Word of mouth and viral marketing: taking the temperature of the hottest trends in marketing

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to study examples of emerging marketing trends like word‐of‐mouth and viral marketing, and attempt to determine their measurability in terms of return on investment (ROI).Design/methodology/approach – The study examines real life campaigns from well‐known companies and attempt to measure consumer response beyond merely viewing or participating in the campaign. How much of an actionable response can be evoked and measured from viral and word‐of‐mouth campaigns? Testimonials and commentary from marketers practicing these methods and the pundits that attempt to gauge the effectiveness.Findings – The paper finds that word‐of‐mouth or viral marketing efforts are not always a sure bet. But a well‐placed, calculated and provocative campaign can spark a firestorm of buzz that sometimes can be effective for years in non‐terminal new mediums like the internet. While the jury is still out on finding hard quantitative ROI measurements for these campaigns, they can produce hefty ...