Instead of spending large sum of money on traditional advertising methods, Cindy Gordon merely told 7 people about the new concept of the Harry Potter related theme park. This 7 people are actually rabid fans that were being selected by Cindy Gordon from the top fan site of Harry Potter. Having selected the people whom Cindy Gordon wanted to create the awareness of this Harry Potter theme park to, they were being invited to participate in the exclusive Webcast event where working teams for the Harry Potter theme park talked about the newly launched concept theme park.
Cindy Gordon also created a microsite for the introduction of The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. This can cater to people who are the big fans of Harry Potter and also people whom are interested in the concept theme park that will be launching. This also helps create awareness to group of audiences without having to spend large sum of money on other advertising methods.
Explain the term "Word-of-mouse".
The term, "Word-of-mouse" actually refers to how words from small group of audiences can be spread around to the ears of larger groups . In another way, meaning that the awareness of the Harry Potter theme park can actually be enlarged through the mouths of a small group of audiences and the result of this awareness being created can also be as much as using traditional advertising methods.
What are the other cases of viral marketing examples mentioned in the paper? (Name the company, and state what marketing strategies that they deployed).
Steve Chazin is an example of someone who uses viral marketing to promote not products but himself. Being prepared for a new opportunity to advance his career, Chazin did not follow the traditional method of handing up resume to his desired company, instead, he launched an e-book and created a blog which he wrote all about himself and his marketing experiences in Apple. Inc. This e-books and blog were easily reachable through online without having to be charged on anything, therefore, it will be much more approachable towards audiences. Chazin believed that the things that he really want to convey to his desired company could not be done through simple resume so he started out with the e-book and blog that allow audiences to know him better. And through the word-of-mouse, everyone started talking about him and even mention him on their own blogs. His e-book and blog were also highly-aware by most people. He created awareness for himself to the audiences and also to his desired company that he want to works in making the company to approach him instead of him approaching the company with just a resume which beat being viewed as one common resume among thousands.
Also being mentioned in the paper, big company like IBM also uses viral marketing to promote their own business. They uploaded series of humorous videos which also involve the promoting of their business in it on YouTube. Through the word-of-mouse again, these humorous videos from IBM were being shared around by bloggers, hence, creating a large impact of awareness to more audiences. They also created a microsite that can be linked from their official website, which are actually the links to their humorous advertising videos.
