'Word of mouth' and Viral marketing

Word of mouth (WOM) , aka Word of Mouth Marketing (WOMM), is the passing of information by verbal means, especially recommendations, but also general information, in an informal, person-to-person manner, rather than by mass media, advertising, organized publication, or traditional marketing. Word of mouth is typically considered a spoken communication, although web dialogue, such as blogs, message boards and emails are often now included in the definition.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_of_mouth

Viral marketing and viral advertising refer to marketing techniques that use pre-existing social networks to produce exponential increases in brand awareness, through self-replicating viral processes, analogous to the spread of a computer virus. It can often be word-of-mouth delivered and enhanced online; it can harness the network effect of the Internet and can be very useful in reaching a large number of people rapidly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viral_marketing


The Classic Hotmail.com Example
"The classic example of viral marketing is Hotmail.com, one of the first free Web-based e-mail services. The strategy is simple:

1. Give away free e-mail addresses and services,
2. Attach a simple tag at the bottom of every free message sent out: "Get your private, free email at http://www.hotmail.com" and,
3. Then stand back while people e-mail to their own network of friends and associates,
4. who see the message,
5. Sign up for their own free e-mail service, and then
6. Propel the message still wider to their own ever-increasing circles of friends and associates.

Like tiny waves spreading ever farther from a single pebble dropped into a pond, a carefully designed viral marketing strategy ripples outward extremely rapidly." (Dr. Ralph F. Wilson, 2005)

http://www.wilsonweb.com/wmt5/viral-principles.htm

Having looked into viral and "word of mouth" marketing this is an area that now interests me, I have never really thought about it before, particularly with the Hotmail example, although I use Hotmail almost every day, I've never considered the small advertising message at the bottom of each email to be "Viral marketing", this shows how easy it is for viral marketing to affect it's audience without the audience realising.


For example Burger King's Subservient Chicken website is a good example of this, users are far too busy haivng fun telling the man in a chicken suit what to do that they get distracted from the fact they're being advertised to.