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Journal of Advertising Research
Why do people pass on viral advertising on social network sites? Investigating the
effects of social and attitudinal factors
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Full Title:
Why do people pass on viral advertising on social network sites? Investigating the
effects of social and attitudinal factors
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Article
Corresponding Author:
paul edwin ketelaar, Ph.D.
Radboud University
Nijmegen, Gelderland NETHERLANDS
Corresponding Author Secondary
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Corresponding Author's Institution:
Radboud University
Corresponding Author's Secondary
Institution:
First Author:
paul edwin ketelaar, Ph.D.
First Author Secondary Information:
Order of Authors:
paul edwin ketelaar, Ph.D.
Jonathan van ’t Riet, Ph.D.
Maurice Vergeer, Ph.D.
Eva A. van Reijmersdal, Ph.D.
Rik Crutzen, Ph.D.
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NETHERLANDS
Abstract:
An online survey was held among members of the Dutch SNS Hyves who were
exposed to viral advertising (N = 8510). Their pass-on behavior was tracked by means
of server registrations. Social factors (whether participants' received the advertisement
from a friend or from a commercial source, the tie strength with the sender, and SNS
activity) and attitudinal factors concerning the advertisement (attitude towards the
brand, the ad, and willingness to engage in viral advertising) were investigated as
predictors of pass-on behaviour. The results showed that attitudinal factors were the
most important predictors of pass-on behaviour. Social factors showed smaller effects.
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Why do people pass-on viral advertising
Why do people pass on viral advertising on social network sites? Investigating the effects of
social and attitudinal factors
Introduction
Advertisers often create online viral advertising to reach their target groups (Berger & Milkman,
2012). Following Porter and Golan (2006), we define viral advertising as “unpaid peer-to-peer
communication of provocative content originating from an identified sponsor using the internet
to persuade or influence an audience to pass along the content to others”. (p. 29) In viral
advertising, receivers of an advertising message volunteer to spread the message to their
peers/friends, thereby functioning as active and controlling participants in the campaign. Using
such peer-to-peer communication, successful viral advertising can result in large exposure at
limited costs (Wilson, 2000). Equally important, by forwarding the message, the sender
implicitly or explicitly endorses the message, resulting in increased credibility in the eyes of the
receiver (Chiu, Hsieh, Kao, & Lee; 2007; Van Noort, Antheunis & Van Reijmersdal, 2012).
Compared with traditional advertising, viral advertising enjoys not only the benefits of lower
cost, higher credibility, and faster diffusion, but also better targeting of consumers (Bampo,
Ewing, Mather, Stewart, & Wallace, 2008; Dobele, Toleman, & Beverland, 2005).
Viral advertising can take several forms, ranging from viral text emails, in which
consumers forward emails with advertising content to viral video advertising, in which
consumers forward video ads (Bruyn & Lilien, 2008). A relatively new form of viral advertising
is viral advertising on social network sites (SNSs). SNSs are mainly used for social connection
purposes (e.g., keeping in touch with friends, finding out what others are doing, communicating
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experiences to others) (Dwyer, Hiltz, & Passerini, 2007; Joinson, 2008), and the perceived
barriers for sharing information are low (Huang, Basu, & Hsu, 2010; Vitak & Ellison, 2012). It
has been argued that this makes them perfectly suited for viral advertising (Subramani &
Rajagopalan, 2003). However, research on viral advertising mainly focused on viral text emails
(e.g., De Bruyn & Lilien, 2008; Dobele, Lindgreen, Beverland, Vanhamme, & van Wijk, 2007;
Huang, Lin, & Lin, 2009; Phelps, Lewis, Mobilio, Perry, & Raman, 2004). In contrast, few
studies have investigated viral advertising in the context of SNSs which are supposed to be even
more persuasive because of its strong social nature (Van Noort et al., 2012).
In the present article, we argue that SNSs offer great potential for viral advertising.
However, a defining feature of viral advertising is that marketers have limited control on who
sends the message to whom. If marketers are to accomplish their viral marketing goals on SNSs,
they need to understand why consumers would be willing to pass on these communications. If
research can identify reliable predictors of forwarding behaviour, marketers can take these into
account when creating viral advertisements and deciding on a strategy for distribution. Moreover,
these insights can contribute to our theoretical understanding of why people forward viral
marketing via SNSs. The purpose of this study is therefore to establish the factors that lead
members of SNSs to pass on these viral advertising communications. In contrast to previous
studies that investigated the predictors of self-reported intentions to pass on viral advertising
communications on SNSs (Van Noort et al., 2012; Chu & Kim, 2011; Chu, 2011), we assessed
actual pass-on behaviour as the outcome which is a more reliable measure, because it registers
actual behavior. To our knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the predictors of actual
pass-on behaviour of viral advertising communications in the context of social network sites.
Therefore, this study contributes significantly to the existing literature on viral advertising.
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Viral Advertising
As mentioned above, viral advertising in SNSs may manifest itself in a number of ways,
such as viral text messages and viral videos. Whereas some researchers use the terms ‘viral
marketing’ and ‘viral advertising’ interchangeably (Kaikati & Kaikati, 2004), it is also common
to see viral marketing as a broad framework that encompasses a whole spectrum of electronic
word-of-mouth strategies, one of which can be viral advertising (Golan & Zaidner, 2008; Porter
& Golan, 2006). Viral advertising can thus be conceived as a subset of viral marketing, much
like the position of traditional advertising in the marketing mix (Eckler & Rodgers, 2010).
According to Ha and Perks (2005), viral advertising in SNSs and other media focuses either on
brand experience or on brand activation. When the focus is brand experience, the aim is to
involve consumers with the brand emotionally. An example of successful viral advertising that
focused on brand experience is the Dove campaign for Absolute Beauty, the early part of which
was mainly driven by TV ads, but which really took off with the success of its online videos that
were distributed through peer-to-peer communication
(http://www.rohitbhargava.com/2006/10/doves_evolution.html). Viral advertising focusing on
brand activation, on the other hand, aims to activate consumers, for instance to try the advertised
brand. An example of viral advertising that focused on activation is Hotmail’s campaign in 1996
to gain new members. The general public was offered a viral text email sent by hotmail
subscribers with a simple tag at the bottom of the message saying: “Get your private, free email
at: www.hotmail.com”. The success of this campaign showed the potential for passing on
commercial messages by email. Both viral advertisements were in the end driven by consumers
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instead of by marketers, which may have reduced psychological reactance and increased
openness to the message on the part of receiver (cf., Van Noort et al., 2012).
Going Viral on Social Network Sites
Like viral text messages and viral videos sent by e-mail, viral advertising on SNSs
encourage consumers to pass on the message to their social network, and rely on them to create
an exponential increase in consumer exposure and impact (Wilson, 2000). However, the unique
characteristics of SNSs, which are defined by Boyd and Ellison (2007, p.211) as ‘web-based
services that allow individuals to (1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded
system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and
traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system’, make for
substantial differences between viral emails and viral advertising communications on SNSs.
One notable difference between viral advertising on SNSs and other viral advertising, is
that SNSs offer the possibility to integrate the viral advertising more fully in consumers’ social
world. For example, as observed in the campaigns we studied, members were asked to search for
their friends in a virtual forest, doing magic tricks with their friends’ profile pictures, or to
perform a memory game with their friends’ personality characteristics. Because of this
adaptation to the consumers’ social world and particularly their social network, viral advertising
on SNSs can be made to appear less obtrusive than other kinds of viral advertising. That is, if the
viral advertising allows receivers to interact with members in their social network in a fun and
relaxing way, without being confronted with traditional obtrusive persuasive arguments or an
obvious sales intent, people may be especially willing to share it on their SNS (Knowles & Riner,
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2007). In this respect, viral advertisements on SNSs could make effective use of the dynamics
and opportunities offered by social media.
Predictors of Passing on Viral Advertising
Even though viral advertising shows promise, it is unclear to what extent it is effective.
One popular parameter that practitioners employ to measure the effectiveness of viral advertising
on SNSs is reach (Kalynanam, McIntyre, & Masonis, 2007).
To be sure, a low reach impairs effectiveness while a high reach maximizes the chance of
positive effects among many members. However, the current practice of counting the number of
hits does little more than define the level of activity; it cannot explain why people forward viral
advertisements. In addition to measuring reach, research should focus on understanding the
predictors of pass-on behaviour among members of a SNS.
Previous research has investigated the determinants for passing on viral messages and
commercials by email (Bruyn & Lilien, 2008; Dobele et al., 2007; Huang, Lin, & Lin, 2009;
Lindgreen & Vanhamme, 2005; Phelps et al., 2004; Porter & Golan, 2006; Thevenot & Watier,
2001; Woerndl, Papagiannidis, Bourlakis, & Li, 2008). These studies identified several primary
factors that motivate people to pass on text messages and viral commercials via e-mail, including
social advantages, self-enrichment, amusement, and the bond with a friend. Very little research,
however, has investigated viral advertising on SNSs (Van Noort et al., 2012). Therefore, we
conducted a survey among SNS members who had been exposed to viral advertising. We
identified and investigated six possible predictors of viral advertising pass-on behaviour. The
first three of these were selected based on the notion that the social context plays an important
role in explaining the effects of viral advertisements on SNSs (Van Noort et al., 2012). We
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therefore investigated whether (1) receiving the advertising from a friend rather than from a
commercial source, (2) the perceived strength of the tie with the sender and (3) an individual’s
frequency of SNS use could influence forwarding behaviour. The other three predictors were
selected based on the idea that attitudinal factors are of pivotal importance when consumers are
to forward viral advertisements. We therefore examined (4) whether attitude towards the viral
advertisement, (5) attitude towards the brand and (6) an individual’s willingness to attend to viral
advertising him or herself would influence forwarding behaviour.
Social influences on forwarding behaviour. As mentioned above, one of the promising
features of viral advertising from an advertiser’s point of view is that the sender implicitly or
explicitly endorses the message, resulting in increased credibility in the eyes of the receiver and
reduced resistance (Knowles & Lynn, 2004; Knowles & Riner, 2007). While this may enhance
the effectiveness of the advertisement and is therefore of great relevance to advertisers, it is also
notable that receiving viral advertising from a friend instead of from a commercial source may
increase the chance that the receiver forwards the advertisement to even more consumers. Indeed,
Chiu and colleagues (2007) found that consumers were more willing to forward viral email
messages when they received the message from close interpersonal sources than when they
received the messages from commercial sources. In the present study, we investigated this effect
in the context of viral advertising on SNS, investigating whether SNS members are more likely
to forward a message when they receive it from a friend rather than from a commercial source. In
addition, we investigated whether type of friend (close or distant) predicts forwarding behaviour.
A social network is defined as a set of actors whom the individual has relationships or
ties with, and who may or may not have ties with each other (Carrasco & Miller, 2006). The
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strength of the tie is defined as the degree of closeness between the individual and each actor.
According to Carrasco and Miller (2006), people have strong ties with others who they discuss
important matters with, or regularly keep in touch with, or are there for them if they need help.
People have weak ties with others that are more than just casual acquaintances, but not very
close friends. This rationale also holds for social networks on the Internet; a member of a social
network site may have weak as well as strong ties with others in their social network (see also De
Bruyn & Lilien, 2008; Norman & Russell, 2006).
According to Carrasco and Miller (2006), individuals have more trust in, and are more
influenced by others with whom they have strong ties rather than weak ties. Accordingly,
research shows that people are more likely to open and read e-mails from close friends rather
than distant friends, because they perceive them as more trustworthy and sharing more similar
interests (Ellison, Steinfeld, & Lampe, 2007; Vilpponen, Winter, & Sundqvist 2006; Dobele et al.
2005; Lindgreen & Vanhamme, 2005; Phelps et al., 2004; Thevenot & Watier, 2001; Woerndl et
al., 2008; Huang et al., 2009). Chu and Kim (2011) have found similar results for the pass along
behavior of online word–of-mouth on SNSs. The results of their study showed that perceived tie
strength is positively related to consumers’ intention to pass product-focused information in
online social media (see also Van Noort et al., 2012).
To our knowledge, however, no studies have investigated this issue with actual pass-on
behaviour as the outcome measure. In the present study, therefore, we investigated whether the
manner of receiving viral advertising predicts pass-on behaviour. Hypotheses 1 and 2 are:
H1: People that receive a viral ad from a friend (rather than a commercial company), are
more likely to pass on a viral ad to others in their social network.
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H2: The higher the perceived strength of the tie with the sender, the more likely people
will pass-on viral ads.
SNS members who actively and frequently share information with other members should be
good targets for viral advertising, since their activity might facilitate the dissemination of viral
content. Research indeed shows that the amount of time spent online is related to forwarding of
information (Sun, Youn, Wu, & Kuntaraporn, 2006; Ho & Dempsey, 2010). Chu (2011)
investigated differences between members of Facebook members who subscribed to specific
Facebook ‘groups’ (communities centred on a common interest) and non-group members. She
found that group members had more positive attitudes towards advertising, but, contrary to what
might have been expected, were not more likely to pass on viral advertising communications.
Importantly, however, Chu’s (2011) outcome measure was intention to forward viral advertising
communications. To our knowledge, no studies have investigated the effect of frequency of SNS
use on actual pass-on behaviour and it is therefore unclear, at present, whether frequency of SNS
use influences forwarding behaviour. In the present study, we therefore investigated the
hypothesis that frequency of SNS use predicts forwarding behaviour.
H3: The higher the frequency of SNS use, the more likely viral ads are passed on to
others.
Attitudinal influences on forwarding behaviour. In whatever form, through logos, or
verbal or pictorial content, ads usually refer to the advertised brand. Research shows that
consumers who have a positive attitude towards a brand are more likely to notice and like
advertisements for that brand than consumers with a negative attitude towards that brand.
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Consumers even enjoy advertisements for brands they like and may actively search for them and
expose themselves to them voluntarily (Dahlén & Lange, 2005). In addition, it has been argued
that self-enhancement is an important reason for people to engage in positive electronic word-ofmouth (Angelis, Bonezzi, Peluso, Rucker, & Costabile, 2012; Berger, 2012). One way people
can achieve this is by strategically associating themselves with things that are positively viewed
by other people and groups, a phenomenon which has been called “Basking in Reflected Glory”
(Cialdini, Borden, Thorne, Walker, Freeman, & Sloan, 1976; Cialdini & Richardson, 1980).
Research shows that people are most likely to share things that they deem interesting and
enjoyable because they feel this will reflect positively on themselves (Squicciarini & Griffin,
2012). By the same reasoning, people may strategically distance themselves from things that are
negatively viewed by other people and groups, (Snyder, Lassegard, & Ford, 1986). This could
lead people to forward viral advertising for brands towards which they have a positive attitude:
they would rather associate themselves with brands they like than with brands they do not like.
At present, however, there has been no empirical research investigating the relationship between
attitude towards the brand and viral advertising pass-on behaviour. We therefore set out to
investigate this relationship.
A positive attitude towards the viral advertisement itself may also be an important
predictor of forwarding behaviour. Many studies have indicated that a positive attitude towards a
specific viral text message or viral commercial influences the likelihood that a consumer will
pass them on via email (Dobele, Toleman, & Beverland, 2005; Phelps et al., 2004; Thevenot &
Watier, 2001; Woerndl et al., 2008; Eckler & Bolls, 2011). We therefore investigated whether
this relationship is also present in a SNS context. Hypotheses 4 and 5 therefore are:
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H4: The more positive the attitude toward the brand, the more likely the receiver of the
viral ad is to pass it on to others.
H5: The more likeable the viral ads are to people, the more likely they will pass on the
viral ad to others.
In addition, we investigated whether a willingness to attend to viral advertising could predict
forwarding behaviour. People’s own experiences with viral advertising, in how they normally
react to advertisements that they receive from friends may be an important factor in explaining
pass-on behaviour. A study by Chu (2011), for instance, showed that attitudes towards
advertising on SNS in general, significantly predicted viral advertising pass-on intention (for
similar results see Yang & Zhou, 2011). However, besides having different attitudes towards
viral advertising in general, it is likely that consumers differ in the degree to which they enjoy
receiving and attending to viral advertising. Also, it is possible that SNS members who usually
attend to viral advertising received from others are more likely to forward viral advertising than
SNS members who usually do not attend to viral advertising which they receive from friends. In
the present study, we investigated this possibility. Hypothesis 6 is:
H6: The more people are willing to attend to viral advertising, the more likely they are to
forward viral advertising in general.
Method
Procedure
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This study focuses on the pass-on behavior of members of the popular Dutch SNS Hyves.
With approximately 9 million registered users in 2009, more than half of the Dutch population
(16.6 million in total) are members of Hyves. Three campaigns for international companies went
live on this SNS. All members who matched the target group profile of the campaigns, men and
women aged from 20 to 50, were able to view the viral advertising communication in principle.
Only those who actually visited the website of the viral advertisement by clicking on a banner or
accepting an invitation from a friend (166,755 people in total) were eligible for participation in
the study. No later than one week after the launch of the three advertisements, all members who
had actually clicked at least on the first page of one of the three viral advertisements received an
email asking them to participate in our study. Of these 166,755 people, 17,850 (10,7%) agreed to
participate. However, of these, 9,340 (52,3%) indicated that they did not recognize the viral
advertisement. A possible explanation for this high number of people who did not remember the
viral advertisement may be that they clicked on the invitation, but then immediately left the viral
advertising’s website and therefore could not remember it afterwards. Because of their
potentially minimal exposure to the viral advertisement, these people were excluded from the
study, resulting in 8510 participants. This means an effective response rate of 5.1% which seems
reasonable considering the fact that only a small incentive was given.
To not burden respondents, they only had to answer questions for one ad, even if they had
seen the other ads in our study. If they had viewed more than one advertisement, they were asked
which advertisement they saw first and were only asked to fill out the survey for the first
advertisement they had seen. This procedure also increases the chance of remembering the ad
they had first seen because of a primacy effect. Each member was assigned a unique Hyvesidentity number. For these three campaigns, all identity numbers of those members who passed
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along the viral advertising were temporarily registered to make it possible to identify forwarders
and non-forwarders. Participants indicated if they received the viral advertisement from a friend,
came across it by clicking on a banner or other advertisement, or did not remember how they
came across the advertisement. If they received the viral advertisement from a friend, they
indicated the perceived strength of their tie with the sender. Furthermore, they indicated the
frequency of Hyves use, the extent to which they themselves would be willing to look at viral
advertisements sent by friends, their attitude towards the brand that featured in the viral
advertising and their attitude towards the viral advertising communication. Finally, they
answered questions about gender, age and education. Since respondents had to respond to all
questions in the survey, there were no missing values. To increase the response rate, participants
joined in a lottery to win one of ten Hyves- packages consisting of a pen, a usb-stick or a
keychain.
Participants
A total of 8510 people participated in our study. The sample differed slightly from the
Hyves population. The Hyves population is 56% female, while our sample was 70% female. The
average age of the Hyves population is 27 years, and the average age in our sample was 26.4
years (SD = 12.72).
Viral Advertising Communications
People were exposed to real life campaigns for Lay’s, Telfort and Sony Ericsson which
were launched within the same three weeks. We used three campaigns instead of just one to
control for the confounding effects of unknown variables. As in real life respondents could
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expose themselves to just one, two or all three campaigns. The advertisers subsequently allowed
us to determine the real life effects of these campaigns.
The three viral advertisements were similar in several respects. The banners that lead to
the advertisements were shown to members at random, provided that they belonged to the target
group. Thus, anyone belonging to the target group had an equal chance of being exposed to one
of the three banners. Also, all three brands are well-known in the Netherlands. All three
advertisements were furthermore interactive and involved playing a game. This game was
structured in the same way, and members followed a comparable route through the game. Each
game used the database of names and pictures of friends from the personal network of the
members who played the game. The brand appeared on each page of the viral advertising
communication. Finally, all three advertisements can be considered as focusing on ‘brand
experience’ (Ha & Perks, 2005), aiming to involve consumers with the brand emotionally. At the
end of each game, members could choose to play the game again, to go to the brand’s website, to
forward the ad to friends, and/or place the gadget of the ad on their personal Hyves page. A total
of 4499 (52.9%) answered questions about the Sony advertisement, 1601 (18.8%) answered
questions about the Lay’s advertisement and 2410 (28.3%) answered questions about the Telfort
advertisement.
Lay’s “Join the Picnic” ad. In the Lay’s “Join the Picnic” ad, members have to find ten Hyves
friends, who appear randomly in a park (see Figure 1). When members spot them they click on their
picture. The intention is that all friends are found within 60 seconds; when they have been found, the
member enters the next page where they can leave their address behind to win a Lay’s picnic cloth or
VIP-cards for the concert “Picnic in the Park.”
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Figure 1: Lay’s viral advertising
Telfort “Simsalabim” ad. The Telfort “Simsalabim” ad features a game with a magic trick (see
Figure 2). Preceding the game, participants view some of their friends on Hyves, and are asked to pick
one to remember. Hands on the screen shuffle the pictures of friends and divide them in three lines.
Participants have to select the row their friend is in. This scenario is repeated three times. Then the magic
hands show which friend the participant had in mind, which ends the trick.
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Figure 2: Telfort viral advertising
Sony Ericsson “Who, what, where am I?” ad. A Sony Ericsson mobile phone shows a message
that a Hyves friend wants to socialize with the participant of the game and shows the location of this
activity (see Figure 3). For instance: “Let’s get a drink at Cheers?” Participants have to guess which
friend has sent the message. They can ask for hints that also show up on the screen of the mobile phone,
like the friend’s place of residence, or age. When the participant guesses who sent the message, the game
is over.
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Figure 3: Sony Ericsson viral advertising
Measures
Forwarding the ad. Our study sought to determine what motivated members to forward
the viral advertising communications. Our dependent measure was whether or not respondents
had forwarded the ad to others as tracked by means of server registrations. Of all participants,
2192 (25.8%) sent the ad on to others.
Manner of receiving the viral advertisement.. Participants indicated if they received the
viral advertisement from a friend (n = 2298; 27.0%), came across it by clicking on a company
banner (n = 5074; 59.6%), or did not remember how they came across the advertisement (n =
1138; 13.4%). Table 1 shows percentages for mode of receiving the advertisement, pass-on
behaviour and demographic variables for all three advertisements and for the entire sample.
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Tie strength with sender. Participants that received the viral advertisement from a friend,
had to indicate the strength of their tie with that person by answering two questions on a 5-point
scale. Following Norman and Russell (2006), participants were asked to indicate the perceived
strength of the tie with the person that had sent them the advertisement (1 = very weak; 5 = very
strong) and the frequency of contact with that person (1 = very infrequent contact; 5 = very
frequent contact). These two items were averaged to arrive at a composite tie strength measure (r
= .724; M = 3.45; SD = 1.00).
Frequency of SNS use. Following Phelps et al. (2004), we measured frequency of SNS use
with the question, “How often are you active on Hyves?” Possible answers ranged from “less
than once a month” to “daily” (eight categories). Because 69.9% of participants indicated that
they used Hyves on a daily basis, resulting in a non-normal distribution (the mean [SD] of this
variable was 7.36 [1.10]), we did not use this construct as a linear variable in our analyses, but
instead created a dichotomous variable indicating daily use or less than daily use.
Willingness to engage in advertisements that were sent by friends. Participants were
asked how they would normally react to advertisements that they received from friends. Based
on the answer, we constructed three categories: (1) would certainly engage in the advertisement;
(2) would engage in the advertisement conditionally or (3) would not engage at all. In the logistic
regression analysis, these categories were represented by two dummy variables. In total, 24.0%
of participants indicated that they would certainly engage in the advertisement.
Attitude towards the brand. Attitude towards the brand was measured by using four 5point semantic differential items. Following MacKenzie, Lutz, and Belch (1986), participants
were asked to indicate whether they had a positive attitude toward the brand (5) vs. a negative
attitude toward the brand (1), and whether they were interested in the brand (5) vs. not interested
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in the brand (1). We added two items to measure level of knowledge about the brand: whether
they knew a lot about the brand (5) vs. very little about the brand (1) and whether they knew a lot
about the brand compared to other brands (5) vs. very little about the brand compared to other
brands (1). These items were combined to arrive at an average brand attitude scale (Cronbach’s
alpha = .80; M = 3.20; SD = 0.78).
Attitude towards the ad. We measured attitude towards the viral advertisement by means
of six 5-point semantic differential items, asking participants to indicate whether they liked the
viral advertising communication (1 = did not like it at all; 5 = liked it very much), whether it
appealed to them (1 = did not appeal at all; 5 = appealed very much), whether they thought it
fitted the brand (1 = did not fit at all; 5 = fitted very well), and whether they thought it was pretty,
(1 = very ugly; 5 = very pretty), good (1 = very bad; 5 = very good), and original (1 = not
original at all; 5 = very original) (Mackenzie & Lutz 1989). These items were combined to form
an average ad attitude scale (Cronbach’s alpha = .86; M = 3.39; SD = 0.79).
Analyses
The dependent variable was binary; therefore, multiple logistic regression analysis was
used. All independent variables were entered in one block. Nagelkere’s R2 was used to assess the
variance explained by the model. Separate analyses were performed for the entire sample and for
the three viral advertisements separately. In the main analysis, perceived strength with the sender
was not included, because this would limit the analysis to those participants who received the
viral advertisement from a friend (n = 2298). For those participants, separate logistic regression
analyses were performed which included tie-strength with the sender as an independent variable.
These analyses were done separately for the three different advertisements. Effect sizes were
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determined following recommendations by Chinn (2000), who proposed that Odds Ratios can be
converted to Cohen’s d following the formula d = ln(OR) / 1.81. Combining this formula with
Cohen’s (1988) classification of an effect size of d = .20 as small, of d = .50 of medium and of d
= .80 as large, it follows that a small effect size of d = .20 is equivalent to an Odds ratio of OR =
1.44, a medium effect size of d = .50 is equivalent to an Odds ratio of OR = 2.47 and a large
effect size of d = .80 is equivalent to an Odds ratio of OR = 4.25.
Results
Participants
Of our 8,510 participants, 4,499 (52.9%) answered questions about the Sony
advertisement, 1,601 (18.8%) answered questions about the Lay’s advertisement and 2,410
(28.3%) answered questions about the Telfort advertisement. Participants indicated if they
received the viral advertisement from a friend (n = 2298; 27.0%), came across it by clicking on a
banner or other advertisement (n = 5074; 59.6%), or did not remember how they came across the
advertisement (n = 1138; 13.4%). Of all participants, 2192 (25.8%) sent the campaign on to
others. The sample differed slightly from the Hyves population. The Hyves population is 56%
female, while our sample was 70% female. The average age of the Hyves population is 27 years,
and the average age in our sample was 26.4 years (SD = 12.72). Table 1 shows percentages for
mode of receiving the advertisement, pass-on behaviour and demographic variables for all three
advertisements and for the entire sample.
Table 1 about here
Testing the hypotheses
19
20
Why do people pass-on viral advertising
The results for the social factors in the logistic regression analyses (see Table 2) showed
that the source of the viral advertisement did not significantly affect pass-on behaviour (H1).
However, the analyses also revealed that there were different effects for the three different
advertisements. Whereas participants were more likely to forward the Lay’s and Telfort
advertisements when they received the advertisement from a friend rather than coming across it
by clicking on a banner or ad, the analysis for the Sony advertisement showed that participants
who received the advertisement from a friend were actually less likely to forward it. The
analyses also revealed that frequency of SNS use did not predict pass-on behaviour (H3).
With regards to the attitudinal factors, the analyses showed that willingness to attend to
viral advertisements, brand attitude and ad attitude all significantly predicted pass-on behaviour
in the expected direction (cf. H4, H5, H6). Gender and education did not have significant effects
on pass-on behaviour. The results also showed that the effect of age was significant, i.e. older
people are somewhat more likely to forward the viral ad. However, this effect is quite small as to
render it irrelevant. Participants were significantly more likely to forward the Sony
advertisement than the Telfort advertisement. With regard to the size of the effects, the effect of
brand attitude was in the small range (OR = 1.19), while the only factors that produced effects in
or approaching the medium range were willingness to engage (OR = 3.45 and OR = 1.97) and ad
attitude (OR = 2.32). The model fit, based on Nagelkerke’s R2 was R2 = .16.
Table 2 about here
Additional analyses were performed for those participants who received the viral
advertisement from a friend to investigate whether perceived strength of the tie with the sender
20
21
Why do people pass-on viral advertising
significantly contributed to the prediction of pass-on behaviour (H2). The results of these
analyses revealed that, overall, participants who perceived a stronger tie with the person who
send them the viral advertisement were significantly more likely to pass it on (B = .12, OR =
1.13, Wald = 5.23, p = .022). However, separate analyses showed that this was only the case for
the Sony advertisement (B = .15, OR = 1.16, Wald = 4.26, p = .039). For the Telfort
advertisement, a similar effect in terms of effect size was found, but due to the smaller sample
size (nTelfort = 551), this effect did not reach levels of statistical significance despite the effect size
being in the same range (B = .14, OR = 1.15, Wald = 1.29, p = .256). The effect for the Lay’s
advertisement was smaller and not significant (B = .06, OR = 1.06, Wald = 0.32, p = .570).
Discussion
This study investigated which factors predict whether members of SNSs will pass on viral
advertising communications. The results showed that social factors had relatively small effects,
with only tie strength with the sender as a significant predictor of forwarding behaviour.
Attitudinal factors were more important, with brand attitude, ad attitude and willingness to
engage with viral advertisement significantly affecting forwarding behaviour, the sizes of the
latter two effects in or approaching the medium range.
The large effect of attitudinal factors is consistent with other studies. Research on the
predictors of forwarding viral text and viral commercials by e-mail (e.g. Thevenot & Watier,
2001; & Woerndl et al., 2008) has found that the most important predictor for passing on viral
advertisements on SNSs is the degree of liking for the ad. Similarly, a recent study investigating
the predictors of forwarding viral video advertisements showed that attitude towards the
advertisement is the major factor affecting video sharing (Huanga, Zhouc, & Xi, 2013). However,
21
22
Why do people pass-on viral advertising
the present study extends previous research by focusing specifically on viral advertising in a SNS
context. In addition, the present study assessed the actual pass-on behaviour in the context of
three real-world marketing campaigns of international companies, instead of self-reported
forwarding intentions.
The results also showed that the source of the viral advertisement predicted forwarding
behaviour, although the direction of this effect differed between the three advertisements.
Whereas for the Lay’s and Telfort advertisements participants were more likely to forward the
viral advertisement when they received it from a friend, the results for the Sony advertisement
showed that participants were more likely to forward the viral advertisement when they received
it from a commercial source. This rendered the overall effect of advertisement source nonsignificant. It is possible that the source of the viral advertising has different effects depending
on the motives people have for forwarding viral advertising. Receiving a viral advertisement
from a friend can signal this friend’s approval and can thus be a reason for trusting that other
people will like the advertisement too. On the other hand, research shows that people like to
spread information that is novel and original (Moldovan, Goldenberg, and Chattopadhyay 2011)
and that they like to show others that they are ‘in the know’ (Berger, 2012). Receiving a viral
advertisement from a friend may suggest to some people that the advertisement is already known
in their social circles. Coming across a viral advertisement through a banner may make it more
likely that no one else has seen the advertisement yet. If this was the case with the Sony
advertisement, it is unclear why a similar effect was not present for participants who were
exposed to the Lay’s and Telfort advertisement. Future research is necessary to investigate why
receiving viral ads from a friend can result in less pass-on behaviour.
22
23
Why do people pass-on viral advertising
For participants who received the viral advertisement from a friend rather than from a
commercial source, the strength of the tie with the sender significantly predicted forwarding
behaviour in the expected direction. In line with previous research, participants were more likely
to forward the advertising when they received the advertising from someone with whom they had
a strong rather than a weak tie (Dobele, et al, 2007; Woerndl et al., 2008; Chu & Kim, 2011; Van
Noort, et al, 2012). It should be noted, however, that the effect of perceived tie strength is
statistically significant but quite small; analyses for the three advertisements separately revealed
that the effect was only significant for the Sony advertisement and not for Lays and Telfort . It
thus seems that social factors are important (Van Noort et al., 2012), but that the magnitude of
their effect should not be overestimated. Additional research is necessary to determine the
relative importance of different social factors, such as ties between senders and receivers (Van
Noort et al., 2012), ties between senders and the brand and senders’ position in their social
network (Kempe Kleinberg, & Tardos, 2003).
In sum, the present study shows that attitudinal and social factors predict the forwarding
of viral advertisements on SNSs, with attitudinal factors showing especially important effects.,
However, different effects were found for the three advertisements, for example with regards to
the source of the viral advertisement, which could not be readily accounted for. In fact, while
additional analyses showed that the three advertisements showed significant differences with
regards to brand attitude (MSony = 3.24; MLays = 3.46; MTelfort = 2.94; F(2, 8507) = 244.78, p
= .000) and ad attitude, (MSony = 3.31; MLays = 3.72; MTelfort = 3.32; F(2, 8507) = 184.67, p
= .000), Table 2 shows that the Sony advertisement was more likely to be passed on than the
Telfort advertisement even when controlling for these variables. Clearly, future research should
23
24
Why do people pass-on viral advertising
explore which other factors affect the pass-on behaviour of viral advertisement on SNSs and
should incorporate more ads for a broader range of products.
Implications
In addition to advancing our theoretical understanding of the importance of social and
attitudinal factors in predicting the pass-on of viral advertisements, this study adds to the
knowledge of marketers, indicating that the most important predictor of the effectiveness of viral
advertising on SNSs is at least partly under their control: the form, quality and content of the
viral ad itself. More specifically, it has been established that a positive emotional tone in viral
advertising evokes a positive attitude towards the ad (Eckler, & Bolls, 2011; Chu,2011).
Amusement seems to be an important component of viral advertising (Dobele, et al., 2005;
Eckler, & Bolls, 2011), important drivers for accepting and forwarding the message being
entertainment (Palka, Pousttchi, & Wiedemann, 2009), surprising content (Dobele, et al, 2007),
humor (Hsieh, Hsieh, & Tang, 2012), and memorable and interesting content (Kaplan &
Haenlein, 2011). Viral advertising on SNSs seems likely to be a useful marketing strategy for all
businesses, provided that advertising content is entertaining. Our findings corroborate the
conclusion of Petrescu and Korgaonkar (2011) that viral advertising is an unconvential pulling
marketing strategy that favors small businesses and lower budget campaigns, as long as
advertisers manage to create unique and compelling messages and content (p. 221).
Limitations and future research
Although the study used real campagins that respondents could see on a moment that suited
theme best, the present study was subject to limitations. First, although members were emailed
24
25
Why do people pass-on viral advertising
within a week of the launch of the three ads, this might still have been too long after the event to
reflect on their initial reactions towards the ad. Possibly members might not have been able to
remember who the sender was (a company or a friend) and could not have answered the
questions about tie strength. Therefore we should have added the option "I do not remember
which of my friends shared the message with me.”
A better option might have been to send the request to participate immediately after they
saw the viral advertisement. However, the involved marketers prohibited the launch of a survey
so soon after exposure because they thought the survey might interfere with the goals of the viral
advertisements to increase positive brand experience. Future research might find a way to
include the time lapse between the behaviour and the survey as a variable to explain passing-on
behaviour. Second, the representativeness of our sample was limited by self-selection processes.
Only those who both accepted the invitation for the viral advertisement and the invitation for our
research and remembered the viral advertisement one week later ended up in our sample. A
double selection bias therefore may have resulted in a sample that may have been exceptionally
willing to engage in online activities. Future research should try to limit such self-selection
processes, for instance by obtaining participants’ agreement to participate in the study before
they were exposed to the viral advertisement. Finally, although we found that people have
stronger ties with humans (friends) than with companies, future research should not only focus
on the context of human-human relationships, but also on human-company/organization
relationships. For example, consumers might have a stronger tie with a Coca-Cola because they
drink it everyday, but a weak tie with Flowers.com because they do not use it everyday.
In spite of these limitations, the present study contributes to our knowledge by
investigating the predictors of actual pass-on behaviour of viral advertising on SNSs.
25
26
Why do people pass-on viral advertising
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Why do people pass-on viral advertising
Table 1 Participant characteristics in terms of manner of receiving, pass-on behaviour,
gender and education
+
Manner of receiving
Friend
Company banner
Don’t remember
Pass-on behaviour
Pass on
No pass on
Gender
Male
Female
Education
Higher education
Secondary education
Primary education
Other / no answer
Total
sample
N
%
8510
100
Sony
Lays
Telfort
N
4499
%
n
52.9 1601
%
n
18.8% 2410
%
28.3%
2298
5074
1138
27.0 1262
59.6 2551
13.4 686
28.1 485
56.7 664
15.2 452
30.3
41.5
28.2
551
1859
0
22.9
77.1
0.0
2192
6318
25.8 1181
74.2 3318
26.3 471
73.7 1130
29.4
70.6
540
1870
22.4
77.6
2556
5954
30.0 1416
70.0 3083
31.5 261
68.5 1340
16.3
83.7
879
1531
36.5
63.5
929
5545
821
1215
10.9
65.2
9.6
14.3
10.0
68.1
11.3
10.5
18.7
69.1
5.2
7.0
179
1372
229
630
7.4
56.9
9.5
26.1
451
3066
509
473
33
299
1107
83
112
34
Why do people pass-on viral advertising
Table 2 Results of the logistic regression with pass-on behaviour as the dependent variable in the overall
sample and for the three campaigns separately
Total sample
B
OR
Manner of receiving
Friend
Don’t remember
Company banner
SNS frequency
Daily
Non-daily
Willingness to engage
Always
Conditionally
Never
Brand attitude
Ad attitude
Wald
p
Sony
B
OR
Wald
p
Lays
B
OR
Wald
p
Telfort
B
OR
Wald
p
.11
-.17
REF
1.11
0.85
3.01
3.65
.083
.056
-.40*
-.34*
0.67
0.71
21.53
9.45
.000
.002
.53*
.03
1.70
1.03
14.87
0.03
.000
.861
.86*
n.a.
2.36
n.a.
45.38
n.a.
.000
n.a.
.02
REF
1.02
0.10
.753
.02
1.02
0.06
.810
.13
1.14
1.13
.289
-.14
0.87
1.32
.251
1.24*
.69*
REF
.17*
.84*
3.45
1.97
91.77
30.35
.000
.000
1.19*
.52*
3.28
1.69
54.49
11.90
.000
.001
1.29*
.79*
3.64
2.20
15.33
6.37
.000
.012
1.52*
1.17*
4.59
3.22
23.79
14.92
.000
.000
1.19
2.32
19.68
380.77
.000
.000
.12*
.73*
1.13
2.09
6.08
165.64
.014
.000
.08
.86*
1.08
2.37
0.48
67.20
.487
.000
.34*
1.06*
1.40
2.87
.000
.000
Age
Gender
Female
Male
Education
Higher educ
Secondary educ
Primary educ
Other /no
answer
Brand
Sony
Lays
Telfort
Constant
.02*
1.02
56.29
.000
.01*
1.01
11.96
.001
.01*
1.01
7.10
.008
.03*
1.03
18.19
144.1
3
3.94
-.07
REF
0.93
1.28
.257
.02
1.02
0.05
.828
-.12
0.89
0.56
.454
-.23*
0.78
3.94
.047
-.07
-.04
REF
.11
0.94
0.96
0.28
0.15
.598
.964
.05
.03
1.05
1.03
0.07
0.05
.786
.821
.48
.48
1.61
1.62
2.18
2.57
.140
.109
-.50
-.39*
0.61
0.68
2.99
3.98
.084
.048
1.11
0.90
.342
.10
1.11
0.45
.503
.00
1.00
0.00
.998
.10
1.11
0.25
.619
.23*
.01
REF
-5.08
1.26
1.01
11.53
0.01
.001
.93
0.01
661.34
.000
-4.45
0.01
273.83
.000
-5.24
0.01
82.10
.000
-6.16
.00
264.9
1
.000
Nagelkerke R2
-2 LL
.17
8648.516
.15
4680.028
.15
1766.496
.29
2066.182
Notes: No participants indicated to not remember how they received the Telfort advertisement.
Therefore, there was no data for this second dummy variable. Age had a small effect in the overall
sample (B = .001), but because of the small SE (SE = .000) this effect was statistically significant (95% CI:
1.000 – 1.002) despite a trivial effect size.
34
.000