be non-interruptive, so they enable consumers to choose to interact proactively with a communication, or not, rather than be passively dictated to.” Consumers tend to believe a word of mouth from those who have used and experienced...