Know-How Exchange : Student Questions

Dear Dan,

There was a question about viral marketing a few weeks ago.

You’ll find the question and the posts answering it here: https://www.marketingprofs.com/ea/qst_question.asp?qstID=31678

Viral marketing could be a great subject for your final paper.
And yes, I’d urge you to both expand on your findings and to contextualize things.

As well as asking what causes something to become viral, why
not consider pulling from other disciplines?

There are incredibly powerful elements of chaos theory at work in viral marketing (sensitive dependence on initial conditions; rapid divergence of nearby trajectories, and strange attractors).

And there are elements of Darwinism (willingness or ability to change over time), and neurology (the establishment of neural pathways and
the formation of new memories), so there are lots of directions you
could wander off in, find compelling content to add to your narrative from, before wandering back to your main question.

Might this keep your reader on his or her toes, thereby engaging them more?

There are also powerful elements of brand building and brand picture compilation at work in viral marketing: people build their impressions of any given brand in the same way a bird builds its nest: a bit from here,
a bit form there that combine in the mind to create the larger whole, and all of which ties in with viral messaging because at heart ALL marketing is, or could be said to be, viral in some way.

I hope this helps. Good luck to you.

Gary Bloomer
Wilmington, DE, USA

Dear dannyjw,

No worries. But as to it being too much to tackle? Nah, not if you focus on one country, or on one nationality.

Dunno where you are in the world but the thing is this: people are people: and unless they live in a Himalayan monastery or under a rock in the woods, they and their essential qualities, traits, and foibles don't change and WHERE they are is also largely irrelevant; they're all nosey, they all want to scandal and the gossip; they all slow down to see the blood at the scene of a road accident, and whether they admit it or not, they all—ALL—want to see all of this AND the cute puppy in the video or to see the rank outsider come along in a talent show and kick everyone else's ass (think of Susan Boyle on Britain's Got Talent and Paul Potts: as far as the great British public was concerned these two were as ugly as sin but when they started to sing! Holy crap: voices like angels the both of them).

Why do things that become viral intrigue us? Because LIFE is viral!

They remind us of "there but for the grace of God go I"; they remind us that the crap in our lives can always be countered by someone else who is on the receiving end of MORE crap. And for both these negative scenarios the opposite is also true of the more positive traits.

We ALL want to be the rock star, the movie star, the TV star and although a tiny fraction of souls BECOME those things, often, it's the downsides that bring the downfalls as well: you can have tons of money and all kinds of hangers-on and all the shiny baubles and STILL be desperately unhappy and, as is often the case, also be a class "A" wanker—a shit of the first order.

Viral messages spread the glad tidings of the fall from grace of these kinds of people and we, the viewers, watch and secretly think "Serves you right!"

Likewise, viral messages can buoy up the underdog and propel that person to superstardom and there won't be a dry eye in the house and every member of the audience will, to the last one, be thinking "Good for you! Bloody well done!"

So, that's enough from me for now, but I hope this wee rant has helped you. Lordy, you have some work to do, don't you?

But it seems to me that you'll be just fine. Keep your eye on the horizon and permit nothing to tip you off course. What are you waiting for? Get to it: chop chop!

Good luck to you!

Gary Bloomer
Wilmington, DE, USA