Throughout the Semester, I have been posting about my journey through research, amongst a multitude of other topics - ranging from academia to puerile nonsense. What appears to be nonsensical postings about research and references about viral adverts and how to kick start these have finally come to a point. A tipping point you could say!
At the beginning of the Semester we read Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point - a book in which trends were discussed. Who starts them? How do they spread? Why do we bow down to them?
From there, I selected my own particular area of interest, which I derived from one of the case studies towards the end, regarding Airwalk's phenomenal advertising campaign that sent their sales skyrocketing. This lead to me to the more general term of viral advertising, from which I honed in on what particular people it takes to make an advert such as that work - how it spreads, and ultimately consumes the public. Below are my findings.
Godin's Purple Cow is written in a similar narrative style to Gladwell's The Tipping Point, interlaced with supported research as well as personal opinion. An issue with regards to it's accred-ability is that some of the personal opinion could be read and interoperated as fact; however there is little evidence to support sweeping statements. This is also true for the fact that Godin also uses his own previous works as examples, which, as it is not an external source, provides nothing in terms of genuine credit, other than that he has previously published work. The Tipping Point has more accred-ability from this aspect, as the supporting evidence was stronger. Furthermore to the structure of the book; Godin has laced the chapters with summaries that helps consolidate a section, along with short statistical images. These may on a first read appear to be of use, however there is no reference to document the source of these, and therefore is rendered academically void.
Aside from the academic value, or lack thereof, there are some interesting points that Godin debates. The bulk of Purple Cow is based around creating advertising, or even a product itself that is "remarkable". Purple Cow features several tips and reasons as to why in the current industry of advertising old fashioned marketing strategies just do not pull in the crowd they used to. It makes for an interesting read, although as previously stated - it lacks the strength of evidence, even although valid points are made. It appears that it is a fantastic source to begin with, although in order to gain anything from it, the reader would be required to research further into the points made. It is, if you will, the tip of the ice berg.
One of the useful aspects however, is that there are a large amount of short case studies, giving examples of particular aspects of marketing strategies that have taken off, and caused exponential business. These read like an encyclopaedia of example business plans, however again, the reader would be required to pursue any one of these further to gain any sort of substantial information.
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| an example of "guerrilla advertising" |
Godin claims that "The obvious answer, [to be successful in advertising a new variety of a household product] if you've got the money and you believe in your product, is to spend all you've got to buy tons of national TV and printing advertising", however this is personal opinion. It is understandable and does appear logically correct, but Godin supplies no statistical evidence to draw on. Without substantial external surveys, statistics and figures, it may be, and I suspect is, far from reality - as good marketing strategies do not necessarily equal spiralling costs; see Guerrilla Advertising: Unconventional Brand Communication.
On a separate note; a strong supported point made in Purple Cow was the findings of Geoff Moore, in his book "Crossing the Chasm". His graph outlines the quantity of people that come under the early adopter sector, against those who are early and late majority. The early and late majority are mostly the general public, once a product has taken off in the mainstream. Godin makes the valid point that although Moore's curved graph is specifically designed to relate to technological products, it does in fact also mirror almost all products and services to almost all audiences.
As for Hill, Provost & Volinsky, they provide an academically approved study on how early adoption aids the marketing industry in their article on Network-Based Marketing; Identifying Likely Adopters Via Consumer Networks. There is immediately sourced evidence to support their explanations from the field, quoting the likes of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, and how it's success began. Each subcategory of ways in which people adopt a strategy is individually corroborated by outsourced papers and statistics. At no point is personal experience drawn on, nor any opinion from the authors. Texts such as this are highly useful in gaining authentication, as every topic is subject to scrutinised evidence.
The three main subcategories of early adopters are grouped into "explicit advocacy", "implicit advocacy" and "network targeting". Examples are given for each; to explicitly advocate a product you must publicly spread recommendation for a product or service through a word of mouth fashion. Implicitly advocating is to promote a product through action; such as using a product themselves, and lastly network targeting is to target past consumers social neighbours, in a bid to gain business from past happy customers' surrounding acquaintances. By understanding these sectors that naturally occur within society, marketers can build on creating the ultimate marketing strategy.
An extremely relative example of using multiples of the above is cited to be Hotmail's viral marketing ploy. It was based around a tag line at the bottom of every email that was sent from a free hotmail account - thus using network targeting, and implicit advocacy. This is a well documented example source of these aspects of marketing. The figures regarding the exponential growth due to this simple strategy shows that within a year, users had increased 10 fold, all because people contact like minded people. If the early adopter uses a product, and the product targets the surrounding audience, things are sure to spread. This is an example of a forced word of mouth epidemic. Not only this, but it means that the original user is an example of an early adopter; the epicentre who radiates adverts.
I first read about the term "early adopters" through Gladwell's The Tipping Point, and since then while reading in more depth into viral marketing; I have come to the conclusion that it is crucial to market towards this sector of buyers. Without this select group of consumers, word of mouth epidemics do not arise. With no word of mouth buzz, the message is not spread to the same degree of possible consumers, and therefore the viral advert slips into the abyss of advertising - never to be successful. This is of course, every marketers nightmare. Both Godin and Hill, Provost & Volinsky discuss the "early adopter" category of people; and how to advance your strategies aiming your advertising at this crucial group.
The three main subcategories of early adopters are grouped into "explicit advocacy", "implicit advocacy" and "network targeting". Examples are given for each; to explicitly advocate a product you must publicly spread recommendation for a product or service through a word of mouth fashion. Implicitly advocating is to promote a product through action; such as using a product themselves, and lastly network targeting is to target past consumers social neighbours, in a bid to gain business from past happy customers' surrounding acquaintances. By understanding these sectors that naturally occur within society, marketers can build on creating the ultimate marketing strategy.
An extremely relative example of using multiples of the above is cited to be Hotmail's viral marketing ploy. It was based around a tag line at the bottom of every email that was sent from a free hotmail account - thus using network targeting, and implicit advocacy. This is a well documented example source of these aspects of marketing. The figures regarding the exponential growth due to this simple strategy shows that within a year, users had increased 10 fold, all because people contact like minded people. If the early adopter uses a product, and the product targets the surrounding audience, things are sure to spread. This is an example of a forced word of mouth epidemic. Not only this, but it means that the original user is an example of an early adopter; the epicentre who radiates adverts.
I first read about the term "early adopters" through Gladwell's The Tipping Point, and since then while reading in more depth into viral marketing; I have come to the conclusion that it is crucial to market towards this sector of buyers. Without this select group of consumers, word of mouth epidemics do not arise. With no word of mouth buzz, the message is not spread to the same degree of possible consumers, and therefore the viral advert slips into the abyss of advertising - never to be successful. This is of course, every marketers nightmare. Both Godin and Hill, Provost & Volinsky discuss the "early adopter" category of people; and how to advance your strategies aiming your advertising at this crucial group.
I have come to conclude that since Hill, Provost and Volinsky use varying types of evidence in their analysis, which cross corroborates all claims in their outcome - their evidence of early adoption is more beneficial to somebody who wishes to understand it with the intent of applying it their own business. As they drawn on several fields, including economics, computer science, sociology, psychology, marketing and statistics - with statistical evidence being deduced from six fields within, a would be viral marketer could rely more heavily upon this source.
As for Purple Cow, it is more of a general interest and casual read. Undoubtably strong points are raised, however there needs to be further support for personal claims.
If I were to read further into this, I would draw upon the information found in Connected Marketing: The Viral, Buzz and Word of Mouth Revolution. I would also possibly do a short survey with regards to a new product on the market that is still within Moore's early adopter stage - that also has a viral marketing strategy, and personally find out what level of interest there is. This would help indicate how regular in a given city, consumers look past the household products they blindly buy, and take heed of viral advertising.
- Bibliography -
Dorrian, M. & Lucas, G. (2006). Guerrilla Advertising: Unconventional Brand Communication. London, UK: Laurence King Publishing.
Godin, S. (2005). Purple Cow. London, UK: Penguin Books. p.7, 31-32, 79-80
Hill, S., Provost, F. & Volinsky, C. (2006). Network-Based Marketing: Identifying Likely Adopters Via Consumer Networks. Institute of Mathematical Statistics: Statistical Science. Vol. 21. (No. 2.). p. 256-260.
Kirkby, J. & Marsden, P. (2006). Connected Marketing: The Viral, Buzz and Word Of Mouth Revolution. Oxford, Great Britain and MA, USA: Butterworth-Heinmann of Elsevier.
On a lighter note - I will finish with some memorable advertising techniques, that I personally think should be exploited more:
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On a lighter note - I will finish with some memorable advertising techniques, that I personally think should be exploited more:
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