病毒行銷這個議題雖然主要是行銷理論的探究，但其原理卻是根據較基本的學門整合並配合擴散的現象建立的，因此這些本研究的結果不僅可以供網路行銷者的使用以外，也可以提供文化擴散、廣告行為、語文演變、甚至典範移轉的擴散行為研究之參考。

注射器與載體部份的實驗結果，操縱組與控制組效果差不多，甚至可說更差，但寄主組與進化組的效果則都有9倍以上的效果，可見選擇寄主十分重要，而注射器與載體則要配合寄主的設計才能有效果的發揮。這部份的結論與第四章最後一節的假設相同，因此該節的搭配原則設計方式可信度相當高。

因此綜合本研究的證據，回顧本研究在第二章所類比而得的，病毒行銷的架構假設，如下圖：

其中在如何使寄主消費與製造方面，確實可以類比為病毒在寄主體內的自我複製行為，而傳播則類比為衍生子行為、進化類比為突變子行為。病毒本體除了基因是預設的產品、服務等行銷目的以外，本研究也認為選定目標寄主可以提高病毒行銷的效果，因為以病毒來說，在一個全是可感染寄主的群體中與一個有多種寄主的群體中，當然是在前者的感染效率會較佳。而蛋白質外殼類比為載體相當正確，雖然單一效果不明顯，但其不可或缺性可以在進化部份的實驗以及個案研究中獲得證實。注射器在病毒生態中也是一個不明顯的角色，類比到病毒行銷中也是一個單一設計效果不明顯的部件，而其結構組成跟載體相同則也在某種程度上反應了載體與注射器是一體的兩面，一個專司防禦一個專司攻擊。

回顧一開始本研究所設定的病毒行銷暫時性的操作型定義，「所謂的病毒行銷是可以由行銷者依據行銷目的的不同，而為該目的設計出的一套專屬的、能夠經由自我擴散的方式以完成該特定行銷目的的完整線上行銷策略。」經由到現在的推理結果可以發現該定義可以擴展如下：

所謂的病毒行銷，是可以由行銷者依據不同的行銷目的（基因），根據不同的顧客族群（寄主）特性來選擇與設計的，為完成該特定目的的、專屬的、能夠經由特定管道（注射器）自我擴散的、擁有特定形式（載體）的一套線上行銷策略。

整理本研究重點如下：

1.任何公司都可以採用病毒行銷，用本研究的語言為，基因可以為任何產品、品牌、甚至策略目標。

2.當選擇的行銷目的確定了以後，目標顧客也同時被確定。行銷者的工作是尋找出來並設定為目標。換句話說，基因與目標寄主是成對的。

3.適當選擇或設計行銷目的的表現形式可以提高行銷效果。換句話說，經由適當設計過的載體可以提高病毒行銷的效果。

　4.要影響顧客的行為，必然要先能引起顧客的動機，而引起顧客動機的資訊也要能包含在病毒行銷之中。

　5.每一次的病毒行銷應該都是一套完整的行銷策略，唯有適切操作本研究所談及的四個部件才能發揮完全的功效。

　6.本研究所討論的病毒行銷與直銷、傳播研究所謂的二級傳播理論之差異如下表所示：

┌────┬─────────────┬────┬──────┐

│　　　 │病毒行銷 　　　　　　　│直銷 │二級傳播 　 │

├────┼─────────────┼────┼──────┤

│傳播者　│包括顧客與傳播的中心點　　│顧客　　│傳播的中心點│

├────┼─────────────┼────┼──────┤

│績效評估│經設計過後可以被估算 　 │可以 │不行 │

├────┼─────────────┼────┼──────┤

│應用範圍│本研究中暫時限制為虛擬世界│實體世界│不限 　　　 │

└────┴─────────────┴────┴──────┘

---

Viral marketing was first to be mentioned in the article of the fast company web site in december, 1996. In this article, the auther give virus marketing the defination of “a marketing method which spreads itself automatically”, and people who see this article adopted it, too. Although this defination is clear, many people treat viral marketing as another name of ”e-mail marketing”.

e-mail marketing means using the e-mail system as a tool of marketing. For the characteristics of e-mail are convenient, cheap, public and “people spread it volunteerly”, most early examples of viral marketing use e-mail as their tool to spread. That’s the main reason the two concepts was confused.

Objectives

This research tries to reach three main objects：

● Give viral marketing an academic definition ,which means the marketing manager could repeat the approach to get similar result.

● Find the components of viral marketing so that the characters could be descripted ,and the main parts that should be operated could be assured.

● Try to find the relation between the viral marketing locus and the environment where it is happening.

Research Structure

According to biology theorem, virus’ life cycle was discovered almost completely. That’s the main reason for the research taking virus’ life cycle as a reference of reseach structure. To avoid of lacking any component which is important and to define the main category, the adapting is neccesary and decisive.

After observing about 500 cases for 3 months, components of viral marketing was formed gradually. Under the strict analogy logic molted from the concept of “analogism”, the main components that should be operated was figured out. They are Injector, Carrier, Host, and Evolution. Injector and Carrier are both inside the “virus” which was made by the marketing manager or virus designer. Host is another name of customer. Evolution is an component which only bring obvious effects when the environment element was taked into consideration.

Redraw the components’ relation as follows:

In this model, there are four action which are not mentioned above. Produce explains where the virus from, Infecting refers to the reason that a virus could influnce host’s behavior, Consuming is the action to complete the full cycle. Spreading and evoluting was co-variating actions that were discussed in the evolution chapter.

Case Choice

For the different purposes in this research, the types of cases choosed were diversing and the amount was large. Most effort was taked in observing the e-mail everyday. Tracing each email, counting their spread period, and analyzing the success or fail key factors.

To analogize the virus’ life cycle, the meanings of components in the real world are required. For this purpose, Hotmail, ICQ, and Ctrl-Mail were chosed as the real world cases of viral marketing. Hotmail and ICQ were both selected as sucessful examples of viral marketing extensively. Ctrl-Mail was chosed for their high technology background and technology-oriented company strategy so that viral marketing will not be misunderstanded as another IT method nor marketing concept but a mixture of concept and method.

Research Methodology

The first part of this research was based on the ground theory. To build the open category, about 200 cases was studied to defined the main category of viral marketing, and 3 primary cases was analyzied to analogize the structure of the research, using the research methodology of “Right Analogy”.

Right Analogy is constructed on the same logic of anlogism, which requires 2 similar objects shall the same but one critical difference, and then the characteristics is analogied possible.

Under the logic, the primary category can be constructed, and the theory can be extracted from the cases we observed.

Conclusions

1. The definition of viral marketing can be described as follows:“ Viral marketing is an online strategy which is in an particular formation, can spread itself through the paticular chnnels and if marketing managers, designers, or any one who need it can design it personally to reach a particular object.”

2. Virus’ gene can be any product, brand, service, and even a strategy object.

3. When the marketing object was chosen, the target customer was assured at the same time. In another words, gene and host in viral marketing are coupled.

4. Proper represet formation can induce higher marketing effect, that is, a proper designed carrier is better.

5. The differences between viral marketing, direct selling, and second-level communication were showed as follows:

┌──────┬────────────┬───────┬─────────┐

│　　　 │Viral marketing │Direct selling│second-level │

│　　　 │ │ │communication │

├──────┼────────────┼───────┼─────────┤

│communicator│Customer and the center │Customer │the center of │

│　　　 │of the communication │ │the communication │

├──────┼────────────┼───────┼─────────┤

│Achievement │Can be estimated after │yes │no │

│estimation │being designed │ │ │

├──────┼────────────┼───────┼─────────┤

│Applied │Virtual world limited │Real world │No limited │

│situation │in this research │ │ │

└──────┴────────────┴───────┴─────────┘

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