Master Thesis
University of Amsterdam
Viral Marketing as an effective method of product promotion in FMCG industry.
(on example and in cooperation with FMCG brand «Irn-Bru»)
Master in Business Studies ( Major Marketing)
Student: Ivan Obradovic
Supervisor 2: Mark Leenders
Acknowledgement
After four years of thorny path of education obtainment I finally approached back-to-back to my Master Degree. This Master thesis was a great challenge and a great opportunity to test my skills and marketing abilities with which I want to tie up my future professional career.
I studied in different countries among different nationalities and ethical races, with various people of versatile knowledge, broad views and different mentalities. During whole this period of studying I encountered a lot of obstacles and hurdles, which could not be overcome without fellow students, international friends and my parents strong permanent support. I am grateful all of them who assisted and helped me on the tricky educational steep ladder.
Regarding my education in University of Amsterdam and last year of education and life of so cosmopolitan capital of The Netherlands, I cannot flout the fact that this degree is not my merit exclusively. Firstly, I want to thank my supervisor Prof. Tom Paffen, for guiding through my research process and helping in identification of methods of assessment and purpose of my thesis. He gave me the hint on how my thesis has to look like and the most crucial tip that my research needs to have practical implications to be useful for future professional life. He gave me the right directives on what the practical research I need to conduct and I did it. Further, I want to grate everyone who took part in my survey and, particularly, my friend from Ukraine Anton Revega, who precisely recounted all my mistakes and flaws in research and dedicated lots of his free time to help me analyze my hypothesis and empirical data results.
Not everyone have a chance to attain a reputable and decent education. Consequently, one more time I want to gratefully thank my parents for financial provision, this great opportunity and parting wishes which they gave me at the beginning of a interesting but complicated studying promenade.
Lastly, I want to reveal gratitude to all personnel and faculty of University for understanding and courteous attitude with fresh international student. Also, ‘Thank You’ to all professors and assistants who criticized or encouraged my works and assignments.
Thank You for support and trust.
Amsterdam, June 2014
Table of Content
Abstract
4
1.Intoduction
5
1.1 Background
5
1.2 Link between VM and FMCG
6
1.3 Research proposition
6
1.4 Research question8
1.5 Chosen brand9
2. Theoretical background
10
2.1 Viral Marketing10
2.2 FMCG sector14
2.2.1 FMCG brand IRU-BRU16
3. Methodology
18
3.1 Type of research18
3.2 Data collection21
3.2.1 Survey methodology22
3.2.2 Survey structure23
3.2.3 Sample24
3.2.4 Trial test24
3.2.5 Sample Size25
3.2.6 Asked questions and chosen videos
26
3.3 Generated Hypotheses
30
4. Survey results and analysis
32
4.1 Quantitative (graphical) part
32
4.2 Qualitative part
44
5. Conclusions and discussion
49
5.1 Hypotheses' deductions
49
50
6. Reference list
53
Abstract
With a growing interest to modern kinds of product promotion a huge bunch or research has been done to evaluate their influence on clients, including the recently emerged Viral Marketing type of information distribution. This pushed writers to idea of creation of unique and absolutely practical research on a certain brand in highly interactive FMCG industry.
This is a practical marketing research, which is designed with purpose to understand the perceptions of international customers to different types of advertisement. For the comparison, the Viral video and TV advertisement of the same FMCG industry brand have been taken and meticulously analyzed. This is, in research background, the first such comparison on a certain brand, which aims to identify, which advert sort is more suitable for solely international clients, without taking into consideration citizens of brand original country. Writers decided to work on ad examples of not well-refined and internationally renowned Scottish brand “Irn-Bru” which produce fizzy drinks, for the freshness and higher scientific expediency.
This is a hybrid research, which contains both qualitative and quantitative approaches of data analysis and is done with cross-sectional time gap. The mixed type of research is unconventional and brings more novelty, curiosity and scientific value to analysis of data. This research includes international survey with mixed questions, 5 question-related hypotheses for broader analysis and the final conclusion and advices to marketing managers of “Irn-Bru”. The final propositions in form of advices show researchers’ deductions on attained analyzed results and provide hints for further elaboration of marketing campaign, regarding the type of advertisement, which international respondents with, by filling up he survey question, consider more appropriate for them. S researchers define in this manuscript which ad has higher ranking for international clients, and considering all minuses the advices are generated to facilitate the work for managers. The work is absolutely practical and does not reflect the existing researches.1
1The work is done in collaboration with “Irn-Bru” with all copyrights for videos distribution and all results
1. Introduction
This part recounts the purpose of the research and background of the topic to understand the idea of
the thesis. Also will include the explanation on the link between VM and FMCG sector and state the
hypotheses and research question on the chosen brand.
1.1 Background
In a contemporary hectic world with an unmeasurable amount of brands and corporations, marketing plays, undoubtedly, one of the most paramount positions. New forms of marketing and information conveying emerge concurrently and consumers tend to depict the increasing resistance towards the traditional ways of marketing like TV, advertisement billboards and poster; the marketers have turned their focus on alternate strategy, the so called Viral Marketing (VM) or marketing Buzz. Viral marketing exploits existing social networks by encouraging customers to share product information with their friends (J. Leskovec et al., 2007). Viral marketing might contain television ads, cartoon characters, video clips, humorous images, poems or songs and any type of messages (including news and information) which create interest for the users and they pass that content to other users within their networks (Chaffey et al, 2009), which ,consequently, serves as medium through which an organization engage with its customers (Fill, 2005). Like viruses, such strategies, that encourage individuals to pass on a marketing message to others, create the potentiality for exponential growth in the message's exposure and influence, take advantage of rapid multiplication to explode the message to thousands, to millions (Wilson R., 2005). Hence, the newly emerged type of marketing is focal for this research and the abovementioned statement and subsequent definitions will perfectly and diligently explains the urgency and ubiquity of modern marketing type and why this topic is relevant for today marketing industry. This FMCG industry is
viral marketing as a promotional tool; industry is characterized by high competition, seasonality, constant brands rotation and frequent emergence of new types of goods.. For these brands it is hard to stand out in this product turmoil, thus viral marketing is one of the tools used to reach their promotional goals. The focus on viral movies is chosen because this kind of viral marketing is growing like a shot and marketing expenditures are higher among FMCG products than in other business and manufacturing sectors (graph in «FMCG» part).
1.2 Link between VM and FMCG
Since the FMCG sector with such giants as P&G, Unilever and ITC, is incredibly interactive and demanding in everyday life within all types of consumers, marketers need to cover lots of trifles on the way to promote products. Unfortunately, traditional channels such as magazines and newspapers, with the raise of Internet, start to decrease their market share on the promotion field and gave way to new alternative communication channels, where Viral Marketing is of great importance and is considered as the ‘cradle of modern advertisement’ for distributive and retail businesses.
1.3 Research proposition
Hereby we can make a certain deduction that the research gap is spinning around the Viral marketing (VM) in FMCG sector and its effect on business outcomes, as a consequence. Viral Marketing is a recently explored topic and the previous research is pretty scarced. We did not find any previous research that had the purpose to explore the same area in viral marketing as we, linked to how the consumers buying processes are being affected on international level, including the various factors which stimulate or distract respondent's choice. Thus, to be saying, a bunch of interesting research has been done, lots of experiments have been conducted on this cherished and urgent topic and current thesis topic aims to work further on unfledged, in previous researches, point of assessing VM type (video) in terms of how it attract or distract customers from purchasing and
also put it in contrast with traditional advertisement methods (video ad) and the elaboration on the effect which a viral marketing, as a type of contemporary medium in B2C relations, yields on consumer attitude towards the product. So far a tremendous work has been applied on evaluating and understanding the nature of Viral Marketing, including surveys, books, case studies, experiment and correlation analyses, but no (on our knowledge) researches have included the data drawn from respondents in different countries and continents to reveal the genuine effect of Viral Marketing on various customers with different cultural, economical, lingual and mental frameworks. Despite the cheapness of Viral marketing and easiness in executing VM campaign, this practical research focuses on mare customers’ perception of advertisement context and the visual information that is transmitted to them. This research mainly will try to fill the void of multinational and multilingual ambiguity of customers towards the same brand advertisements and point out which type of promotion (modern Viral or conventional TV) is better for companies to cut the edge on whole international arena (by overviewing different countries respondents’ feedbacks based on TV and VM ad comparison). Moreover, this study will attain the fresh and possibly relevant information for tested product (FMCG) in form of which potential factors stimulate the customer’s propensity to consume in different countries and which tricks and customer-related features company has to take into account while tackling the customers’ resistance when trying to appeal them. Furthermore, this research will conclude what the decided firm has to fix in their ads and which factor are incredibly crucial to make the advertisement prosperous and distribute the brand internationally. Basically this manuscript will evaluate two different kinds of adverts (VM and TV) of one not internationally famous product (for experiment transparency) and deduce which promotional type is more suitable for this brand on international arena. Further, regarding the data results, the propositions of ad changes in form of advices will be formulated and addressed to managers of the company. In order to persuade the reader in novelty of this research we officially can proclaim that no research of such
The idea of creation this particular topic has been spurred by dissertations and researches of international Master students from different universities, including University of Amsterdam graduates. To be precise, the existing Master thesis on how Viral Marketing affects consumer buying act, managed by Halmstad University/Lincoln University students (2011) and the thesis on Viral Marketing ads comparison by marketing master students from Aarhus School of Business (2009) would be used as focal article to focus on. Moreover, University of Amsterdam student Bram van Eck’s (2010) dissertation will serve as a supplemental article to take some material on VM from. Yet, this research serves as a practical one, rather than continuation of previous researches. Regarding the theoretical framework, this part shifts to the second place, comparing to methodology and data results since the main aim of research is figure out which ad people tend to support and choose more (TV or VM) and regarding the result, create the precise depiction of the ‘ideal’ video for company, which will satisfy majority of respondents and have a great prospects to promote the product successfully in case of international expansion.
Consequently, the primary purpose of this research is to determine the weight of Viral Advertising in contemporary FMCG sector. Mainly research would try to prove the relevance and indispensability of Viral Ads for an unfledged product promotion, as a better way than conventional TV ads, and also will point out all significant features the final version video has to embed in itself to tempt and stimulate people to purchase the product. One more point needs to be taken into account, that this thesis is a practical international research in collaboration with a marketing department of company “Irn-Bru”, thus the theoretical framework and theory stated in manuscript, due to novelty and singularity of the purpose of the thesis, is not so relevant as the conducted practical research.
1.4 Research question
crisp we simplified it to two short question which we will try to answer in this manuscript: Which type of advertisement is more appropriate for international customers: Viral or TV ad? Which
factors are crucial to make the ad appealing and more convincing for customers? (Based on
example and in collaboration with Scottish brand “Irn-Bru”)
1.5 Chosen Brand
Undoubtedly, the FMCG sector demiurges as P&G or Coca-Cola have perfect marketing team with mature promotional campaigns, constantly updating marketing tools and tones of money spent on advertisement; thus for research freshness and higher credibility two videos from little-known Scottish fizzy drink brand IRN-BRU has been taken as a pivotal item for international survey and result analysis.
2. Theoretical background
This part contains the theoretical framework to make the reader be aware of the topic in details and
have some theoretical concrete for further analysis.
2.1 Viral Marketing
Not all viruses are equally harmful. Computer viruses consume gigabytes of zeros and ones with all the consequences. Biological viruses several times a year affect the operation of one-seventh of the population of the land. Marketing viruses - bring profit. This is viral marketing in action. Although the inept hands of marketers can bring such harm, which any hackers or microbiologists cannot even imagine.
The concept of "viral marketing" appeared a little over 10 years ago. The term "viral marketing" as much in the field of communication, appeared in the U.S. in late 1996, the first who used the Jeffrey Rayport in his article «The Virus of marketing», is defined as the advertising, which is designed to persuasible users, it "infects” them with needed information and anticipates its further expansion (Rayport, 1996). A "snowball" effect is triggered: users, by sending promotional messages to others, form an "epidemics."
Both the need for marketing to focus on innovation and the drastic growth of the internet are reasons for viral marketing to emerge. In order to support and immediately show the successfulness and appropriateness of undertaking of the viral marketing as an unconventional way of marketing some examples are provided. Considering the Hotmail case as the typical and one of the very first instances of successful viral marketing, the following occurred: due to publicity Hotmail gained, by the use of word-of-mouth (every email sent by a Hotmail user contained a small message at the bottom of the email which convinced people to subscribe for a Hotmail account), one million
subscribers in its first six months, doubled this to two million in two months and it proceed further to the eleven million in eighteen months. In 2000, Hotmail had over 66 million users with 270,000 new accounts made every day. By this considerable exponential growth, Hotmail has grown faster than any media company in history (Subramani & Rajagopalan, 2003). Now this example serves as a huge impetus to the use of viral marketing as a way to promote a brand, product and subsequently increase sales revenue.
One more, inherently, astonishing VM campaign has been undertaken by famous worldwide brand Nike in collaboration with world-famous soccer star Ronaldinho hitting the crossbar no less than four times, without the ball touching the floor. This viral marketing clip is one of the most-watched ever, which exceeded the 50 million views threshold. In this video he tried out his new Gold Nike R10 shoes by stunning people with unbelievable trick he executed (YouTube, 2008). Definitely, this video blasted the unfeigned interest and rumors of the whole football audience, critics, fans and ordinal viewers. However, many expressed doubts about the veracity of the clip, due to impossibility of what happened, it, nevertheless, became a successful promotional act by Nike which eventually drawn so much attention and gained the acme results which any VM campaign is craving for – impression, popularity, financial outcomes and buzz. This is one of those VM videos that are considered as truly smash-hits.
By overlooking the example part the reader can deduce that viral marketing is a certain way to distribute advertising messages through a kind of WOM ("word-of-mouth") (Paramonova, 2007). An individual actually "infects" virus message and sends it to another through direct contact (verbal in WOM or online where customer acts as a transmitter of message). This is, due to the fact, that the information, which is transmitted, is interesting to the recipient or provides a practical matter. That is why the message is transmitted from person to person with confidence and on a voluntary basis.
This is the fundamental difference between the viral messages and standard advertising messages, which can be very annoying since the massage delivery to audience can be coercive.
For the lucid representation of the difference between the TV standard advertisement and viral advertisement, the following graphs are presented:
First TV ad graph reflects the procedure of how marketer turns to as many as possible to reach customer by him/herself without any intermediary.
In second the virus and WOM spread the ad, not the initial marketer. Further the message is distributed exponentially. Hence, the viral marketing is so popular and save similar features with virus.
The main difference of viral marketing from the usual one is to use the creative thinking along with some very simple methods to promote a product or service, instead of spending a lot of money on advertising. In viral marketing emotions are crucial: hate, laughing, irony, indignation and pleasure. (Suleimenova, 2008).
Viral marketing is becoming an increasingly popular tool for online advertising. One has only to recall the tremendously famousness, which in a few days due to viral marketing earned videos of such manufacturers as Dove (movie "Evolution") and Sony (TV movie Sony Bravia).
Media agency Initiative Universal McCann conducted research on the effectiveness of a viral video in comparison to the banner ads (marketing.ru). Both advertising campaigns were launched in the same time with the same budget. The results showed that: Viral video people look 14 times more than banners.
Viral marketing is, undoubtedly, a new phenomenal marketing and advertising trend, especially in the online scene. Viral Marketing is perfectly suited into the modern marketing, due to its innovativeness, internet applicability and low costs. Thus, recession has become a turning point for VM. Majority of production leaders had cut the budget down and start to spent much less on marketing, however, the expectations of short-term sales remained the same (Readon, 2009); here the viral marketing take its previledge and become a lifebuoy for companies which have less money to spend on marketing. The underlying reason to switch to viral marketing is simple: invest less and have the probability of purchase increase, exactly what they need in recession’s deplorable situation (Chernatony et al., 1991; Axarloglou, 2003).
One more crucial advantage which viral marketing comprises, that Chaffey (2010) acclaimed, is that viral marketing is very much effective for creating brand awareness than other forms of marketing, since Gibbon and Hawkes, previously (2006), deduced that simple, effective and appealingly done viral marketing creates positive response and it let the users to experience or interacts with the brand. Just by keeping message interesting to consumers, “forward-to-friend” function and convenient lodging of message (visible place/site for everybody), the company can use the benefit of helpful low cost viral marketing for brand enhancement.
Regarding the creation of brand recognition one more representative successful campaign has been launched. The chocolate makers Cadbury made a video and called it «Cadbury's Gorilla Adverts». The video shows a gorilla that is playing drums to the music of Phil Collins “In the Air Tonight”. The link between the gorilla which was playing the drums of a famous Phil Collin song raised awareness of the brand. Cadbury proclaimed: “There is no such thing as bad publicity” (Connelly 2010, YouTube, 2011).
Summarizing, we note the following: the main difference between viral marketing and other areas of marketing communications is that the target audience of the message is, by default, media vehicles. Regarding that, the message proliferation occurs at no cost (or at low cost) from the publisher, which imposes very strict restrictions on the content of the message.
As a consequence, the presence of the brand in the viral material should be implemented very elegantly and be minimally intrusive. All advertisers who want to use viral advertising in their marketing campaigns should remember this rule.
2.2 FMCG sector
To clarify with what we are dealing, Menke (2007) defined that Fast Moving Consumer Goods are those goods which have very low prices and are manufactured at low cost as well; however, they are produced in high volume and it is aimed to achieve high profit through economies of scale. For the broader synonymic row Cox (2003) added that FMCG could also be called Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG), due to its consumer-led orientation, wholly packed formation and the ‘fastest’ rotation of assortment and out-of-shelve movement. The most basic examples are frequently purchased essential or non-essential goods such as food, toiletries, soft drinks, disposable diapers.
approach towards the product type and brand with few decision-making time spending before purchasing (Bulmer, 1998), for instance the widely applied FMCG sector. Moreover, from the financial perspective, Francis (2006) affirmed, that the FMCG sector is lacked in innovation and rather built on product updates and product development in existing market, thus marketers need less budget to promote the products to masses and have higher returns, due to spending shrinkage; and again Viral Marketing hit the aim by its accordance with the marketers’ purposes. Therefore, new types of connections to customers are cheaper for both supplier (marketing department) and consumer, easier in implementation and application for both parties and it is able to reach a great number of people in such a short time, regardless of age and location (except deserted places). Furthermore, even though marketers need few money for product development, they need to input high endowments in advertisement of each brand to set up a brand image, brand loyalty and persuade people to choose their product instead of equally tasting and equally perceived competitor’s one. The only way to make it is to contribute money ‘piles’ in promotion and advertisement.
The graph on the left depict the real financial spendings of whole world industries in 2013 on advertisement, published by Nielsen group in quarterly Global AdView Pulse report. Respectively, the fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) macro sector, which is the long-standing leader among the other macro sectors, held 21.3 percent share of ad spend, bolstered by a 5.7 percent year-over-year increase in ad spend. This statistical data represent the real urge of FMCG products in qualitative marketing and where majority
of expenses are written-off. Therefore, cheap and popular viral marketing can become an option or even a future hallmark of cost reduction in FMCG industry.
Owing to the fact that the products range in FMCG sector is too broad and products have an enormous amount of substitutes (however, some brand have firm-specific advantages (FSA)), complementary products and alternatives, the competition is, hence, tough and differentiation is low. Therefore consumers usually don’t make decisions on the basis of brand differentiation but they purchase habitually (Moffett et al 2002.) This, abruptly, shows that FMCG sector is an everyday service which consists of a tremendously important and widely-used goods and products which are in need of radical marketing and sales promotion, targeted on satisfaction of customers versatile and always volatile needs and wishes for further higher return and brand recognition.
2.2.1 FMCG brand IRN-BRU
Since we already specified why the FMCG sector, with its interactivity and highly advertisement-tied promotional strategies, is so suitable for this analysis, we have come to a particular brand choice. IRN-BRU is a Scottish carbonated fizzy energizing drink which first been established in 1901 by A.G. Barr and from very beginning it abruptly gained a high interest among Scottish citizens and been promulgated as “Scotland’s other national drink” after Whiskey. Without any debates IRN-BRU become highly recognized and renowned brand in Scotland and has been competed with such soft drink giants as Coca-Cola and Pepsi, however, only on a Scottish market. In recent years they changed a huge amount of marketing campaigns to obscure Pepsi or Cola and to turn the customer choices back to “Irn-Bru”. Unfortunately, in Financial Times in October 2000,
Douglas Daft, the CEO at Coca-Cola, quoted that he sees in “Irn-Bru” nothing more than a local competitor in the non-alcoholic beverage market. Current success in Scotland and unique advertisement which impress everyone from up to down in a country is a great accomplishment, but that limits the brand value and remain it chained in local market. Even though, they increased their
sales in 2001 by 6%, remained a Scotland soft drink market leader and began the international expansion to Russia, USA and some European countries, their international recognition leaves much to be desired. Since any company need an expansion to increase its market share and uphold sales, “Irn-Bru” has the same target of internationalization. They are working and constantly trying to change marketing campaigns to tempt more and more customers, but still it is extremely hard to fight against market leaders. Therefore “Irn-Bru” as a typical representative of FMCG sector with a simple ardent desire to achieve international market place and rise up in multinational business area need and have to pay attention to marketing campaigns and therefore, the current research aims on facilitating, such internationally not well-known product, in the creation and implementation of right marketing ad to cover bigger audience and gain positive reaction in different countries.
3. Methodology
This section will explain which research methods have been undertaken with precise explanation on pros and cons of all possible alternative methods. This part will depict process of data collection, how the data have been collected and which material was relevant for this data accumulation. Also it will state the type of data collection, measurements, sample and question types.
3.1 Type of research
Professors C.R Kothari (1984) and Jacobsen (2002) in their book and article, respectively, defined different types of research methodology, what drives people decisions to undertake research and ways to execute the research procedure. By referring to their literature we would specify and meticulously describe the research types and before the exact research result section would be presented.
Descriptive vs. Analytical. Analytical type research basically oriented on analysis and further elaboration of already existing data or information in form of secondary data. Descriptive research includes comparative surveys or fact-finding enquiries, in other words the researcher without any control over variables want to figure out the standing of facts at present and to see how people react to certain facts or what are peoples’ preferences towards the certain item or idea. This research, alternatively called ex post facto research simply describe the straightforward reflection of people decisions by matter of survey or interview to set up a particular image which answer the research question. Since, the acme aim of this research is to find people preferences on decided items, we deduced that research is purely descriptive without analytical implications. Analysis of data will be shown but only based on descriptive graphical representation.
Applied vs. Fundamental. Fundamental approach by definition deals with generalization of
information to formulate the theory. By default, the purely mathematical and human phenomenal researches, which focus on development of universal rules and theories, are typical examples of fundamental approaches. Applied research, in turns, is directed on an immediate, particular problem, which certain organization or whole society face on. Applied research ultimately tries to point out the solutions or at least definite conclusions on analyzed topic to ease up the life of people or assist company in determined sphere. Current research target is solely one firm with a particular advertisement issue and evaluation on which type of ad is more applicable and which factors are important to customers to make advertisement campaign more appealing and lucrative; therefore, this manuscript is done on the basis of applied approach principles.
Qualitative vs. Quantitative. Quantitative type of research is formed on quantity measurement
or any measure that can be expressed in terms of numbers and quantity. Meanwhile, qualitative research is purely based on individual attitudes or any type of quality assessment. For instance, the investigation of underlying reasons for human behavior in certain situation, considering particular circumstance or brand. Qualitative approach expressed in comments, testimonials or verbal locution tables; quantitative convey information - in numbers, statistical tables or graphical representations. The executed research is done in a peculiar mixed or “hybrid” methodology approach, which amalgamate both quantitative and qualitative. (Creswell and Plano Clark 2007). Our research will cover the numerical information and also conclusive comments from respondents, which broadly express their feelings after video watching and reveal what exactly they recommend to change in them to make it kind-to-eye (so called first-hand review). With the help of mixed approach we tried to offset any drawbacks of both methods if they were separated and to expand the scope of research by adding new open qualitative data (Blake 1989; Greene, Caracelli, and Graham 1989, Rossman and Wilson 1991).
Inductive vs. Deductive. Inductive approach simply shows the single situation which
transform the collected and analyzed data in a concrete theory, to make it lucid: «from empiric to theory». On the other hand, deductive from the verb deduce is inverted approach, which transmit the existing theory, to a certain situation, the so called «theory to empirical» (Ghauri and Gronhaug, 2005). From the very first glance it can be seen that research aims to execute the research on a single firm in a single sphere (advertisement) and that, after collecting and analizing data, try to establish a solid templete for «ideal» viral ad to approach as many customers as possible on international arena. However, hypothesis which are pertinent to deductive approach will be formulated after the asked survey question and on basis of research question what emerges unneeded doubts about credibility of choice. To dispel the readers’ doubts about ambiguity of approach, we can state that hypotheses serve solely as a facilitators for research question answer. They are created with aim of analysis completeness, to fill in the gaps of analysis of asked questions and to make the research more representative. Hence, the chosen approach is inductive one and applicable to single firm with inclusion of ‘deduced’ hypotheses.
Regarding the timeframe factor, the current research will represent a cross-sectional or one-time study form, this means that the data collection is from a fixed point in one-time. Research will rely on a reality of the problem at a certain time point and then conclusions are drawn. This, to be plain, means that no data and results would be adjusted throughout the time passed and no second questionnaire would be released to see the difference in online buying process, since we do not have time, money and resources for this. The reason for picking up this kind of research method is due to its performance cheapness and is not so time-consuming to achieve (Ghauri and Gronhaug, 2005).
To shrink down the abovementioned definitions and our choices we put down the short type definition of projected research. The executed research is done in a mixed qualitative-quantitative approach to expand the breadth of analysis and not limit ourselves only with fixed close-answer
question analysis. This research is purely applied to a certain situation and does not have the idea of creation certain fundamental theory. This also explain the inductive approach, considering which, we could analyse the data from single situation and transfer it to whole firm(population), particularly to marketing department. Eventually this research tries to depict the peoples' behaviour and attitudes towards the different types of ads of one brand, thus no analytical work can be done. The analysis will be formated exclusively on descriptive (graphical) representation of responses. Regarding the time lapse, the one-time (cross-sectional) study plays role in this thesis.
3.2 Data collection
As usually researches can be based on collecting primary or secondary data. While considering secondary datum, it is qualitative or quantitative data extracted from already existing research for further elaboration and application in similar researches. Primary data, in turn, focus on accumulation of first-hand data by matter of survey or interview from respondents to see the fresh and ‘virgin’ view on the problem of newly emerged research question or to support or refute the secondary data of previously conducted research (Jacobsen, 2002). In our research the maximal priority has been dedicated to collection of primary data with a help of international online survey to collect the third-party independent responses and views of potential customers. (Ghauri and Grønhaug, 2005). Certain criteria of selection has been established (will be discussed in further sections) and 17 closed and 1 open-answer question containing general question, topic-specific question, and videos evaluation questions to see the ultimate picture of research. Since this practical research does not have broad theoretical implications, and to be honest have no previous analogous researches on this brand (“Irn-Bru”), the primary data are of great indispensability and whole result analysis section is based solely on it. Some secondary data have been extracted in form of graphs and some statistical factors to support the theory of Viral Marketing and why FMCG sector is so
further analysis on chosen brand to establish, or at least try to, the flawless video ad for international customers and what virtues will emerge the propensity to consume in them. Some theoretical background and ideas for survey have been created by referencing to focal Master thesis of UvA student and Halmstad University graduates, what can be considered as secondary data, and without any doubts, items have been borrowed one-to-one to avoid plagiarism and build own survey. Therefore, primary data are of great importance here and no secondary data are applied to answer the research question. Some secondary data are used to support and point out the importance of some generated variables in survey questions, like ‘video length’ or ‘language barrier’ (would be specified further).
3.2.1 Survey methodology
Since our survey is oriented on primary data collection and focused on responses from international participants, the most relevant and convenient way of distributing the questions to people is an online survey. To the point the sample size needs to be big enough to consider the data as representative and reliable for analysis. Thus, the primary research is conducted by constructing an online survey. There is a range of advantages of an online survey, which have been contemplated in Amy Blackstone book Sociological Inquiry Principles: Qualitative and Quantitative Methods (2012). First of all survey is cost-effective, since no money is needed to gather 200 or 300 replies in a relatively short time. Secondly, the surveys emerge the generalizability of data and results, meaning that results are representative picture of attitudes of large group of respondents towards the certain videos. Also survey tends to be data reliable and our survey is well-constructed and built with aim of eliminating any ambiguity by standardizing answers with broad range of possible responses. This also affects the validity issue, since it is a frequent problem in surveys. The responses do not limit people in their choices; hence all range of possible answers is provided. (see the “Asked questions” section). One more crucial beneficial aspect of survey is the versatility. We
do not cluster or separate respondents according to some groups (except age) to give the opportunity to participate to everybody, regardless of profession, race or religious views. The main restriction was on age, which had to be higher that 18, since survey concerns only people who officially can receive wage and pay from their wallets and to avoid any unhealthy soft drink propaganda among under-aged which are still under the parents custody (even though it is non-alcoholic). Of course, computer literacy to fill up the survey was important to shrink the survey dropout rate. Unfortunately a certain extent of inflexibility exists in surveys, meaning that people can be confused with fixed-questions or can propose their own way of problem solution. Therefore, we considered this and did a precautious 1 open-answer question that served as a field for comments and ideas presentation. Further, answers to that question will undergo the qualitative analysis to support or add something new to quantitative one, which has been executed on first 17 close-answer multiple-choice questions (mixed approach).
3.2.2 Survey structure
It was decided to conduct an online questionnaire which will basically consists of 18 questions 16 of which were single multiple-choice questions; one was multiple-choice comparative table and one open-answer question. According to Alcom (2011) the main issue while conducting a survey is to make it as simple and easy to fill up as possible for respondents. Therefore, we tried to make is as simple by clearly stating the question without any dubious meanings and also provide only one open-answer question in order not to tire out respondents and have the respondent rate higher and to make all answers more soberly done. Except the question, two videos have been provided followed by second part of multiple-choice questions, which estimate peoples’ preferences (question parts will be specified in ‘Asked questions’ section). After the analysis of all possible websites to make up survey and from which later on the survey could be distributed easily, Qualtrics,com has been
3.2.3 Sample
The sample was drawn on convenience basis. This is a non-probability sampling technique where respondent is selected due to convenient accessibility and proximity to the researcher. Convenience sampling is also the most appropriate for internationally oriented population, since no restrictions are established and survey can be distributed without obstacles to anybody in the world. The survey has been sent randomly by email to different countries' respondents over age 18 (Italy, The Netherlands, US, China, Ukraine etc.); also to University of Amsterdam current international students by accessing university e-mail directory. Moreover, to make survey absolutely international and cover different layers of potential customers, the Qualtrics questionnaire has been placed on social platforms: Facebook and Vkontakte. The frequent usage of social media, in turn, facilitate respondents in filling out this questionnaire what make the research survey even easier.
3.2.4 Trial test
Undoubtedly, initially the trial survey test including 20 randomly chosen respondents has been conducted with their critics and feedbacks on what are the potential drawbacks of survey, how browsers displayed videos and what can be changed before official survey dispersion. We received comments with stated flaws; they have been fixed in order to make the official information gaining less impedimental and to diminish the dropout rate among the respondents. Unfortunately, some dropout rate exists anyway (18%), since video resolution does not always suit to all browsers or simply absence of Flash Player on computers could be an issue, hence some malfunctions occurred
and repliers could not finish the survey even after our corrections after trial test. After the trial test, which lasted for one week from 1st till 6th of May, the official survey distribution has been initialized. Regarding the periods, and considering cross-sectional approach the official survey launch started on 6th of May and survey was closed on 31st of May.
3.2.5 Sample size
By definition, the higher the sample size the better and more credibly it reflects the answer to a problem and shows the real behavior of respondents. The higher sample better correlates with population and can survey as reputable source of information, for instance, for managers in a company, for with the research has been done. Our research has collected 278 responses from different countries, among different ages and cultural layers, based on convenience form. The highest response-rate was in Netherlands, Italy, China, Ukraine and US&UK. These country range clearly describes how scattered the international survey is and also point out that countries with highest response-rates belongs to different mental, cultural and ethical groups. That actually was the paramount target of research to collect the data from international respondents from various corners of the world where people have money and can become interested in new soft drink. Also, the independent international opinion is more representative for company managers, since they can see how people react to their local TV ads and see the real-life comparison with social media viral marketing on the same brand from the same year. That kind of survey can help them in creating peculiar combined social media ad to appeal people in international arena and be sure that this will affect customers positively, if “Irn-Bru” decides to expand drastically to international arena, due to help of previously done research.
The frequent issue on non-respondents emerged in this survey too. As it previously was stated, even with a trial test the dropout rate, or simply saying people who did not finish the survey,
they could misinterpret the final results and decrease the validity of the results, we decided to count 232 of them for result analysis and sacrifice uncompleted ones to maintain the research transparency.
3.2.6 Asked questions and Chosen Videos
This section contains examples of questions and lucid explanations to what this questions try to assess. From the very beginning, our survey consists of 6 topic-specific question parts, which also include two Irn-Bru video ads to watch.
• First part (Gender, country and age)
Initial part contained general multiple-choice questions regarding the age, sex and country of origin of respondents. On the one hand, these questions are familiar to any respondents and can easily be filled up, on the other, country of origin serves as a separation pillar for further result analysis and this variable is considered one of the most central in research manuscript, owing to fact that it represent the internationality of a sample and which countries have been engaged in research.
• Second part (‘First-hand acquaintance’ questions)
Why first-hand acquaintance? They try to build the first graphical impression on respondent’s attitude towards ads and social media. There were 5 questions, 3 of which regard time dedicated to watching TV and social media ads, one aimed to figure out the influence of ads on customer’s propensity to buy stuff online and one asked about which type of advertisement they reckon more credible: TV or Social Media. All these questions have been extracted and paraphrased from already done Master Thesis by Halmstad University/Lincoln University students Caroline
Gholamzadeh and Karolina Jakobsson (2011). The purpose of these questions where to see the attitudes towards the TV and social media, to understand how frequently people watch advertisements and does ad stimulate them to buy regular product. For answers the single multiple choice gradation scale has been used (from ‘Never’ to ‘All of the time’). Last question had only ‘TV’ or ‘Social Media’ as answer choices.
Questions:
-How frequently you watch TV advertisements? (both with purpose and accidentally)
-How often you use social media in everyday life? (YouTube, Facebook, Vkontakte, Twitter, etc.) -How frequently You watch advertisement on Internet? (YouTube, Facebook, Vkontakte, Twitter, etc.) -How frequently advertisement stimulates you to purchase regular product?
-Which type of advertisement you consider more credible? (Which information is more reliable?)
• Third part (Irn-Bru ads)
After the introductory questions the actual advertisements were presented. Before the video watch one referential question about respondents familiarity with soft drink industry has been asked: Before we start watching ads, how much do you know about soft drinks? Respondents also could
answer from ‘Nothing’ to ‘A lot’ depending on soft drink proximity to them. After wards respondents had a chance to want two ads, TV ad and social media or, better saying, viral marketing ad that have been launched in the same period of 2012. David Amers and Victoria Milne 2012 report on new marketing campaign of Irn-Bru «Get you through» presented graphically and numeriacally the abrupt uprising in sales and increase in view rates among Scottish citizens after campaign launch. The most viewed ad video among all is called 'Blind Date'.
This video is about the blind dating of shy young man and stout
Advert View rates
Blind Date 36.42% Fanny 30.13% Pink Bomb 29.55% Steamy Windows 20.78%
everything painted in bright colors and he became dare enough to speak and even say compliments to her. That is a core idea of all marketing ad of new campaign, promote product through courage, hilarious situations with some sexual implications. We decided to choose the most viewed and recognized, according to Scottish marketing reports, advertisement ‘Blind Data’ and compare it with a simple viral marketing ad launched in social media (YouTube) in the same year and promoting the same product. The viral ad is an unprofessional video in form of flash-mob with a bunch of penguins (people in costumes) in Russian metro, which were hasting around, dancing and delighting people, by their demeanor and funny look. All that was laid on rhythmic modern music and, of course, penguins were handling the “Irn-Bru” cans while being engaged in hanging around, bringing fun and entertaining all passengers in subway and wagons. The TV ad lasts 30 seconds, the VM ad lasts 2 minutes (see ‘Reference list’ for videos links).
Owing to the fact that ‘Blind Date’ ad is an intellectual property of brand “Irn-Bru” with strict copyright rules violation of which can be punished by law, we asked for permission from marketing managers of the company. They gave a full access to video distribution with only one condition of sending feedbacks back to the company managers after thesis submission to avoid copyright infractions. Therefore, this manuscript handles purely practical implications with scarce theoretical framework.
After video watch two simple questions, to test people’s awareness of presented ads and familiarity with a brand, have been inquired. Respondents could reply solely ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ for simplicity and ambiguity avoidance.
• Forth part (video comparison questions)
In a forth part more specific questions regarding the comparison and peoples’ preferences have been asked. Four questions would be asked on purely comparative basis to understand what
respondents like more and which advertisement they consider more creative, credible, stimulating to buy the product and undoubtedly, which of them they will recommend to their friends to watch. The later one accurately reveals the nature of viral marketing by matter of distribution to friends and fellow people, what eventually will ignite the epidemical promotion spread. (Lescovec, 2007; Gil-Or, 2010). Respondents had a chance to answer either TV or VM ad, also they could click on ‘None’ of them. The fifth question was referenced to videos and asked respondent’s opinion on which feature is more important in an ad: ‘Length’, ‘Content’, both of them or nothing is relevant in an advertisement video.
Questions:
Which, in your opinion, advertisement is more creatively done? Which, in your opinion, advertisement is more credible? Which ad would you recommend your friends to watch?
Which ad is more appealing to you and induce you more to purchase the product? What, in Your opinion, is more important for client in an ad?
• Fifth part (comparative table)
The fifth section pertain only one question, which is formulated in a table with 9 variables to make the analysis of the videos broader and meticulous. For instance, the most crucial variables included in questionnaire are ‘length of the video’ discussed in Charles Young article (2008), ‘language barrier’ (Cristina Valdez Rodriguez, 1996), ‘entertaining content’, ‘high- or low-involvement in advertised products, which ad has higher ‘attractive atmosphere’ and which advertisement better ‘familiarize respondent with a brand’. Some other variables are secondary ones granted the concrete picture and more reliable data fro analysis. Some of these 9 items, emphasizing the ‘attractiveness’ of one or another video has been taken with partial changes, from the existing
Marketing Thesis by Jon Jakobsen from Aarhus School of Business. Based on these results the certain deductions have been drawn and will be specified in result analysis part.
• Sixth part (Open-answer question)
This is the only question, which does not serve as a data for quantitative research but for qualitative one. Respondents after a bunch of 17 multiple-choice questions have been asked to any
comments on any of provided videos, and they freely could share their opinion about ads and visions around them. They also pointed out what, in their opinion as international customers, manager have to add or eliminate to make them be satisfied, to see the stimulus to try the drink and receive fascination from the videos. This part collected 40 comments in form of personal testimonials and they were applied in qualitative research part to elaborate and explore further the quantitative part. The last question also supported the quantitative part verbally, by people first-hand international views. With help of last question it was easier to build the concrete model of ‘ideal ad’ in terms of length and content after the broad explanations from respondents potential customers. This result part will show the percentage of comments supporting one ad, another, both or none and followed by direct examples in for of quotes. No programs, like NVivo have been used, since the comment sample size is small enough and needs to be extracted only from one source, to be picked and analyzed manually.
3.3 Generated Hypotheses
Due to the previously stated research question, limited number of respondents and above-mentioned survey questions, 5 hypotheses related to VM and its features are formulated. Tashakkori
and Creswell (2007, p. 208) called it a “hybrid” or “integrated” research question. Creswell and Plano Clark (2007) emphasized that some research questions can be answered based on mixing with related but self-generated hypotheses Consequently, these hypotheses emerged to broad up the conducted research.
Basically these hypotheses are not core factors of research, albeit they will facilitate the outcomes of research results, will transfer the results from sample to whole population and make the conclusion part be more credible. Herein the hypotheses, content for which has been inferred from the question asked to the respondents, are stated:
H1: Viral marketing stimulates customers to choose and advise the product more than TV
advertisements;
H2: Content of the video is more important than a length;
H3: Language and words understanding is important for information perception in an
advertisement;
H4: Viral marketing videos make potential customer feel involved more than TV
advertisements.
H5: Low tendency to view the advertising generates a low impact on the customer’s buying
act.
However, this ads comparison will be solely practical and subsequently all results with solid explanations would be handed in to marketing managers of the firm; all these hypotheses are subject to be proven or disproven.
4. Survey results and analysis
Current section will show the online survey results altogether with instanteneous explanations on them to see what people tend to reply, what respondents' answers mean and analyze the graphs for facilitation of final conclusion. The quantitative, supported by tables and graphs, and, afterwards, simplified qualitative analyses on results will be provided. Graphs will show what the majority of respondents answered, and by contemplating the answers we will make the deductions.
4.1 Quantitative (graphical) part
Initially we got the age gender and country of origin data. The gender number is almost tantamount; the female gender slightly prevails and counts 52.6% of respondents. 47.4% of respondents are male ones.
The respondent age group ranges from 18 to 60+ years old and undoubtedly the age with a highest propensity to buy and use soft drinks, when few health problems emerge and when people try absolutely different types of drinks, is from 18 to 45, and it surpasses all other with absolute majority of 97% out of all respondents. Answer Response % less then 18 0 0% 18-25 155 67% 26-45 70 30% 46-59 5 2% 60+ 2 1% Total 232 100%
When is comes to a differentiation the respondents according to country of origin the answer is a bit ambiguous. We decided to show in a table only countries that represent the highest numbers of respondednts, and hance are the most reliable. Also these countries emphasize the international despersion of respondednts and survey international orientation. There were no respondents from Scotland (UK does not include Scotland, due to soon coming referendum of independance) to focus on the desired target and to omit the bias.
The table with only few countries doe not mean that we decided to work on them only, we took into account all range of respondents from all the countries to clean up a ground for further broader researches and due to scarcity in time we cound not get more respondents. The depicted countries contain 81% of all country repliers.
In a second queson-block we aked for how frequently respondents use social media and also how much time they dedicate to watch TV and social media ads in real life. We figures out that people use social media extremely frequently in everyday life; 33% of respondents replied 'Often' and 50% of respondents 'All the time' what on 1-to-5 scale respresent 4 and 5, respectively. Thus 83% of people can be put in a slot of frequent users. Even though the social media usage is so high, people prefer not to spend much time in watching new products' advertisements. The graphs represent the tendancy of people to watch TV and social ads
Answer Response % Netherlands 77 34% China 22 10% Ukraine 27 12% Italy 27 12% United States of America and UK 29 13% Total 81%
or respondents replied 'Rarely' in TV watch and 46% (106) in Social Media (SM) one. 14% and 15% responded 'Never' to TV ads and Social ads watch, respectively. That means that 55% and 60%, respectively, do not, or extremely rarely, watch advertisements, regardless of provider. However, 46% in TV and 40% in SM prefert to watch at least sometimes and few ads. This
inclination support the idea that advertisement need to be very catchy and laconic to ignite the respondents to watch it to the end.
So we proved that no link between the frequent online social life and ad watching exists.
Answer Response % Never 69 30% Rarely 125 54% Sometimes 31 13% Often 7 3% 15% 46% 24% 13% 2% 0 20 40 60 80 100 120
Never Rarely Sometimes Often All of the Time
Frequency of Social media(e.g. YouTube) ads watch 14% 41% 32% 12% 2% 0 20 40 60 80 100 120
Never Rarely Sometimes Often All of the Time
Afterwards we wanted to check out how frequently advertisement stimulate the respondent to
buy the product. Herein the picture is similar and mutually interchangable with a previous graphs. That is a consolable sign, since it proves that high percentage of advertisement disregard generates the low impact and does not stimulate the customer to buy product after watching ad. Hypothesis 5 exectly tries to prove or refute this fact. The fact seems to be evidenced, what we can glance on a provided graph from respondents’ answers. Here, in a higher extent we can see the same tendency as in a previous graphs on frequency of watching. Consequently, this is logical and natuaral to have such result. 84 % of respondents ‘Never’ or ‘Rarely’ got stimulated to buy the product after watching ad on it, what, by default, prove the Hypothesis 5. However, the real-life example based on VM and TV comparison will make the picture even more complete later. Moreover, this result again poses us in front of the fact of making ads as appealing as possible, and what this research will try to make up after further question analysis.
The last question in a second block touched such trifle as respondent’s credence. Out of 232 respondents 141 (61%) trust TV ads more. Less popular is Social media in sence of confidence in its adverts, only 91, or 39% of respondents incline to support SM as a form of product promotion. This is not surprising, since the most conventional, long-lasting and easiest way of getting information was and is television, with a simple ckick-on function. Also
All of the Time 0 0% Total 232 100% 30% 54% 13% 3% 0% 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140
Never Rarely Sometimes Often All of the Time
unknown scources which not everyone want to surf in. Even Forbes (2012) did a comperative statistical characteristics of both these types of information transmitters and the results were even higher, from perspective of TV prevailing. However, even with certain surpassing of TV credence, sicial media trust is not that low to say that people consider this source of information unreliable. With last years drastic digital growth, social medias popularity rise and its integration in people’s everyday life, TV could soon become less popular and even could become a history in form of ‘side sound while searching web’. So, we state that TV is more credible from the side of information valance, but social media is not so far and also, with lower level of support, can be used to supply people with reliable information. Also this is a good background for next comparative questions where we will see, does the credibility of TV is supported with real example or people tend to trust social media ad more.
After the ‘first-hand acquaintance’ questions the actual video watching took place. Before respondents watched the video the additional clarification question concerning the awareness in soft drink industry was inquired. People had choice range from 1 to 5 to state how familiar they are with the industry, products from which the subsequent videos promoted directly. Almost half of respondents replies ‘Average’ and the Mean of 3.06 explain almost no skewness and the pure centered bell-shape graph which state that majority of people have at least average level of conversance of the industry.
This question is also representative in sense of how famous the brand, since after watching people have been asked about the brand recognition, and
9 46 113 49 15 0 20 40 60 80 100 120
Nothing < Average Average > Average A lot
№ o f r es po nd en ts Mean=3.06
we will see does this brand really not so internationally renowned or we chose the wrong brand to test.
Afterwards, people watched two ads (TV ad-0:30; VM ad-2:00min). The advertisements were provided in the basic YouTube versions in originally motioned languages. TV was in english, VM ad did not have any speeches or monologues, but only one phrase in the end in russian, since video was filmed there, «Everything is good» (Все хорошо). (The video links are in a Referance list.)
Immediately after the watching respondents where faced upon the two recognition questions. One asked about familiarity with a brand, second about facing these ads before. The data collected demonstrates almost absolute unawareness about the brand Irn-Bru with only 13% of people who know this brand at least by implication. Even more sullenly looks the statistics of familiarity with any of this brand ads. Only 5% of people replied ‘Yes’, on
a question, wheather they saw the ad before or not. This graphically shows on the international non-proliferation and poor prevalence of the brand on international arena. These types of brand with low recognition level need to disseminate internationally to get the market share and hence the international survey target of non-famous firm is supported. Moreover, the brand is perfectly suited in the role of tested brand due to low international recognition. 12 220 0 50 100 150 200 250 Yes No Ads recognition 30 202 0 50 100 150 200 250 Yes No Brand recognition
Fourth block was built with more straightforward and ascetic manner. This block evaluates the preferences of respondents regarding the observed ads and specifying that one of them is TV and second is Viral. Forst of all the credibility of ads has been checked. 39% of respondednts consider Viral ad as more credible be, comparing to 27% of TV ad suporter. Everybody else did not regard any of the ads credible and count for 34% of respondents. This results particularly show the fact that, despite the fact that previously respondents inclined to support the TV ad a more credible one, they did not do so on real-life examples of the same year, same brand ads. This is a good issue for marketing managers of Irn-Bru to bare in mind, that a simple Viral ad exceeded the most viewed, in Scotland solely, advertisement. The fact of brand unawareness and incompatibility with international tastes, definitely, played role. Concerning the answer ‘None’, the better answer to such a huge percentage of ignorance would be given after the comperative table in subsequent questions, but beforehand we could say that both of videos have drawacks, thus some people, obviously, do not enjoy them.
The second question also was a real-life proof-question, the primary purspose of which was to see whether viral marketing stimulates people more to buy the product or not. Also reders can see how many people will not suport the purchase stimulus in form of ads, by answering ‘None’, and thus supporting already asked question: How frequently advertisement stimulates you to purchase regular product? We remind, that 84% of respondents rarely or never get induced to by the product by any of the ads.
As it can be descried, the VM outreach the TV ad twice and graphically we can deduce that VM incudes people
94 54 84 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 Viral Marketing
almost twice higher that best viewed local TV ad in Irn-Bru. This again pointed out the international survey differentiation between the local citizens and the international customers. The lower acceptance of TV ad, compering to VM one, is lucidly seen and hence supports the stated Hypothesis number 1. In addition, we clearly represent the absolute disregard of ads with 36% of respondents, what partially prove that fact that respondents do not pay attention to ads as something that impel the buying act from customers.
Afterwards, two interesting questions, which were formulated, based on Viral Marketing origins and basic features. First, we figured out that VM is much more creatively done, with 65% of respondents. Only 24% of respondents followed the TV ad answer and remaining 11% did not do the justice to any of the proposed videos. This ratio indicates that VM campaign is very catchy and entertaining. One more factor, which grounds the VM popularity and success, is the tendency of viewers to distribute video to their friends and relatives. This video has collected 55% of respondents who used to forward this link to their friends and acquaintances. 22% of respondents consider TV ad as more appealing and applicable to be forwarded. Rest of respondents, in amount of
23% did not maintain any of the video and disregarded the further resending of both of them. Albeit, some of respondents chose TV ad or ‘None’ of them, the prevailing majority picked up the Viral ad and by doing so, that concreted the fact that this video has a frank viral potential. The following
145 56 26 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 Viral Marketing campaign (IRN-BRU Penguins in subway) TV advertisement (IRN-BRU Gets you
through) None Creativity of the ad 129 50 53 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 Viral Marketing campaign (IRN-BRU Penguins in subway) TV advertisement (IRN-BRU Gets you through) None
Moreover, the result which depicts the high inclination to share the VM ads with friends also prove fully the first stated Hypothesis.
The fifth question did not serve as comperative, but as representative one. The question clarified which factor is more important in video: Content or Length. This is a topical issue, since the length of two videos is drastically different and the content of viral ad does not manifest the main format of TV Irn-Bru promotional campaign (David Amers and Victoria Milne, 2012). Further the comperative question with real life examples will be analysed, but beforehand this clarification question in form of general peoples' preferences is provided. By the way, the question grants the potential answer of proof disproof to the Hypothesis 2. All replies collected formulate the template of understanding what is eventually more important for consumers in ads and also will be used to build the final decisions on factors which managers need to take into account in their ads, regardless which type (VM or TV) to we would advise in 'Conclusion'.
The result explicitly portray that content of the video is much more crucial for respondents than a length of video, however, the same 47% of respondents perceive the adverts mix of both content and length. Undoubtedly, according to the graphical representation, the content of the video is more important than length, since everybody who replied both considered content as significant as length and inseparability of these features in ideal ads. However, even with apparent advantage of content, the Hypothesis 2 only partially can be proved. The further elaboration is needed to make it clearer, or eradication of full-range answers including ‘Both’ and ‘None’. This question agrees that length is
11 108 108 5 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 Length of the
not the most important virtue for ad but need to be taken into account altogether with content to satisfy the absolute majority of consumers.
Fifth section is composed of 1 comparative table with 9 variables for analysis. Every of this variables will be visualized on a graphs and discussed afterwards. We also decided to separate the 9 variables according to answer trends; firstly, the answers with a peremptory majority of respondents who chose a certain answer, secondly, a graphed down contradictory results which need to be analyzed.
The following table graphically represents how VM ad prevails upon TV advert and, interesting to point out, that due to pursue of reliability of results all possible answers have been provided; no of the answers not even closely reflect such strong endorsement as VM with the total
rate of 55% to 60% out of total number of respondents.
The shown answers also prove the Hypothesis 3 about the language barrier, by 59% of respondents who consider Viral Marketing less confusion in sense of information perception and comprehension. This feature is substantial for international clients, since they need to understand what the product is
130 132 132 137 137 50 39 37 38 20 30 26 36 11 46 22 35 21 46 29 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% Entertaining content Attractive atmosphere Cause positive attitude Closer to people( makes you feel
involved)
No language barrier
