Factors that make a marketing cam-paign go viral : Case study: Campaign ”Share a Coke” by Coca Cola in Vietnam

Abstract

This paper aims at finding out underlying factors that make a marketing campaign go viral by analysing a case study with the aids of theoretical framework and quantitative research. “Share a Coke” campaign in Vietnam, which created a huge viral effect in Vietnam in summer 2014, was chosen to be the case study for this thesis. The theoretical framework of the thesis would mainly be based upon the theories established by Six Principles of Viral Marketing (Dr Wilson 2000), Inclusive Word of Mouth model (Buttle 1998), Motives of WOM (Ditcher 1966),and STEPPS (Jonah Berge 2013). The main research method of this thesis is online survey carried out in Facebook.

The results from analyzing theories and quantitative research shows that self-involvement, mes-sage-involvement, culture, free online softwares for creating personalized Coke online and Face-book are noticeable viral-making factors for the Share a Coke campaign in Vietnam. Combining all those factors, Coca-Cola encourages customers to engage to the Share a Coke campaign by vari-ous ways (buying your personalized Coke or/and your friends/ family members’ Cokes, sharing official Coke or/and online virtual Cokes, etc).

The paper suggests that based on the outcome of the case analysis, the viral-making cornerstones of a marketing campaign are motivations of involvement (e.g: self-involvement, product-involvement, message involvement, other involvement), common behaviors and emotions (herd mentality, emotion of surprise, happy, sad, etc), and social media (Facebook, etc)