Spreading the Virus: Emotional Tone of Viral Advertising and Its Effect on Forwarding Intentions and Attitudes

Petya Eckler and Paul Bolls

Viral advertising has attracted advertisers in recent years, yet little is known about how exactly it works from an information processing perspective.

Spreading the Virus: Emotional Tone of Viral Advertising and Its Effect on Forwarding Intentions and Attitudes

Petya Eckler and Paul Bolls

Consumers are exposed to hundreds of branded messages each day through broadcast and print media, outdoor promotions, the Internet, and more. With this clutter, the rising prices of media buys, and consumers’ increasing sophistication in avoiding advertisements (Manly 2005; MindComet 2006), the industry continues to investigate new ways to reach target audiences. Viral advertising is one such option and a potentially effective way to bypass growing consumer apathy (MindComet 2006). The appeal of viral campaigns is driven...

WARC subscribers can sign in to keep reading

Not a subscriber?

Schedule your live demo with our team today

WARC helps you to plan, create and deliver more effective marketing

  • Prove your case and back-up your idea

  • Get expert guidance on strategic challenges

  • Tackle current and emerging marketing themes

We’re long-term subscribers to WARC and it’s a tool we use extensively. We use it to source case studies and best practice for the purposes of internal training, as well as for putting persuasive cases to clients. In compiling a recent case for long-term, sustained investment in brand, we were able to support key marketing principles with numerous case studies sourced from WARC. It helped bring what could have been a relatively dry deck to life with recognisable brand successes from across a broad number of categories. It’s incredibly efficient to have such a wealth of insight in one place.

Insights Team
Bray Leino

You’re in good company

We work with 80% of Forbes' most valuable brands* and 80% of the world's top top-of-the-class agencies.

* Top 10 brands