viral marketing.pdf

5 Selling more

5.1 About business

5.1 About business Viral marketing

Discussion

1 Work with another student. Discuss

these questions.

1 What marketing opportunities does the

new technology in the photo offer?

2 Have you ever been targeted as a

consumer using this advertising medium?

3 To what extent do you think that new

advertising technologies should be

regulated?

Inbox - Subscriptions - Favourites - Playlist - My Videos

Skim reading

2 Read the text opposite quickly and

find the answers to these questions.

1 How do viral web ads spread?

2 How has advertising changed as a result?

3 Has viral web advertising become easier

or more difficult?

Video Life

From: Snout 37

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

★ ★

Comments: 53

653 ratings

Six years ago, ad executive Ed Robinson carried out an

experiment. He spent $10,000 to produce a humorous video

about a man who meets an explosive end while inﬂ ating a

child’s raft . He attached his ﬁ rm’s Web address to the clip and

emailed it to ﬁ ve friends. Then he waited.

Scan reading

3 Find what these figures from the article refer to.

1 $10,000

3 five

5 $150 million

2 $250,000 to $500,000

4 500,000 6 100 million

Reading for detail

4 Mark these statements T (true) or F (false).

1 Robinson proved that customers would spread advertisements if they were entertaining.

2 Companies have reallocated advertising budgets worth millions of dollars to the Net.

3 Individual video ads have more shock impact than they did in the past.

4 Video ads have to compete with increasing numbers of other online videos.

5 Video sharing sites believe that more ad content will attract users to their sites.

6 Most video viral ads appear on spots companies have paid for.

B y the end of the week,

more than 60,000 people

had seen the twelve-

second video, Robinson

says. The video had ‘gone viral’,

passing from Robinson’s friends to

their own friends and from there,

to blogs and sites across the Web.

Within three months, Robinson’s

Web site received 500,000 hits .

For Robinson, the trafﬁ c was

conﬁ rmation that the video and

others like it could create a buzz

and, in turn, make big bucks . ‘I

was trying to prove a point: If you

entertain your audience, they will

get it and the viral mechanism will

make the audience come to watch

you.’

Cashing in

Companies have gotten the message.

Lured by the prospect of reaching

millions of consumers without also

spending millions of dollars for

television air time or space in print

media, companies have shifted

more ad dollars to the Net. Video

viral marketing – so named because

it relies on computer users to spread

commercials from person to person

– has expanded from a negligible

piece of the advertising pie to a

$150 million industry, researchers

estimate.

Victim of its own success

However, viral marketing has

become a victim of its own success.

As more ads and user-created

videos go online, getting ads to

go viral has become increasingly

difﬁ cult. Whereas these ads were

once relatively rare, they now have

to compete with millions of other

video clips. Companies need to

spend more to give their message

an edge . Today, Robinson’s London

company, The Viral Factory, charges

$250,000 to $500,000 to create ads

he guarantees will reach a wide

audience.

Video sites

Not only do advertisers need to

spend more to make the ads, but

increasingly, they’re having to pay

to get them seen in the ﬁ rst place.

Rather than waiting for new videos to

drop into their mail boxes, users are

now going to sites like YouTube for

entertainment. Many of the hundred

or so video sharing sites still don’t

charge for posting videos: they fear

that too many ads will drive away

audiences and stiﬂ e user-created

content. After all, users go to these

sites to see the videos most people

ﬁ nd interesting, not ones some

company paid to place. However,

the largest and most popular sites,

like YouTube , which shows about

100 million videos daily, already

sell some spots, though they won’t

disclose advertising fees.

Going mainstream

It makes sense that video-sharing

sites are wary of turning off users

with too many ads. Neither the sites

nor advertising companies want

virals to become the new online

spam. Still, with people spending

more time on the Net, and many

using video-friendly high-speed

connections, it seems highly likely

that viral video advertisements will

become mainstream before long.

And, as competition for online user

attention increases, companies will

be forced to do more to ensure their

ads are watched. That in turn could

encourage Web sites to charge more

for spots. The bar has been raised.

Listening

5 2:01 Elaine and Marcus work for a tyre manufacturer. Listen and decide what they

disagree about.

6 Listen again and complete these opinion statements.

1 Because they are entertaining, viral ads are easier to

than TV ads.

Search for the keywords

” viral marketing

videos” . Download

some examples of video

clips and hold a class

vote for the best one.

2 Virals are having as they become more common.

3 Viral campaigns only reach a of the population.

4 Humourous ads don’t necessarily result in

5 People

when they watch advertising by choice.

Discussion

7 In small groups, explain why you agree or disagree with the opinions in 6.

8 Do you agree with the statement below? Describe viral or TV advertisements you like.

How do they get your attention?

Like a James Bond ﬁ lm, a good ad has three essential ingredients: sex appeal, humour,

and suspense.

9 Discuss how you would use sex appeal, humour, or suspense to promote these products.

soda holidays jeans chewing-gum music pizza car tyres printer cartridges

★ ★ ★

Plik z chomika:

Inne pliki z tego folderu:

Inne foldery tego chomika: