DOES VIRAL MARKETING CREATE BRAND AWARENESS? AN EXPLORATORY STUDY WITH UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

Abstract

Viral Marketing has attracted the attention of many schoolers and people from the field of marketing because of the broad reach the message it shares can get. Recent studies investigated what leads people to share viral content and which content is most likely to become viral. However, there is no proved correlation between virilization and brand awareness generating. Considering that the main purpose of any Marketing is make the target audience identify and remember a brand, the current study investigated through an exploratory survey whether the videos that went viral on 2016 were able to generate brand awareness in a group of students of the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo-PUC / SP. The results showed limited impact on the creation of brand awareness, because of previous experience of the public in recognition of the brand displayed on the video. In addition to the results the study also contributes by questioning the content displayed in viral videos and shows how the time of exposure of a brand on a video influences directly in the creation of brand awareness.