Is Viral Marketing an effective and reliable method of advertising and branding? A perspective of Gen- Y of India

The world of marketing has been revolutionized in recent times. So many new methods of marketing are being experimented with. Marketing is imperative for any business and the world today focuses on gaining more attention from the customers, where people are rigorously trying to find out effective and cost saving techniques of reaching out to the customers. Viral Marketing is also one such technique which is gaining popularity these days. Viral Marketing if done effectively is a cheap and fast means of marketing. Primarily it works on the principle of “Electronic Word of Mouth”. Viral marketing is still in its nascent stage and has a huge potential if researched extensively. There is a high uncertainty and unpredictability about a marketing campaign going viral. Hence, the purpose of this study is to explore if viral marketing can really help in effective advertising and branding, and what are the elements that are essential for making a content go exponentially popular on internet. The study is specifically focussed on the perception of Gen-Y i.e., people born between 1977 to 1994, as this population segment has the most active internet users. With the use of a structured questionnaire conducted with 128 respondents within India, we analysed their responses and perspectives on viral marketing in order to develop a deeper understanding about this topic. This study has generated many new insights in the area of viral marketing, especially about the most important elements that enable an ad campaign to go viral. This study might help the marketers to come up with better campaigns which would have more possibility to become successful in terms of their reach to the consumers.