The role of creativity in viral marketing

Abstract

The strategies used in marketing have changed dramatically in the last 2 decades with the emergence of social media platforms. The importance of sharing content has skyrocketed and has become the driving force of new age marketing tactics. The aim of viral marketing is to enrapture consumers and urge them to share content that captured their attention with their contacts. Not unlike a virus, it spreads rapidly and holds the potential to reach a far greater number of individuals. The question that begs to be asked is: How does viral marketing succeed? The study will seek to explore the relationship, or lack of thereof, between creativity and viral marketing. Thus, its research question is: Is creativity the most common element present in an "already perceived as successful" viral marketing campaign? Content analysis was used in order to answer the research question and derive any pertinent findings. A sample of 30 viral campaigns was selected and each of them was rated with a 5 point Likert scale according to a selected set of variables, generated by Smith and Yang (2004), expressing characteristics of creativity. The totals of these variables represented each individual's campaign creativity score, which was then used to compare and analyse them. Furthermore, 3 independent raters conducted the same analysis in order to eliminate subjectivity issues. Finally, an inter-rater reliability test was conducted, with the same concerns as above in mind. The study produced a number of very interesting findings, which all pointed towards the fact that creativity does not single-handedly make a viral marketing campaign successful.