What is viral marketing?

What is Viral Marketing?

April Carr

Viral Marketing defined:

What is viral marketing? • On the Internet, viral marketing is any marketing technique that

induces Web sites or users to pass on a marketing message to other sites or users, creating a potentially exponential growth in the message's visibility and effect.

Technological Convergence:Within contemporary Britain the internet is one of the fastest ways of sharing information. This is especially proven through technological convergence in the form of smart phones. Therefore viral marketing is an extremely popular form of advertisement within the film industry as information gets spread worldwide and fast.

Social Media:• Social media such as Facebook and Twitter allow users to share

information quickly. For example an audience member could view a film and then use Facebook to share that they have viewed it and their opinion.• Social media also acts as a free platform for production companies to

advertise through creating a film page and sharing information, video trailers and teasers.

Harry Potter has received over 73million likes through viral marketing.

Example: • ‘The Dark Knight’ (Director Christopher Nolan, 2008) • In 2007 Warner Bro set up a viral marketing campaign by setting up a

‘fake’ newspaper named ‘The Gotham Times’. An interactive document online made to look real. • This campaign utilized the films tagline “why so serious?” The site

aimed to interest fans by having them earn what they want to see. Emails sent by fans slowly removed pixels, revealing the first official image of the joker.