Viral Advertising
This page is a work in progress. If you understand the problem of viral advertising, please help develop this into a resource capable of describing the problem to the mass market.
Viral Advertising is cloaked marketing. It seeks to deceive an existing community into promoting an advertiser's products without reimbursment to the community.
This form of advertising can work. Hotmail is constantly used as the best example...people sign up and a link back to hotmail was put at the bottom of all email they sent. Their friends would see this and subscribe themselves. [Editor GaryGo?: Viral Advertising is a problem, but Hotmail IS itself a product, so there's no deception in Hotmail's inclusion of a link at the end. The later example is better.]
This form of advertising has no place in the jam band community. Because bands like Phish have taping policies which prohibit sites which facilitate the trading of their music to make money of any kind, the community is run by volunteers. Of the many sites which promote the jam band community, there are very few which make money.
The community has lasted for years with very little commercial advertising spurring it on. Word of mouth has been the preferred way to learn about new bands and even new festivals. Viral marketing is a method to exploit this word of mouth trust in an existing community for commercial gain.
Here are two examples of promotions. The first is a traditional word of mouth, the second is viral marketing. The difference is subtle but very important.
The person that posted the viral marketing message has a vested interest in promoting the band. They are making money or getting points for swag.
The first message has no vested interest and is true word of mouth. Because the community is run by volunteers, I feel people should not be allowed to make money by exploiting a community through deceitful advertising.
Internal Resources
An AnalysisOfViralSpam - This is my own analysis of the techniques used in the Robert Randolph spam.
News Articles
http://slate.msn.com/id/112612/
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.11/mustread.html?pg=11
http://www.thestandard.com/article/display/0,1151,18848,00.html
http://www.csmonitor.com/atcsmonitor/cybercoverage/norton/p-121499pilgrimviral.html
Articles promoting
http://www.wilsonweb.com/wmt5/viral-principles.htm
Viral Advertising is cloaked marketing. It seeks to deceive an existing community into promoting an advertiser's products without reimbursment to the community.
This form of advertising can work. Hotmail is constantly used as the best example...people sign up and a link back to hotmail was put at the bottom of all email they sent. Their friends would see this and subscribe themselves. [Editor GaryGo?: Viral Advertising is a problem, but Hotmail IS itself a product, so there's no deception in Hotmail's inclusion of a link at the end. The later example is better.]
This form of advertising has no place in the jam band community. Because bands like Phish have taping policies which prohibit sites which facilitate the trading of their music to make money of any kind, the community is run by volunteers. Of the many sites which promote the jam band community, there are very few which make money.
The community has lasted for years with very little commercial advertising spurring it on. Word of mouth has been the preferred way to learn about new bands and even new festivals. Viral marketing is a method to exploit this word of mouth trust in an existing community for commercial gain.
Here are two examples of promotions. The first is a traditional word of mouth, the second is viral marketing. The difference is subtle but very important.
- Hey Tom, I just heard about a new festival. Do you want to go with me? Check it out: http://www.oorannob.com
- I saw your post on Etree Forums and thought you’d like to know that Robert Randolph & the Family Band just launched a really cool Lap Steel Guitar giveaway. Robert himself will be giving the winner lessons. If you haven’t heard of Robert Randolph yet, you can sample some of his work here: http://pages.m80im.com/?TDoxNjU=
The person that posted the viral marketing message has a vested interest in promoting the band. They are making money or getting points for swag.
The first message has no vested interest and is true word of mouth. Because the community is run by volunteers, I feel people should not be allowed to make money by exploiting a community through deceitful advertising.
Internal Resources
An AnalysisOfViralSpam - This is my own analysis of the techniques used in the Robert Randolph spam.
News Articles
http://slate.msn.com/id/112612/
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.11/mustread.html?pg=11
http://www.thestandard.com/article/display/0,1151,18848,00.html
http://www.csmonitor.com/atcsmonitor/cybercoverage/norton/p-121499pilgrimviral.html
Articles promoting
http://www.wilsonweb.com/wmt5/viral-principles.htm
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