Snowball to avalanche

Abstract

Purpose – This paper aims to investigate the determinants of successful online viral marketing. More companies in recent years have reduced their advertising expenditures on traditional media. Instead, they focus more on word-of-mouth marketing to reach their potential customers. Design/methodology/approach – A 2 (high/low utilitarian message context) × 2 (high/low hedonic message context) × 2 (message source: strong/weak tie strength) × 2 (channel: e-mail/blog) between-subjects experiment was conducted. A total of 363 completed questionnaires were collected in Taiwan. Findings – The findings are fourfold. First, the greater the tie strength between the sender and the receiver, the more actively they share information. Second, an audience is more willing to share a message with others when the message contains higher degrees of utilitarian or hedonic values. Third, those who are highly involved with the products are more willing to share information than those who are less involved. Fourth, those who access the information via blogs are more willing to share information with others. Research limitations/implications – The first limitation pertains to the issue of external validity. Also, to maximize internal validity, hypothetical scenarios and experimental designs were used rather than actual e-mail/blog experiences as stimuli. The results of this study provide some key strategic implications for companies that are seeking to enhance a successful viral marketing campaign. Practical implications – This study suggests there is no “one size fits all” answer. A successful viral marketing campaign is specific to individual characteristics and the approaches used. Originality/value – The present study combines related research – including communication theory, consumer value and involvement theory – to investigate the determinants of individuals’ intentions to share marketing information.

Antecedents of Retweeting in a (Political) Marketing Context

“…Existing research on communication effectiveness allocates a great deal of interest to how such factors influence attitudes and persuasion (e.g., Karmarkar & Tormala, 2010; Kirmani & Shiv, ; Petty & Cacioppo, ), product purchase intentions (Gilly, Graham, Wolfinbarger, & Yale, ; Yan, Ogle, & Hyllegard, ), or actual sales (Chevalier & Mayzlin, ; Zhu & Zhang, ). The research on sharing marketing messages is even more scant, with extant studies considering message recommendation intentions (Lee & Youn, ), sharing online information (Chiu et al., ), or forwarding e‐mails (Chiu, Hsieh, Kao, & Lee, ). The current research looking at retweeting falls into this category.…”

The Effects of QR Delivered Content on Perceived Product Value

“…In particular, referring to QR codes, Atkinson (2013) suggested that content should be created carefully to provide meaningful, usable information for consumers and that the tendency of 'market mavens' to share information should be harnessed by providing QR code content that is relevant, interesting and easily passed on to other consumers (Atkinson, 2013, p. 387). Chiu et al (2014) looked at digital content, focusing on word of mouth as a dimension of commitment, and they found that people are more willing to share marketing messages with others when the message (the 'say what' factor) contains higher degrees of utilitarian (e.g. product quality and useful information) or hedonic (e.g.…”

Digital Consumer Engagement: Examining the Impact of Audio and Visual Stimuli Exposure in Social Media

“…The results also align with work demonstrating that online marketing messages with highly rational content (utilitarian) lead to more significant information sharing when high cognitive involvement occurs. Notably, the effectiveness of informational content is greater than that of remunerative content, which results in active engagement in the form of liking and sharing but not passive behavior (consuming) (Chiu et al, 2014). Dolan et al, (2019) indicate that while rational content appears superior to emotional content within social media to drive active consumer engagement, the type of rational content is essential, and content should comprise product-and brand-related information rather than sales-focused promotion such as remunerative content.…”