Marketing Viral Experiences

More and more of the goods and services produced for consumers across a range of sectors can be conceived of as 'cultural' goods, in that they are deliberately and instrumentally inscribed with particular meanings and associations as they are produced and circulated in a conscious attempt to generate desire for them amongst end-users. They maintain that there is a growing aestheticization of 'fashioning' of seemingly banal products whereby these are marketed to consumers in terms of particular clusters of meaning, often linked to 'lifestyles,' and this is taken as an indication of the increased importance of 'culture' to the production and circulation of a multitude of goods and services. (Du Gay and Pryke, p. 7)

Contemporary advertising strategies often adapt cultural forms of entertainment that are turned into transient images in order to create ever-changing consumer experiences. Online advertising through films , games and the like, are an anchor point to study the shift in production and distribution practice and the cultural economic implications for the convergence of notions of marketing with those of participant agency. Trends in online advertising practices give way to study the new 'logic of promotion' associated with processes of commodification (Wernick, 1991) to signal the convergence of notions of culture with those of social relationships both within and outside market-oriented institutions (McRobbie, 2002). As outlined earlier, online marketing taps into peer networks that are a dynamic, self-expanding form of organization of human activity that transform all domains of social and economic life ^[25] . Through entering an engaging dialogue through creating interactive advertisements with its customers a company attempts to use the distance between people to spread its message (a 'viral object').

Viral Objects: Hotmail and Friendster

Hotmail is a textbook example of viral marketing; under every single Hotmail address is written: 'Get your private. Free e-mail at www.hotmail.com.' It is free, it is easy to sign up and each time when someone sends e-mail it is a free ad for Hotmail. Hotmail is a so-called viral object, which can best be described by a product of digital entertainment that is distributed online through a self-regulatory system of peers. The basic idea of 'pass-it-on' or 'tell-a-friend' is far from new, but the Internet and to a lesser extent p2p networks have made this marketing tool more powerful. Inherent to the nature of reaching a large- scale network of peers, incorporating a (marketing) message that embraces the communication process between at least two people has the strongest impact. This includes free postcards (e.g., Boomerang) that can be acquired for free in bars, restaurants , libraries and so forth, the electronic variant (e.g., Blue Mountain), confessing indiscretions to a friend (LastMinute.com), submitting stories and videos of memorable shags (Ishaggedhere.com), and dating -network Friendster.

In March 2003 Jonathan Abrams launched Friendster as an alternative to mainstream dating sites such as Match.com and Yahoo! Personals. Friendster differs in that it goes beyond the standard profiles of 'shared interests' and ' demographics .' Abrams says: 'What I tried to do on Friendster is more reflective of real life than other dating sites. In real life, you don't socialize isolated, you do it collaboratively with your friends . It's not meant to be perfect, but I think it's an improvement.' ^[26] The site started out with Abrams' friends and acquaintances that could invite people they knew to test the site ^[27] . One can connect oneself to friends of a friend and vice versa by reading someone's profile and 'testimonials' of your 'shared friends.' By late August the site had 1.6 million users and the number is increasing every minute. Although the service is still free - in the near future it will be subscription based - Abrams has already begun to develop the site into a commercial enterprise by soliciting banners, selling merchandise, and linking Amazon products to profiles in which favorite books, CDs and movies are mentioned ^[28] . Friendster offers, therefore, a networked environment that becomes increasingly commercially structured by tapping into connected profiles of peers.

Technology of Sociability

The formation of a network of like-minded people, i.e., a participant network, like Friendster, offers a site that has certain kinds of affordances by which is meant that a participant network is only given meaning and structured through users' interpretations and negotiations (Gibson, 1979; Grint & Woolgar, 1997). The interpretations and negotiations are thus interpretations of affordances of the artifact: The possibilities for action that it offers. The range of descriptions and interpretations that can be made of an online, networked environment is constrained by the common-sense understandings and experiences of ordinary people in everyday life (Hutchby, 2001). By this is meant that human actors are not necessarily caused to react in given ways to p2p forms, however the range of possibilities for interpretations and action is not near as open as often is implied . Thus, p2p technologies have been designed to have practical and social meaning, or use value. When people interact through, around and within a networked environment, it is necessary for them to find ways of managing the constraints on their possibilities for action, that emerge from affordances of given technological forms. When corporations use interactive marketing tools to engage potential consumers in an interactive experience by letting peer networks work for them, viral objects embedded in interactive marketing messages are then expressions of affordance technologies, i.e., a technology of sociability.

Understanding online advertising as an expression of affordance technology through using participant networks means then that the main feature of viral marketing is that it heavily depends interconnected peers. Viral marketing is therefore inherently social. Viral marketing is the online outlet of word-of-mouth communication, which is the 'aggregate of all person-to-person communication about a particular product, service, or company at any point in time.' ^[29] Although, interpersonal communication is just one form through which people receive information, this 'buzz,' as many studies have shown, may have a potential impact on product sales (Banerjee, 1992/93; Bass, 1969; Katz & Lazarsfeld, 1955; Kotler, 2000; Mayzlin, 2001). Businesses should therefore under- stand that they sell to networks, not individuals. These networks are crucial for the process of anticipation and purchase. There is so much information out there that people strongly rely on or trust their friends, but they have also found the Internet to share information and experiences among others newsgroups, message boards , chat, ratings sites, fan and hate sites.

Inequality Rules

Not all word-of-mouth is equally created. Some individuals communicate with more people about a product or service than others do. These people are often referred to as 'opinion leaders ' or 'network hubs' (Barab si, 2002; Gladwell, 2000; Rosen, 2000). Rosen discerns four categories of hubs:

Regular hubs are regular folks who serve as sources of information and influence in a certain product category. They may be connected to only a few other individuals or to several dozens. [] Mega-hubs refer to press, celebrities , analysts, politicians . These individuals have many two-way links like regular hubs, but in addition they have thousands of one-way links with people who listen to their message via media. [] Expert hubs are listened to because they have demonstrated significant knowledge of a certain area. [] Social hubs are those [within every group ] who are more central because they are charismatic, are trusted by their peers, or are simply more socially active. ^[30]

Mapping a network hub and its links between nodes of people means studying how these networks form - i.e., power relations among people - what they look like - e.g., large or small scale - and how they can work as interactive marketing tools. Kottler (2003) summarizes this aptly: 'Companies have been turning increasingly to word-of-mouth marketing. They seek to identify individuals who are early adopters ^[31] , vocal and curious , and with a large network of acquaintances. When a company brings its new product to the attention of such influentials, the influentials carry on the rest of the work as ˜unpaid salespeople.'' ^[32] Duncan Watts and Steven Strogatz (1998) came up with a 'clustering coeffient' to tell how closely knit a circle of friends is, while Mark Granovetter (1973) has sought to explain the differences among networks by 'the strength of weak ties.' Weak ties are viewed better for a network than close and strong friendships, because the former are 'bridges' among communities. People tend to form a network with like-minded peers and are most likely to be exposed to similar information sources. This means that an outsider, the weak tie, may have access to different information and bring it via another network ('six degrees of separation'). So any weak tie has the potential to reach more people than a strong or closely connected tie, but the information however moves slower between communities than within the network (Frenzen & Nakamoto, 1993; Reingen & Kernan, 1986).

For marketing purposes this implies that word-of-mouth requires a social interaction network where a person voluntarily communicates a piece of information to another person. With the introduction of digital technologies the spread of information has become faster and more widespread. The digitization of word-of-mouth is accompanied by promises and challenges as Chrysanthos Dellarocas (2003) writes in his paper on online feedback mechanisms or reputation systems. He examines the design, evaluation and use of online feedback mechanisms for bi-directional communication capabilities that the Internet offers. Based in game theory and economics, Dellarocas explores the potential implications of these reputation systems for management activities, such as branding, customer acquisition and retention, product development, and quality assurance. Due to the potential size of online large-scale networks the intentions and implications of word-of-mouth is studied from a wide variety of perspectives, including the challenges associated with measuring online conversations (Godes & Mayzlin, 2002), customer satisfaction and repurchase intentions through the potential for timingof-measurement effects (S derlund, 2000), the speed of innovation diffusion (Waelbroeck, 2001), predictions of online consumer behavior based on diffusion, choice and Bayesian models (Montgomery, 2001), transformation of one-way relationship between advertisers and consumers to a two-way interaction where consumers interact with both content providers and advertisers (Dr ze & Zuyfryden, 1999), and the change in evaluations and the affection of future decisions (Cowley & Rossiter, 2002).

The recent interest in adapting entertainment forms by turning them into advertisements fits Joe Pine and James Gilmore's ideas (1999) of experiental marketing. They do not talk about marketing products or services, but about marketing experiences around products or services. The ambiance of restaurants such as Hard Rock Caf and Planet Hollywood provide the customer with respectively a music and a movie setting. Music and wall decoration is derived from well-known musicians or movie stars. The Las Vegas strip is another example. Casinos are reliving the times of Emperor Caesar or street life in Paris, so when shopping at Victoria's Secret in Caesar's Palace one finds oneself surrounded by fountains, statues, blue skies, and other detailed ornaments. Companies have now found their ways into creating experiences online to lure consumers. Advertisements in the shape of games and films are created to promote a company's brand by shaping interactive experiences that occur when a customer comes in contact with the ads. Creating engaging and memorable experiences then should lead to people telling others about it. Viral marketing works best when experiences are marketed that evoke an emotional response. Although, whether the viral mechanism will work or not - if one can ever predict that - depends largely on four factors: the type of product, the target group ^[33] , the participant network ^[34] , and the overall marketing strategy. Not all products are suitable for a viral strategy or may evoke emotional responses (Rosen, 2000). Generally innovative, exciting (e.g., movies), personal experience (e.g., hotels), complex (e.g., software), expensive, observable (e.g., clothes) products open up the buzz channels. When viral marketing suits as strategy, the advertisement should become part of the communication process, it should make people interact with each other and it should motivate people to spread the word among peers.

As mentioned earlier, the U.S. Army has been very successful at generating buzz through their online advergame America's Army: Operations (AA:O) ^[35] . The game is part of the ad campaign 'Together We Stand: An Army of One' which is the result of missed recruiting goals ^[36] . The answer to this recruiting problematic was to change the way the U.S. Army communicates with the young people in the U.S.A. A short-sided approach to relay simply on its name , the U.S. Army learned that they needed ongoing insights in research-based advertising in order to understand the attitudes and needs of young people. The US Army spends about $2 billion per year to attract 120,000 recruits in which the costs of the latest ad campaign are included. 'Together We Stand: An Army of One' consisted of several print ads and commercials on TV to generate traffic for the www.goarmy.com recruiting website ^[37] . These numbers compared to building the game - for $7 million - means that if the game generates 120 potential recruits, it has broken even ^[38] . Since the game's launch, the game recruitment site's traffic has gone up by 28%, which is directly derived from the game's site ^[39] .

The [] game is an entertaining way for young adults to explore the Army and its adventures and opportunities as a virtual Soldier. [] It does this in an engaging format that takes advantage of young adults' broad use of the Internet [] and their interest in games for entertainment and exploration.' ^[40]

AA:O has built a relationship between gamers and the U.S. Army by transferring the emotion of the game to the Army brand that is powering it and creating an engaging, rather than passive, experience. The features of the game in accordance with its purpose of recruiting new soldiers shows that the U.S. Army has chosen the right marketing strategy. The target group consists of men in their late teens and twenties, which collides with the (online) game market where action games and weapons are favored. AA:O is designed as an online multiplayer first person shooter that emphasizes realistic, squad- based combat. AA:O represents what Schmitt and Simonson (1997) have named 'marketing aesthetics,' which refers to the overall trend towards lifestyle and value systems. Consumers base their choices on 'whether or not a product or service fits into his or her lifestyle or whether it represents an exciting new concept - a desirable experience.' ^[41] Thus, characteristics of the Army neatly fit the design of the online game, which is a generally preferred genre among male gamers. The AA:O community exists of several participant networks, namely developers, moderators, beta testers, and the gamers. The most important communication channel where these clusters communicate is the official forum where everybody - i.e., in-game officials and gamers - can post and respond to messages. The official forum ^[42] had by mid-August of 2003 over 95,000 members , who have posted about 890,000 messages. The site also hosts , among others, a support section, a Web log (by a U.S. soldier who is currently serving in Afghanistan ^[43] ) and announces LAN parties. Besides official ways to interact there are many affiliated sites, both official and semi-official, and many fan and clan sites where gamers interact with each other. The AA:O community is one that is largely interconnected and depends on online collaboration. Without in-game participants there would hardly be any use to play the game. The overall marketing strategy of the U.S. Army is a multi-channeled one with the advergame as the main fix. It had all the right ingredients to become a fruitful viral campaign.

^[25] Castells (2001).

^[26] Sellers, J. (2003). Can We Still Be Friendsters? SPIN, November 2003, pp. 101-106.

^[27] You can sign up on your own, but you need at least one friend before you can start browsing the network.

^[28] Sellers, J. (2003). Can We Still Be Friendsters? SPIN, November 2003, pp. 101-106.

^[29] Rosen (2000). p. 7.

^[30] Rosen (2000) pp. 45-48.

^[31] Note that early adopters are not necessarily hubs or vice versa. See Rosen (2003) p. 52-53.

^[32] Kotler (2003) p. 186.

^[33] For instance, some ethnic groups tend to rely more on peers than others, just like teens.

^[34] 'The more connected your customers are to each other, the more you depend on their buzz for future business' (Rosen, p. 27).

^[35] See http://www.americasarmy.com

^[36] Since 1995 the US Army missed its recruiting goals three times, i.e., in 1999 there had been a shortage of 6,500 recruits (Van der Graaf, S. & Nieborg, D.B. (2003). Together We Brand: Amercia's Army. DIGRA . Forthcoming).

^[37] See http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Jan2001/t01102001_t110army.html

^[38] See Moves 2002 activity report, www.movesinstitute.org

^[39] Zyda, M. et al. (January/February 2003). Entertainment R&D for Defense. (pp. 28-36). IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications.

^[40] See http://www.americasarmy.com/faq.php

^[41] Schmitt, B. and Simonson, A. (1997). Marketing Aesthethics: the Strategic Management of Brands, Identity, and Image. New York: The Free Press (p. 16)

^[42] See http://www.americasarmy.com/forum/index.php

^[43] See http://www.americasarmy.com/features_weblog.php