.

.

Tuesday 28 October 2014

Viral Marketing & the Ice Bucket Challenge

Unless you have been hiding under a rock, you cannot have missed the Ice Bucket Challenge, which swept across social media channels during the summer. The viral marketing campaign was launched by ALS Association. It encouraged donations to support in the fight against ALS disease by having participants upload videos of themselves pouring ice water over their head. This blogpost will consider why the campaign became so successful, before reflecting on the negative consequences ALS experienced.
The campaign exploited a promotions model, acknowledged as the most solid strategy where people spread the marketing message without incentives (Klopper, 2002). ALS's campaign follows typical features for this model. For instance, it is funny, creative and highly personalised. The marketing message allowed participants to express, enhance or show off their personality, thus motivating involvement and reaching others at a personal-level. It incorporated aspects of game and competition by challenging others.
Another element that contributed to the Ice Bucket Challenge's success was how easy it was to pass on. Modern phones allow simple video recording and provides apps for social media sharing. Secondly, by utilising social media the message was able to scale quickly across geographical boarders. Participants were encouraged to nominate friends, which triggered an accumulative effect. Thirdly, the people were encouraged to share the video through social media platforms, where messages can spread quickly due to established human networks, often compromising hundreds of acquaintances. Moreover, the campaign exploited common and fundamental motivations, as it appealed to consumers wishes to be cool or popular by joining (Kopper, 2002). Lastly, the Ice Bucket challenge exploited the labour and resources of consumers to further transfer the marketing message. These five principles compromises an effective viral marketing strategy (Wilson, 2002), which gives reason for the campaigns remarkable success. The celebrity endorsement was also a huge success factor. As celebrities joined, it created the perception that by adopting their behaviour notions from celebrities would be transferred to participants.
Some reverse effects typical for viral marketing emerged. It became evident that the message was amended or the true meaning behind the marketing message got lost for many participants. Numerous recordings show the challenge without mentioning the fundraising, their donation nor showing any awareness of the disease. Hence, viral marketing will give power to the consumer, where the organisation loses control. A survey reveals that 53% of British participants did not donate (Saul, 2014). The campaign has received critique for triggering spamming, peer pressure, water waste and for being about vanity.
In conclusion, the success was grounded in the viral marketing strategy and celebrity endorsement. Viral marketing is a positive direction for our society as it helps level the playing-field. It supports smaller organisations with restricted marketing budgets to compete with big corporations. In the future, solutions are hopefully developed to help organisations cope with the negative consequences. What’s your view on the campaign? Did you participate?
References:
Kopper, H.B. (2002) Viral Marketing: A Powerful, but Dangerous Marketing Tool. South African Journal of Information Management, 4 (2). Available from: http://www.sajim.co.za/index.php/SAJIM/article/view/159 [Accessed 11th October 2014].
Saul, H. (2014) ALS ice bucket challenge: Over half of Brits polled did not donate to charity afterwards. Available from: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/als-ice-bucket-challenge-over-half-of-brits-polled-did-not-donate-to-charity-afterwards-9696690.html [Accessed 9th October 2014].
Wilson, R. (2000) The Six Simple Principles of Viral Marketing. Web Marketing Today. Available from: http://library.softgenx.com/Children/marketing/ViralMarketing.pdf [Accessed 20th October 2014].
Picture Credit:
http://memegenerator.net/instance/53500946

6 comments:

  1. I think the ice bucket challenge’s successes were somewhat compromised by the very strategy that made it successful in the first place. By relying on people’s vanity and having the campaign spread through nominations, rather than on active marketing on behalf of the organisation itself, it went viral in an incredibly short amount of time, and as you said, raised huge amounts of money, but at the same time the ALS association lost control of the campaign, and most people who have done the ice bucket challenge don’t even seem to know what they are doing it for. Most people don’t seem to be any more aware of ALS than they were before the ice bucket challenge went viral, so in that sense the campaign hasn’t been very successful. But I guess if the goal was simply to raise money they seem to have done pretty well, especially since many celebrities participated and, presumably, donated substantial amounts of money…

    ReplyDelete
  2. I think that the Ice Bucket Challenge was a success although the concept may have changed along the way. I think one of the reason that it was so widespread was because that the celebrities participated in the early stag. It was perceived as not only a fun thing but also a really cool thing to do. But in the meantime, many people may have forgotten the real idea of the challenge and just want to have fun.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I agree, celebrity endorsment was a huge contributor to the campaign's success. Moreover, the fact that most people were unaware of the cause and that the ALS Association lost control over it is exactly what makes viral marketing highly problematic.

      Delete
  3. I agree. The success of the ice bucket challenge is not a coincidence. All the elements you mentioned constributed to its success.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I think the IBC was an absolutely success in terms of awareness and fundraising. However, the reasons behind are far more questionable, as most people involved did it for vanity or the craze. 53% of the British who accepted it didn’t know the causes and, I guess the fact other charities such as Macmillan Cancer Support used the same campaign didn’t help at all. I remember being a bit upset about that; it looked like everyone tried to exploit the phenomenon in order to obtain cash. On the other hand, I also feel charities should be clearer and explain where all this money goes.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I was also quite upset about the fact that the challenge became more about vanity than fundraising. Indeed, many charities should probably inform us more.

      Delete