Notable Examples of Viral Marketing

The Ponzi scheme and related investment Pyramid schemes are an early and unfortunate example of viral marketing. In each round, investors are paid interest from the principal deposits of later investors. Early investors are so enthusiastic that they recruit their friends resulting in exponential growth until the pool of available investors is tapped out and the scheme collapses.Multi‐level marketing popularized in the 1960’s and 70’s is essentially a form of viral marketing in which representatives gain income by recruiting customers and associates to themselves become marketing representatives. When successful, the strategy creates an exponentially growing network of representatives and greatly enriches early adopters. Examples include Amway and Mary Kay Cosmetics.Business Week (2001) described web‐based campaigns for Hotmail (1996) and The Blair Witch Project (1999) as striking examples of viral marketing, but warned of some dangers for imitation marketers.