Snowball to avalanche: Understanding the different predictors of the intention to propagate online marketing messages

Purpose – This paper aims to investigate the determinants of successful online viral marketing. More companies in recent years have reduced their advertising expenditures on traditional media. Instead, they focus more on word-of-mouth marketing to reach their potential customers. Design/methodology/approach – A 2 (high/low utilitarian message context) × 2 (high/low hedonic message context) × 2 (message source: strong/weak tie strength) × 2 (channel: e-mail/blog) between-subjects experiment was conducted. A total of 363 completed questionnaires were collected in Taiwan. Findings – The findings are fourfold. First, the greater the tie strength between the sender and the receiver, the more actively they share information. Second, an audience is more willing to share a message with others when the message contains higher degrees of utilitarian or hedonic values. Third, those who are highly involved with the products are more willing to share information than those who are less involved. Fourth, those who acce...

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