Using Viral Marketing in Campaigns Supporting Health Promotion (student paper)

Introduction:
Viral marketing is a technique that uses pre-existing social networks. It consists in initiating a situation in which the recipient will distribute information, building awareness and overall recognition of a product or an issue. This allows achieving high efficiency and effectiveness at a very low cost.

Aims:
(1) Comparison of the techniques and transmission channels used in traditional and viral marketing. (2) Selection of the key principles for the preparation of a successful program that uses viral marketing campaign to support health promotion.

Methodology:
Review of the literature concerning viral marketing and its application in public health. Analysis and impact assessment of already performed viral marketing campaigns supporting health promotion.  Cost-effectiveness analysis of those campaigns. Attempt to find mistakes and evaluate their impact on the campaigns' results.

Results:
As far as public health is concerned, viral marketing campaigns achieve very good results in relation to their costs. Their effectiveness, however, depends on the target group to which the information is transmitted. The Internet is the most efficient channel of communication. Moreover, simplicity is essential in constructing well-distributed information.

Conclusions:
Viral marketing is widely used in advertising campaigns. In public health, however, it is used rarely. Its high efficiency and its low costs prove that it is as a good choice when planning campaigns that support health promotion. However, there are principles, compliance to which is necessary to achieve good results. There are also possible mistakes that may significantly reduce the efficiency.