E-MARKETING TOOLS 501As the penetration of smart phones is growing, European gaming gets more social (connect,
compete and socialise with friends and others). According to a study conducted by comScore,
42% of people in the EU5 countries played a game on their mobile device during February 2012,
with the UK leading the way. In the same period, 6.1 million EU5 smart-phone gamers logged
into a social game on their devices, an increase of 42% in the past six months, representing
13.2% of smart-phone gamers overall.^54Viral marketing
Quite oft en the success of advergames and online games depends strongly on the strength of
online word-of-mouth advertising, also called ‘word-of-mouse’ advertising. Viral marketing i s
a set of techniques that is used to spur brand users and lovers, game participants or advocate
consumers among the target group to promote their favourite brand to friends and relatives.
Th ey are put to work to spread the word about the brand or product by using e-mail, SMS,
‘tell or send to a friend’ buttons or via diff erent social media sites as Facebook, Google+,
YouTube, review sites and infl uential blogs. Viral marketing attempts to harness the strongest
of all consumer triggers: namely, personal recommendation. Viral marketing uses the snowball
principle, and the typical network nature of the Internet strongly supports rapid exponential
growth in the message’s exposure and its infl uence in a relatively eff ortless manner. Just like
viruses, viral marketing strategies take advantage of rapid multiplication to explode the message
to thousands or millions of ‘victims’. One of the fi rst viral campaigns was set up by Hotmail.
By simply using the free Web-based e-mail package, consumers hawked the message as every
message they sent contained a Hotmail ad (‘Get your own private free e-mail at http://www.
hotmail.com ’). Hotmail grew to 12 million accounts in its fi rst year, 1996. Compared with the
results of its print campaigns (100 000 new subscribers), this result was impressive.^55Two of the most shared videos on YouTube use humour. In February 2011, Volkswagen launched the viral marketing
campaign ‘ The Force’, featuring a pint-sized Darth Vader, to introduce the new 2012 Passat. A week before the
Super Bowl, teaser videos and eventually the full video were seeded. This effort received a major buzz with 13.7
million views prior to the game. Volkswagen used its own social channels as an integral part of its digital activation,
Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, next to featuring the Passat spot on the homepages of MSN and Yahoo!. As a result
over 120 blogs and media outlets mentioned the spots, including Perez Hilton , AdWeek , New York Times , MotorTrend ,
BrandWeek and Jalopnik. During Super Bowl Sunday Volkswagen secured exclusive ownership of ESPN’s mobile siteBUSINESS INSIGHT
Successful viral marketing campaigns- Who do you think made this game?
Ketnet (TV channel) McDonald’s The teacher The researcher Someone else - What is the purpose of this game? Choose the answer that you think is correct:
Teach me To play a To make me To make To visit McDonald’s
how to use fun game like McDonald’s me happy or ask mum or
the computer dad to go there
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