HP Labs questions effectiveness of viral marketing

Research findings from HP's Social Computing Lab suggests that consumer recommendations and viral marketing might not be quite as effective as many think and that results were often unimpressive.

The propensity of a consumer to make a purchase does rise with the number of recommendations on offer, found HP’s research, but only at first. The likelihood soon plateaus, they found, and as the number of recommendations increase they become watered down and less extreme in their opinions and potentially of less persuasive value.

The report authors also threw doubt on the value of viral marketing, suggesting the reason for many failed viral marketing campaigns is partly due to the scope and breadth of a person’s circle of friends being over-estimated and usually limited to two or three subgroups.

In a punchy retort, Lee Raito of LeeRaito.com claims, “Viral marketing is not dead, nor will it ever be”, adding that all HP has achieved is to give marketers with failed viral campaigns under their belt an excuse for what was probably just a badly executed campaign.

Tags: viral marketing, word of mouth