A STUDY ON CONNECTED MARKETING AND THE CASE OF FPT CORPORATION’S PROJECT VICONGDONG

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
SCHOOL OF BUSINESS
TRAN THI CHIEN
A STUDY ON CONNECTED MARKETING AND THE CASE OF FPT
CORPORATION’S PROJECT VICONGDONG
Major: Business Administration
Code: 60 34 05
MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION THESIS
Supervisors:
Dr. TRAN DOAN KIM
Hanoi – 2010
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS i
ABSTRACT ii
TÓM T TẮ iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS vi
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS viii
LIST OF TABLES ix
LIST OF FIGURES ix
INTRODUCTION 1
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW– CONNECTED MARKETING 4
1.1 Definition: Connected Marketing 4
1.1.1 Marketing 4
1.1.2 Connected Marketing 4
1.2. Types of Connected Marketing 8
1.2.1 Word of mouth marketing 8
1.2.2 Buzz marketing 12
1.2.3 Viral marketing 15
1.3 The power of Connected marketing in digital age 18
1.3.1 Widely connection between the company/organization and customer 18
1.3.2 Building customer’s trust 18

1.3.3 Cutting marketing cost 19
1.3.4 Measuring communication result 20
1.4 Marketing model 20
1.4.1 Ways of transferring information 20
1.4.2 Marketing model 22
1.5 The process to practice a Connected Marketing Campaign 24
1.5.1 Customer investigation and choosing Opinion leaders (OL) 24
1.5.2 Creating transferred messages 27
1.5.3 Seeding trials 28
1.5.4 Spreading a Connected Marketing Campaign 32
vi
1.5.4.1 Transferring information principles 32
1.5.4.2 Method of transferring information 33
1.6 Measurement of transferring information 37
CHAPTER 2: EXTERNAL ENVIRONMENT ANALYSIS AND CONNECTED MARKETING ACTIVITY OF
VICONGDONG 39
2.1 External environment analysis 39
2.1.1 Conditions for the application of Connected Marketing activity in Vietnam 39
2.1.2 Analysis on charity activities in Vietnam 50
2.2 Connected Marketing activity at Vicongdong 53
2.2.1. Introduction about Vicongdong project 53
2.2.2 Condition for Vicongdong doing Connected Marketing 60
2.2.3 Analysis on Connected Marketing activities in Vicongdong project 62
2.3 Some comments on the efficiency of Connected Marketing Campaign at Vicongdong project
85
CHAPTER 3: RECOMMENDATIONS 91
3.1 Developing direction of business and Marketing strategy of Visky – FPT 91
3.2 Developing new marketing solution 93
3.3 Some other proposals 106
CONCLUSION 107

REFERENCES 109
vii
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
AMA : American Marketing Association
C2C : Customer-to-Customer
CEO : Chief Executive Officer
CPC : Cost Per Click
CSR : Corporate Social Responsibility
CTR : Click Through Ratio
G.A : Google Analytics
NGO : Non-Governmental Organization
OL : Opinion leader
OPA : Online Publisher Association
WOM : Word of Mouth
WOMMA : Word of Mouth Marketing Association
viii
LIST OF TABLES
Table 2.1: Statistics on Vicongdong.vn Page 90
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1.1: An example of a social network diagram Page 5
Figure 1.2: Ordering Icecards process. Source: Icemedia Company Page 10
Figure 1.3: The comparison between Buzz marketing and Traditional
marketing
Page 13
Figure 1.4: Ways of transferring and receiving information before
and now
Page 21
Figure 1.5: Traditional marketing model Page 22
Figure 1.6: The modern marketing model Page 24
Figure 1.5: Models of media influence Page 33

Figure 2.1: Internet users in Vietnam during 2004 – 2009 Page 40
Figure 2.2: Age of Internet user vs. total population Page 41
Figure 2.3: Occupation of Internet user Page 42
Figure 2.4: Online activities done in the past Page 43
Figure 2.5: Frequency of Internet usage by city Page 44
Figure 2.6: Website visited in 4 weeks from October to November Page 45
Figure 2.7: Website visited in 4 weeks from October to November
by classifying
Page 45
Figure 2.8: Website visited in 4 weeks from October to November
by age
Page 46
Figure 2.9: Attitudes toward social connection Page 46
Figure 2.10: Websites used for social online network Page 47
Figure 2.11: Favorite websites for information gathering Page 48
Figure 2.12: Favorite websites for entertainment Page 48
Figure 2.13: Favorite websites for communication Page 48
Figure 2.14: Organization model of Visky FPT Page 54
Figure 2.15: Vicongdong’s logo Page 56
Figure 2.16: Logo of Blue Ribbon Employer Council Page 57
Figure 2.17: Message for communication campaign in “Mầm Nhân
ái 2008” contest
Page 58
Figure 2.18: Logo of “Chim én 2009” Page 59
Figure 2.19: Logo of “Ngày cuối tuần ấm áp” Page 59
Figure 2.20: Logo of the contest “ Viết vì cộng đồng” Page 59
Figure 2.21: Logo of the contest: “Mầm nhân ái” Page 67
Figure: 2.22: Communication for the Award “Chim én” Page 67
Figure 2.23: Alexa statistics on vicongdong.vn Page 84
ix

Figure 2.24: Alexa statistics – Up stream sites of Vicongdong.vn Page 84
Figure 2.25: Alexa statistics –Down stream sites of Vicongdong.vn Page 85
Figure 2.26: Alexa Statistic - Daily pageviews per user of
vicongdong.vn
Page 88
Figure 3.1: A sample of an ecard on Vithiep.vn Page 92
Figure 3.2: Topology model - Source: Marketing Department, Visky
FPT
Page 96
Figure 3.3: Fractural marketing at FPT Page 97
Figure 3.4: Creating communication message Page 98
Figure 3.5: An example of Google Analytics Page 103
Figure 3.6: An example of Google Analytics using campaigns Page 104
Figure 3.7a: A sample of the new marketing solution Page 104
Figure 3.7b: A sample of a new campaign - Choose a cause Page 105
Figure 3.8: A sample of a new campaign - Supporter chooses
Colgate as your sponsor
Page 105
Figure 3.9: A sample of a new campaign - On supporter’s profile Page 106
x
INTRODUCTION
The problem
Firstly, Vicongdong has no clear and long time marketing plan. There are only
some separate activities which have not related tightly to FPT Corporation. Whereas
FPT fund is a fund used to implement FPT’s corporate social responsibility (CSR)
and Vicongdong plays the most important role to its CSR.
Secondly, Vicongdong.vn is only a website used Web technology 2.0. Its
propagation or distribution may reach much more than geometrical progression. It
means that the connection will be certainly crucial.
Finally, FPT’s managers wish to create a result of much more than 1 $ when

they invest 1 $ for donation (1.x effect) and no longer want to use traditional way
to do CSR. However, the results that Vicongdong has harnessed have not shown
the expectation. There has not yet had any fundraising solution.
Objectives
The thesis has been much spent time on it with the objective of studying the
theory of connected marketing and then study the case of Vicongdong in marketing
field. Vicongdong is a for-runner project of Visky –FPT in plemeting CSR. So the
author would like to study how it can contribute the most important part in FPT’s
CSR. Similarly, other objective is to study whether connected marketing theory is
suitable for Vicongdong’s marketing plan and how to apply. The last one is in the
case of prospect, the author try to build a marketing plan for Vicongdong based on
connected marketing theory.
Scope
In the name of field, the thesis belongs to marketing topic which is theory of
connected marketing. In the name of space, the thesis studies the real status and
problem within the project Vicongdong.vn of FPT Corporation. Time for studying
the content of thesis is about one year from the establishment of the project
Data source:
1
The thesis takes many secondary data from FPT Corporation, books, internet.
The primary data is directly collected from the website because the high interactive
factors of web 2.0. The author has many advantages in collecting this kind of data
which is online comment of website’s member stead of implementing a small
survey. Besides that, the data has been collected by interviewing some important
people such as head of the project, Mr. Do Huu Hung, marketing expert of some
companies such as ETC center, Sunhouse company, FPT Corporation, members of
the website…
Method/ Approach
The method of the thesis includes interviewing experts, theory access from
executive books, Internet search, observation.

Research question
Why the project hasn’t had a clear marketing plan?
How Vicongdong can help FPT Corporation doing CSR and then help FPT
build great image?
How will connected marketing theory be more suitable for building marketing
plan for Vicongdong?
Which disadvantages will affect the feasibility of marketing plan for
Vicongdong?
Significance
The thesis seems to be necessary for Vicongdong at this period and it may be
reference for other companies want to do CSR most effectively.
Limitation
Connected marketing theory is relatively new and incipient in Vietnam so it
requires some different factors. The access to data source may be incorrect and lack
of information. It requires some certain knowledge on donation and community
activities.
Expected result
2
The author respect it to apply connected marketing theory on the case of
Vicongdong and build a marketing plan based on this theory.
Follow up potential
In the case of approval by the project, the author would like to study deeply to
apply in reality with more information and time. It will be basic for studying theory
“built to last” for FPT Corporation. The author also want to study an adjusted
theory suitable for Vietnamese companies
Content
The content includes three parts:
Chapter 1: Literature review – Connected marketing
Chapter 2: External environment analysis and connected marketing activity of
Vicongdong

Chapter 3: Recommendations
3
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW– CONNECTED MARKETING
Chapter I of the thesis will explore the literature of a recently marketing term
– connected marketing including the definition, types of connected marketing and
how to process a connected marketing campaign.
1.1 Definition: Connected Marketing
1.1.1 Marketing
The term of marketing is very popular to all of organizations and businesses.
It relates to a crucial industry that affects on many other activities and plays a huge
role for the development of a business or non-business unit. Especially, it has a
special effect on the image of an organization. However, up to now there has no
consolidated point of view about this concept.
According to American Association – AMA, “Marketing is a business
activity which drives products and service from the manufacturer to customer”
Philip Kotler, a leading marketing expert said: “Marketing is to work with
the market to exchange with the purpose of satisfying demand and need of
people identifying and meeting human and social needs.”
According to Peter Drucker, “the purpose of Marketing is not to promote
consumption. Its purpose is to realize and penetrate customer so thoroughly that
goods or service will fill the right demand of customer and it will be consumed
automatically”
Therefore, in general, marketing is all activities of researching, recovering
demand on goods or service of people and satisfying them best.
1.1.2 Connected Marketing
Nowadays, the development of information technology as well as digital
technology has opened new trends in society. It seems that the world is really flat as
the theory about globalization of Thomas L. Friedman, the author of an
international bestselling book “The World is flat”. Globalization also means all
parts of the world have the similar concerns and the ability of connecting together

4
more and more easily. If Nokia, for example of a mobile brand has helped us
“connecting people” for such a long time, we can visibly realize that nowadays, the
connection is very, very, very huge. The author not only connects in a small space,
short time and domestically but also connects together in global level and with no
limitation. So, it is not speaking with exaggeration when we say that: connect or
die! And I think that it is really true with economic organizations.
Marketing industry responds very quickly with the development of the age.
We easily understand because it always focuses on people, everything around
human beings to serve the research on people’s demand, bring satisfaction and even
suggestion of product choices for people’s needs. Marketing itself no longer appears
as before. The traditional marketing efforts reveal their weakness. We can take the
following famous quotes for reference:
“The traditional marketing model we all grew up with is obsolete”- Jim
Stengel, Global Marketing Officer, Procter & Gamble, 2004
[43]
5
Figure 1.1: An example of a
social network diagram. The
node with the highest
centrality is marked in
symbol that the arrow goes
into.
Source: Wikipedia
/>Social_network
“Mass marketing today is a mass mistake” - Larry Light, Chief Marketing
Officer, McDonalds, 2004
[38]
“For the first time the consumer is boss, which is fascinatingly frightening,
scary and terrifying, because everything we used to do, everything we used to

know, will no longer work” - Kevin Roberts, Chief Executive, Saatchi & Saatchi,
2005
[49]
.
Recently, there are many new marketing terms such as: digital marketing,
word of mouth marketing, viral marketing, buzz marketing, stealth marketing,
passion marketing, connected marketing… In this study the author explores the
term connected marketing. Very easily to quick understand the term, it relates to
connection.
According to Justin Kirby and Paul Marsden, authors of the book
“Connected Marketing, The Viral, Buzz and Word of Mouth Revolution”: “one-to-
one, face-to-face, live buzz, live viral marketing, gossip marketing, word of mouth
marketing, stealth marketing, ambush marketing, guerrilla marketing, tremor
marketing, sneeze marketing, theatrical marketing, live point-of-sale, underground
marketing, peer-to-peer marketing all strands of connected marketing”
[48]
.
Blythe Mason, Worldwide Marketing Program manager on the website
Connectedmarketing.com said that: “Connected Marketing provides a
comprehensive suite of marketing services, specializing in the development of
integrated campaigns”
[9]
Mobile technology and Internet network has played special role in helping
people connect together. Nowadays, they become more and more popular, more
convenient, cheaper and more flexible. Therefore, marketers have many methods to
create their mass marketing campaign to right people. The term “online social
network” also appears in many performances such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn,
Blog, FriendFeed, Friendster, Hi5, MySpace, Orkut, Tagged The connection
becomes very quickly at geometric progression level. If a hot message is given out
through the Internet, it will be intermediately transferred via social networks within

6
only a second! It doesn’t unlike a virus, even “more intelligent and dangerous” than
a real kind of virus. It means that marketers can design marketing messages and get
the customer’s attention much more than before.
Justin Kirby and Paul Marsden defined the term Connected Marketing in
their work that it is a marketing term relating to new marketing techniques that
“using word of mouth connections as marketing media to drive growth. It covers
three emerging techniques in marketing: viral marketing, buzz marketing and word
of mouth marketing”
[53]
Viral Marketing: “Viral marketing describes any strategy that encourages
individuals to pass on a marketing message to others, creating the potential for
exponential growth in the message’s exposure and influence. Like viruses, such
strategies take advantage of rapid multiplication to explode the message to
thousands, to millions
[69]
.
Buzz Marketing: “A marketing technique that makes use of an actual event
or performance to create word of mouth”
[44]
.
Word of mouth marketing: “Oral, person-to-person communication between
a receiver and a communicator whom the receiver perceives as non-commercial,
concerning a brand, a product or a service”
[6]
Viral, buzz and word of mouth marketing are included in the main concept
“connected marketing”. They also show us the way to divide connected marketing
into three main activities or three marketing techniques to develop a connected
marketing plan.
According to my individual point of view, the concept Connected marketing

is also understood that:
Connected marketing is marketing efforts that we make use of the
community’s connection to transfer marketing messages, aiming to create brand
realization and increase the interest for a brand. There are three types of connected
marketing: Viral marketing, buzz marketing and word of mouth marketing.
7
Reference: Hawthorne effect
Hawthorne Effect
[55]
Back in the 1930s, a team of researchers from the Harvard Business School
were commissioned to run some research for the telecom giant Western Electric
(now Lucent Technologies). They implemented the research at the company’s
production plant in Hawthorne, near Chicago. They invited small groups of
employees to trial various new working conditions before rolling them out to the
general workforce. The participants seemed to like whatever was trialed, their
productivity increased in almost situations. Taking all trial cases together,
researchers found out that whatever the researchers asked participants to discuss and
trial resulted in an increase in productivity. The team of Harvard researchers, led by
Elton Mayo, realized that their results had nothing to do with what was being trialed
and everything to do with running research trials. By participating in an exclusive
trial, participants felt valued, special and important. The special attention they
received satisfied their ego and created a positive emotional relationship with what
they were trialing. The practical final result was that the research trials effectively
transformed the research participants into advocates for whatever it was they were
trialing. A series of further trials found this phenomenon to be more or less
systematic, and the research team call the term “The Hawthorne Effect” to describe
the goodwill and advocacy that research trials generate among research participants.
Studying the Hawthorne Effect will also help us in conducting connected marketing
campaign.
1.2. Types of Connected Marketing

1.2.1 Word of mouth marketing
There exists a reality, maybe, from the beginning age of goods exchange that
people often purchase what they see, listen and follow from the others’ behavior,
suggestion. It is very easily to understand. According to the theory of behavior of
Maslow, people have five levels of demand. Out of them, it is the demand of safety.
Imitating the others’ behavior or trying something the others use, it seems likely
8
safer than trying with a strange thing. In a broaden extent, we say “schooling
behavior” or “herd behavior”. It can be understood more deeply when viewing
Vietnamese stock market in recent years. People do not respond to the seller, the
company … but respond to what they hear from other independent sources. A
survey brings an useful information: average person has 11 to 12 intimate contacts,
150 social contacts and from 500 to 1,500 weak ties. So, the only true currency in
this world is what individuals share with someone else. There is a large body of
research shows that people gather information from marketing materials, experts,
famous people, professional magazines … then talk it over with their friends. They
buy in response to what other people say about the product. In fact, “the world of
marketing really revolves around word of mouth” – George Silverman, President
and Founder of Market Navigation, Inc. One talk, people listen. Then they talk it
over with their friends, family and trusted advisors. Then they purchase, but not
before talking about the product. So getting people to talk often, favorably, to the
right people in the right way about a brand or a product is by far the most important
thing that a marketer has to do.
The open library Wikipedia defines: “Word of mouth is a reference to the
passing of information from person to person. Originally the term referred
specifically to oral communication
[52]
(literally words from the mouth), but now
includes any type of human communication, such as face-to-face, telephone, email
and text messaging”

Word of mouth Marketing is techniques to improve communication between
people to people (in this scope, it relates information sender and information
receiver) that receiver comprehends information about a trademark or a product,
service non-commercially.
According to George Silverman, President and Founder of Market
Navigation Inc., “Word- of- mouth Marketing is communication about products and
services between people who are perceived to be independent of the company
9
providing the product or service, in a medium perceived to be independent of the
company”
[59]
.
Word of mouth marketing is not only non-commercially but also very
effective. A named MediaEdge survey of over 10,000 was conducted by Consulting
Company CIA in 2004 showed that 76% out of participants consider word of mouth
reference as main factor affecting their buying decision and only 15% of them like
traditional advertising. According to a research of Koen Pauwels, business school of
Dartmouth, Word of mouth generates the twenty - time efficiency in comparison
with traditional marketing such as printed newspaper and television. Besides that,
this research also affirmed that social relationship in society brings in thirty-time
efficiency in comparison with other marketing events. In a study of Havard
Business School, we find out some facts: 91% likely to buy on recommendation,
92% prefer WOM recommendation. The author also comes across a law of few:
10% of influence purchasing behavior of other 90%. Therefore, word of mouth
marketing is nothing different from marketing attempts to make C2C (customer-to-
customer) conversation.
Figure 1.2: Ordering Icecards process. Source: Icemedia Company
10
The principle of Word of mouth is that there are no ads or no seller can make
customers believe in advantage of a product more credibly than a friend, a relative,

old customer or an independent expert. Suppose that a person are intending to
purchase a laptop and he has seen ads of Palm, HP and Sony; even that he saw them
at laptop supermarket and heard many information from seller, he has not still
decided to take it. Then a friend told him about a Palm laptop and how this friend
changed his life or he read information on a famous newspaper about the
examination about it. Immediately, it affected this person and he decided to take
one Palm.
Philip Kotler said that “word- of- mouth marketing is developing naturally
base on Internet development and mobile phone, it is more credible than advertising
and has a huge marketing power”
[57]
.
Justin Kirby and Paul Marsden, authors of the book “Connected Marketing,
The Viral, Buzz and Word of Mouth Revolution” gave us a useful summary of an
early research on word of mouth offered the following definition:
“Oral, person-to-person communication between a receiver and a
communicator whom the receiver perceives as non-commercial, concerning a
brand, a product or a service”
[30]
In the other word, let’s say, word of mouth marketing is marketing
techniques making people become natural brand advocates. It is the actual sharing
of an opinion about a product or service between two or more consumers. In word
of mouth marketing, finding out right people (the influencer of community) and
giving them necessary information about a product/service are very important. They
are called Leading Opinion who attracts many fans or gets much interest from a
community. Their concerns about anything immediately pick up many attentions
from the others.
11
1.2.2 Buzz marketing
In order to understand exactly what buzz marketing is, it’s useful to break the

term down and here the author borrows some definitions. Longman dictionary of
contemporary English defines:
Buzz (v): 1. Make a sound, to make a continuous sound like the sound of a
bee; 2. Move around, to move quickly and busily around a place; 3. Excitement, if a
place or a group of people is buzzing, people are making a lot of noise because they
are excited
[50]
.
Buzz (n): 1. a strong feeling of excitement, pleasure or success; 2. unofficial
news or information that is spread by people telling each other
[51]
.
So, buzz marketing means making marketing attempts to create “buzz”
around a product, service or brand …. Buzz here like positive rumors, echoes or
comments.
Justin Foxton, Founding Partner and CEO of Comment UK in his book of
connected marketing has had a definition of live buzz marketing as following: “A
marketing technique that makes use of an actual event or performance to create
word of mouth”
[45]
.
Thomas Jr, Greg (2006), author of "Building the buzz in the hive mind" in
Journal of Consumer Behaviour : “Marketing buzz or simply buzz is a term used in
word-of-mouth marketing. The interaction of consumers and users of a product or
service serves to amplify the original marketing message.”
[60]
Emakina, a leading independent Belgian web agency, suggests about this
term as following: Buzz marketing is “excitement Buildup via Word of Mouth”. The
objective is “a type of PR whereby you engage in either publicity stunts or plant
content (Blogs, articles, message board postings) hoping to get a "buzz" generated

about your brand.”
12
Figure 1.3: The comparison between Buzz marketing and Traditional
marketing
[67]
The marketing pattern here is let outsiders say, instead of you. The author
realize that rumor will be triggered out when it is worth to make people transfer the
information. Buzz marketing takes a role of creating people excitement to tell to
others about their memorable and good experiences. Buzz marketing appears mostly
in offline patterns and simultaneously or immediately initiated by e.g. online
campaign. So, it can be implemented in the form of an event, an entertainment, an
exciting activity, shock advertising, big exclusive panels, sexy ads or taboo clips …
that generates publicity, excitement, controversy and information to people.
However, it requires great product or service.
Buzz marketing is often used as part of the "seeding" campaign to help get
the word out about a new viral ad”. It is known that if buzz is done right, people
will write about it, so it essentially becomes a great PR vehicle. Marketing
executive has to give people a reason to talk about our brand. Therefore, an
effective buzz marketing campaign will create an effect of an epidemic, we can say
as “everywhere you go, you hear people talking about it".
The power of buzz marketing may be included in the statement of Philip
Kotler at an international seminar on Marketing in Ho Chi Minh city on 17
th
August
13
2007 as: “ Buzz marketing is a really vehicle that marketers can use to increase the
popularity, the hormone about some information of product and service”.
Marketers have many tactics to implement buzz marketing. And then the
conservation among community starts. Taking some buzz marketing activities from
past company, we recruit 6 main signs of buzz:

- The taboo (sex, lies, bathroom humor)
- The outrageous
- The unusual
- The hilarious
- The remarkable
- Secrets (both kept and revealed)
The case of Apple: Planned information leaking incident of Apple about
iPhone before official information announced at MacWorld Seminar on 9 January
2007 has made “buzz” conversation. Basing on consumers’ expectation on a perfect
product similar to Ipod Mp3, Apple has stimulated the demand of the market up to
maximum with a hope of owning the most excellent mobile phone having perfect
characteristics. Marketers of Apple revealed some important information about the
product for several important influencers who would transfer information for others.
The curiousness has helped word of mouth trigger out and brought very amazing
results.
Some other examples: Vinh Hao pure water has a slogan: “Why do you have
to drink pure water by the price of mineral water?” X-Men shampoo: “If loving
your husband, give him his own shampoo”. Tiger beer with a promotion program
printed under the bottle’s cover: “Disputing the official owner of Land Cruiser”.
Benetton Fashion in America has posters with an image of a parish priest embracing
and kissing a girl, a white baby nursing absorbedly at a black mother’s breast, a girl
being hopeless of AIDS…
14
1.2.3 Viral marketing
The term “Viral Marketing” was first mentioned by Professor Jeffrey F.
Rayport at Harvard School of Business on December 1996 on an article of Fast
Company Magazine, named “The Virus of Marketing”. Then, this term has been
disseminated widely by Tim Draper and Steve Jurvetson, founders of Draper Fisher
Jurvetson in 1997. The venture capitalist company, Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ)
financed the first free e-mail service Hotmail (www.hotmail.com). Sabeer Bhatia

and Jack Smith of Java Soft Incorporation approached DFJ with the idea and Tim
Draper suggested adding an advertising message at the bottom of each outgoing
Hotmail. Each sent free Hotmail message spurred the receiver of such a message to
also get the free e-mail provider and in turn passed it on to relatives and friends
[40]
.
In 1997 Hotmail reached ten million users. Microsoft bought Hotmail for $400
million that same year
[61]
. Jurvetson and Draper defined viral marketing as
“network-enhanced word of mouth”
[42]
. The advertising message “Get your free e-
mail at Hotmail”, at the bottom of every sent e-mail, was not constrained locally
since the users connected with other Web users outside their hometown. Hotmail
spread at first nation wide, then world wide making Hotmail the single most
frequently used e-mail provider in Sweden and India
[41]
.The advertising budget of
Hotmail was a mere $50.000. Within 18 months, 12 million users became
subscribers, an unheard of record. The innovators of Hotmail were equally surprised
with the rapid spread.
When the author uses the word viral (adj) or virus (n) in marketing, the
author aims that it has a large, large scope of transferring. The author can imagine it
as an epidemic with a very swiftly speed of spreading.
According to Wikipedia, “viral refer to marketing techniques that use pre-
existing social networks to produce increases in brand awareness or to market or
sell analogous to the spread of pathological and computer viruses”.
Brice Le Blévennec, President of Emakina web agency commented on the
term of viral marketing as: “An attempt to deliver a marketing message that spreads

15
quickly and exponentially among consumers Contrary to alarmists' fear, viral isn't
evil. It is not dishonest or unnatural. At its best, it is word of mouth enabled, and at
its worst, it is just another interruptive marketing message”
Dr. Ralph F. Wilson – one of the famous online marketing authors in the
world stated: “Viral Marketing describes any strategy of encouraging an individual
to spread a marketing content and ad to others, creating an exponential potentiality
of development. This exponential increase and spreading message are critical
factors of these definitions”.
Some people say that viral marketing is any marketing activity aimed to
increase and magnifying the rumor in digital environment.
The author can understand that viral marketing is online promotional
campaigns that hopefully spread "like a virus." One minute nobody has heard of it,
next minute, it is everywhere. Viral marketing depends on a high pass-along rate
from person to person. If a large percentage of recipients forward something to a
large number of friends, the overall growth snowballs very quickly. If the pass-
along numbers get too low, the overall growth quickly breaks down. If successful, it
spreads like a “virus” and grows exponentially.
Studies figured out some critical factors. If we show the speed of increasing
number of people receiving information through viral marketing as a line, it will be
likely to forward and amounts of friends will forward the message. They also reveal
that 25% of people sometimes forward messages and 75% never does – this is the
group the author considers deeply. And the exponential growth-rate: likeliness to
forward * number of destines > 1
Examples
[58]
:
– 25% * 4 friends = 1 = status quo effect
– 10% * 8 friends = 0, 8 = no exponential
– 15% * 10 friends = 1.5 = exponential effect

– 5% * 20 friends = 0.8 = not exponential
16
When the author mentions this concept, I refer to a marketing method based
on the technology of mobile phone and Internet. Marketers often use some vehicles
as following to apply on viral marketing, branded material, websites, blogs,
advergames, interactive flash, ebooks, widgets, bligets, videos, utilities,
collaboration tools, etc that generate spread.
An online survey revealed the following reasons to forward:
1. Make people laugh
2. Recommend something
3. Competition (joins or helps you win)
4. Earn you some money / reduction
5. Call for charity, noble cause
6. Join a petition
7. Sex
8. Prank
9. Self appreciation
10. Chain mail
A “viral” product often includes the following factors:
1. The product must have a true value to the sender as well as the receiver.
Uninteresting information is not passed on. The content of the product can be a
service, a game, entertainment, greeting cards, monetary incentive, sweepstake etc
2. The service or product is free
3. The product is easily reproducible
4. The product or service is exclusively distributed over the Internet
In conclusion, when organization has a passionate fan base for a brand, the
Internet is especially vital for going viral. The key is communicating to a small but
powerful group of fans first online to enlist their support is a smart way to ensure
positive coverage in the mainstream press. The power of the Internet makes it easier
for people to fall in love with us faster. But we have to be conscious—it also makes

it easier for them to fall out of love with us faster. It’s a double-edged sword.
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From analyzing three types of Connected marketing, the author concludes
that word of mouth focuses on person to person communication about a brand,
product or service, whereas buzz marketing widen the role of mass media in
creating excitement buildup on product, service or brand and viral marketing
focuses on transforming the information through online world (internet, weblog,
instant message, web review, RSS, social network …). Making a connected
marketing plan needs combine above three types to get highest efficiency.
1.3 The power of Connected marketing in digital age
1.3.1 Widely connection between the company/organization and customer
A connected marketing plan in digital age as nowadays makes the full use of
Internet and interactive technology in mobilephone such as SMS, Bluetooth, Web
so the market penetration becomes easier. The number of target customer it can
access is much higher. At the average level, an individual will transfer the
information he/she know to 12 – 14 others whereas the influencer (or Opinion
leader) can affect 10-20 times vs. a normal person. The propagation is unlike an
epidemic caused by a kind of “online virus”. Because the connected marketing term
includes three types (word of mouth marketing, buzz marketing and viral
marketing), so it is conducted by both offline marketing activities (word of mouth,
excitement build up) and online marketing activities (viral via embedded link
location, social online network, “digg” or “like” action …). The cover of internet is
global; hence the effect of connected marketing will be very large if it is done
correctly.
1.3.2 Building customer’s trust
In the booming age as now, customers face with huge amount of
information. They become more difficult to select information. And much of them
don’t believe in what they get from Internet. Therefore, they tend to find out
believable source such as famous websites, trusted web pages, famous people,
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family, friends, colleges, experts …. When they read information from these
sources, they will send or share it for their friends, family, colleges or update for
their fan in social online network. Much of them will consult with their trust
sources. Connected marketing explores this characteristic to select the suitable
influencer or opinion leaders. Opinion leaders surround them a huge number of
fans, friends and their ideas often heavily affect on the peers. They are people who
lead public opinion, share information about what they know about an upcoming
event, a new product, service and especially share their experiences about the
product, service. They are also the company’s target customers. The message from
opinion leader has strong effect on the others that generates the faith of the other
customers on the product, service. Amongst thousands of message that customers
receive daily, which of them gets the interest and then establish the customer’s trust
meaning that it promotes its marketing role.
On the other word, in Connected marketing theory, customers not only share
the information but also their faith.
1.3.3 Cutting marketing cost
Previously, marketers have used Television, radio, print papers, magazine,
newspaper, leaflets … to communicate messages about product/service. We all
know that companies have to give out tremendous amount of money for those
marketing costs. And how we know how many people receive their message? Out
of them, how many people are really interested in and target customers of the
company/organization? If the result is 10 -20% of receivers who are target
customer, it means that 80-90% of communication cost which is actually inefficient.
How Connected marketing deal with this problem? Through information channel to
investigate the customer, marketers have a database set on target customer divided
into age, gender, interest …. Many websites require information on membership
with visitors so easily to statistic these figures. When customers want to know more
about product/service, they will share together, post comments on forum, social
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