Editing Viral marketing (section)

==History==
The emergence of "viral marketing", as an approach to advertisement, has been tied to the popularization of the notion that ideas spread like viruses. The field that developed around this notion, memetics, peaked in popularity in the 1990s.<ref name="memes">{{cite journal | last1 = Burman | first1 = J. T. | year = 2012 | title = The misunderstanding of memes: Biography of an unscientific object, 1976–1999 | journal = [[Perspectives on Science]] | volume = 20 | issue = 1| pages = 75–104 | doi = 10.1162/POSC_a_00057 | s2cid = 57569644 | doi-access = free }} (This is an [[open access]] article, made freely available courtesy of [[MIT Press]].)</ref> As this then began to influence marketing [[guru]]s, it took on a life of its own in that new context.

The brief career of Australian pop singer [[Marcus Montana]] is largely remembered as an early example of viral marketing. In early 1989, thousands of posters declaring "Marcus is Coming" were placed around [[Sydney]], generating discussion and interest within the media and the community about the meaning of the mysterious advertisements. The campaign successfully made Montana's musical debut a talking point, but his subsequent music career was a failure.<ref name="Molitorisz">{{Cite web |last=Molitorisz |first=Sacha |date=10 August 2012 |title=Viral Videos, Facebook, YouTube, Sex Tapes {{!}} Short Way to the Top |url=https://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/music/a-short-way-to-the-top-20120809-23v65.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130107074119/https://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/music/a-short-way-to-the-top-20120809-23v65.html |archive-date=7 January 2013 |access-date=21 February 2022 |website=[[The Age]] |page=4 |issn=0312-6315}}</ref>

The term viral strategy was first used in marketing in 1995, in a pre-[[digital marketing]] era, by a strategy team at Chiat / Day advertising in LA (now TBWA LA), led by Lorraine Ketch and Fred Sattler, for the launch of the first [[PlayStation]] for [[Sony Computer Entertainment]].{{citation needed|date=June 2020}} Born from a need to combat huge target cynicism the insight was that people reject things pushed at them but seek out things that elude them.{{citation needed|date=June 2020}} Chiat / Day created a 'stealth' campaign to go after influencers and opinion leaders, using street teams for the first time in brand marketing and layered an intricate omni-channel web of info and intrigue.{{citation needed|date=June 2020}} Insiders picked up on it and spread the word.{{citation needed|date=June 2020}} Within 6 months, PlayStation was number one in its category—Sony's most successful launch in history.{{citation needed|date=June 2020}}

There is debate on the origin and the popularization of the specific term ''viral marketing''.{{citation needed|date=August 2023}} The term is found in ''[[PC User]]'' magazine in 1989 with a somewhat differing meaning.<ref name="KirbyMarsden2007">{{cite book|author1=Justin Kirby|author2=Paul Marsden|title=Connected Marketing|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=I2vd3izk4HgC&pg=PA89|date=7 June 2007|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-136-41564-7|pages=89–}}</ref><ref name="Cheng2014">{{cite book|author=Hong Cheng|title=The Handbook of International Advertising Research|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eTCpAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA189|date=21 January 2014|publisher=Wiley|isbn=978-1-118-37849-6|pages=189–}}</ref> It was later used by [[Jeffrey Rayport]] in the 1996 [[Fast Company (magazine)|''Fast Company'']] article "The Virus of Marketing",<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.fastcompany.com/27701/virus-marketing|title=The Virus of Marketing|last=Rayport|first=Jeffrey|date=31 December 1996|publisher=Fast Company|access-date=6 October 2012}}</ref> and [[Tim Draper]] and [[Steve Jurvetson]] of the venture capital firm [[Draper Fisher Jurvetson]] in 1997 to describe [[Hotmail]]'s practice of appending advertising to outgoing mail from their users.<ref>{{cite journal
|last=Montgomery|first=Alan|title=Applying Quantitative Marketing Techniques to the Internet|journal=Interfaces|volume=31|issue=2|pages=90–108|date=March–April 2001|url=http://pubsonline.informs.org/feature/pdfs/0092.2102.01.3102.90.pdf|access-date=2007-07-10|doi=10.1287/inte.31.2.90.10630|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070212093004/http://pubsonline.informs.org/feature/pdfs/0092.2102.01.3102.90.pdf <!-- Bot retrieved archive --> |archive-date = 2007-02-12|citeseerx=10.1.1.23.2851}}</ref>

[[Doug Rushkoff]], a [[media critic]], wrote about viral marketing on the Internet in 1996.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Rushkoff|first=Douglas|title=Media Virus! Hidden Agendas in Popular Culture|publisher=Ballantine Books|date=6 February 1996|isbn=978-0345397744}}</ref> The assumption is that if such an advertisement reaches a "susceptible" user, that user becomes "infected" (i.e., accepts the idea) and shares the idea with others "infecting them", in the viral analogy's terms. As long as each infected user shares the idea with more than one susceptible user on average (i.e., the [[basic reproductive rate]] is greater than one—the standard in [[epidemiology]] for qualifying something as an [[epidemic]]), the number of infected users grows according to an [[exponential function|exponential curve]]. Of course, the marketing campaign may be successful even if the message spreads more slowly, if this user-to-user sharing is sustained by other forms of marketing communications, such as public relations or advertising.{{Citation needed|date=March 2011}}

Bob Gerstley wrote about [[algorithm]]s designed to identify people with high "social networking potential."<ref>{{cite book|last=Gerstley|first=Bob|title=Advertising Research is Changing}}</ref> Gerstley employed SNP algorithms in quantitative marketing research. In 2004, the concept of the ''[[Social marketing intelligence#Alpha users|alpha user]]'' was coined to indicate that it had now become possible to identify the focal members of any viral campaign, the "hubs" who were most influential. Alpha users could be targeted for advertising purposes most accurately in [[mobile phone]] networks, due to their personal nature.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Ahonen |first1=Tomi T. |last2=Kasper |first2=Timo |last3=Melkko |first3=Sara |title=3G Marketing: Communities and Strategic Partnerships |date=August 6, 2004 |publisher=Wiley |isbn=9780470851005 |pages=50 |edition=1st}}</ref>

In early 2013 the first ever Viral Summit was held in Las Vegas. The summit attempted to identify similar trends in viral marketing methods for various media.