Value of Sharing: Viral Advertisement

Sharing motivations of viral advertisements by consumers and the impacts of these advertisements on the perceptions for brand will be questioned in this study. Three fundamental questions are answered in the study. These are advertisement watching and sharing motivations of individuals, criteria of liking viral advertisement and the impact of individual attitudes for viral advertisement on brand perception respectively. This study will be carried out via a viral advertisement which was practiced in Turkey. The data will be collected by survey method and the sample of the study consists of individuals who experienced the practice of sample advertisement. Data will be collected by online survey method and will be analyzed by using SPSS statistical package program. Recently traditional advertisement mind have been changing. New advertising approaches which have significant impacts on consumers have been argued. Viral advertising is a modernist advertisement mind which offers significant advantages to brands apart from traditional advertising channels such as television, radio and magazines. Viral advertising also known as Electronic Word-ofMouth (eWOM) consists of free spread of convincing messages sent by brands among interpersonal communication. When compared to the traditional advertising, a more provocative thematic approach is argued. The foundation of this approach is to create advertisements that are worth sharing with others by consumers. When that fact is taken into consideration, in a manner of speaking it can also be stated that viral advertising is media engineering. The content worth sharing makes people being a volunteer spokesman of a brand and strengthens the emotional bonds among brand and consumer. Especially for some sectors in countries which are having traditional advertising channel limitations, viral advertising creates vital advantages. Keywords—Viral advertising, marketing, consumers, brands. I. LITERATURE REVIEW N recent years consumers have been intensely surrounded by information and communication technologies broadcasted through the internet. As a result of this, e-Wom in other words viral marketing has gained importance [1]. Viral advertising is a dimension of viral marketing which gains more importance increasingly for many brands [2]. Viral marketing can be defined as electronic way of word of mouth D. Aydın is with the Selçuk University, Faculty of Communications, Department of Advertising, Konya, 42151, Turkey (phone: +90-332-223-694; fax: +90-332-241-0187; e-mail: [email protected]). A. Gülerarslan is with the Selçuk University, Faculty of Communications, Department of Advertising, Konya, 42151, Turkey (phone: +90-332-223-694; fax: +90-332-241-0187; e-mail: [email protected]). S. Karaçor is with the Selçuk University, Faculty of Communications, Department of Advertising, Konya, 42151, Turkey (phone: +90-332-223-659; fax: +90-332-241-0187; e-mail: [email protected]). T. Doğan is with the Selçuk University, Faculty of Communications, Konya, 42151, Turkey (phone: +90-332-223-691; fax: +90-332-241-0187; email: [email protected]). communication [3]. Viral marketing is seen as an effective method in order to transfer information about products and to raise brand awareness by making use of social networks of individuals. In that social network consumers not only gather information about products but also resort to that information in purchase decisions. Thanks to that social network lots of consumers are reached in a quick way [4]. Viral marketing is seen as a very important marketing tool while considering access efficiency to consumers [5]. Upon the interpersonal advices’ becoming an important phenomenon in electronic environment, viral advertising has become a significant communication tool for advertisers [6]. Viral advertising is defined as an unpaid interpersonal communication based on designing the internet with provocative content by an acknowledged advertiser to persuade or influence the target audience with the aim of providing content with interpersonal transition [7]. Palka, Pousttchi, and Wiedemann define viral advertising as: “The term viral describes a type of marketing that infects customers with an advertising message which passes from one customer to the next like a rampant flu virus” [8]. Just like a virus, viral messages spreading via social network can be interpreted as persuading, interesting, and recollective for consumers [2]. The difference between viral advertising and traditional advertising is primarily stated as unpaid media content. Basically, viral marketing is practiced within the scope of existing mail list of loyal consumers or official website of the brand. Traditional advertising is defined as impersonal advertising and viral advertising is defined as personal advertising. The basic objective of viral advertising is to change message content into viral and make it distributed by reliable sources like family or friends [7]. In a study conducted to evaluate consumer attitudes towards viral marketing, it was stated that in general terms consumers had positive attitudes towards viral marketing. According to the study, it was remarked that one of the most important elements of viral marketing affecting consumer attitudes is that it is informative. Source reliability and amusingness follow this element. Relevant and useful viral informings affect consumer attitudes in a positive way. In addition to this, source reliability and amusing contents increase consumer acceptability of viral marketing messages [9]. As consumers regard an e-mail sent by their friends as the most reliable source, spread of viral campaigns on social networking sites gets easier [10]. Natural spread of a product or a service of a brand without any intervention of the brand itself is in one sense named as organic word-of-mouth marketing. The exact opposite reinforced word of mouth marketing is defined as brands’ launching a campaign and making consumers referring to brands [11]. Value of Sharing: Viral Advertisement Duygu Aydın, Aşina Gülerarslan, Süleyman Karaçor, and Tarık Doğan I World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology International Journal of Social, Behavioral, Educational, Economic, Business and Industrial Engineering Vol:7, No:5, 2013 1211 International Scholarly and Scientific Research & Innovation 7(5) 2013 scholar.waset.org/1999.10/4765 In te rn at io na l S ci en ce I nd ex , E co no m ic s an d M an ag em en t E ng in ee ri ng V ol :7 , N o: 5, 2 01 3 w as et .o rg /P ub lic at io n/ 47 65 Word-of-mouth communication can be stated as stronger than traditional advertising. It is viewed as significant in terms of creating brand pusher effect. Viral marketing makes progress by means of strong personal advices of consumers. Viral advertising, sometimes not public as traditional marketing, is again practiced by identifying the advertiser like traditional marketing. While routine advertising concept is defined as traditional advertising, viral advertising is identified with advertising of forming provocative contents. In order to form provocative effect, it is stated that viral advertising content needs to be unusual. In this context application of emotional and amusing content are the prominent elements in viral advertising [7]. Ryan and Jones indicate that there are four rules for brands to consider while setting the campaign which will insure word-of-mouth marketing. These are; content forming rules which are interesting, simple, making people happy and ensuring trust/respect [11]. In this study, watching and sharing motivations of viral advertising by consumers are presented through a viral advertisement campaign which is quite influential in Turkey. In accordance with these data, it is aimed to make contributions to interpretation of viral advertising value in advertising field. The viral advertising sample lying in the center of the study is not included in social networks through the Facebook page of the advertiser brand. The popularity of social Networks like Facebook, Msn or Twitter is getting increasingly common in the world and in Turkey. Facebook has the highest number of followers and it is the most popular one among these social networks. Facebook has 689.332.700 members all around the world in March, 2013. Turkey ranks in top places among that big phenomenon. Turkey holds the fourth place after the United Nations, Indonesia, and the United Kingdom in terms of Facebook members. Both in Turkey and all over the world, the popularity of social networks and usage of them are very important for viral marketing and advertising practices. According to a study on the internet use conducted by Turkish Statistical Institute [12], it was established that the number of internet users, internet use level and rate of online shopping are becoming increasingly popular. With reference to these data, it is understood that viral advertising is a gradually rising value and opportunity for brands.