Consumers’ attitude towards viral marketing in Pakistan

The rapid advancement of technology has opened many costeffective avenues for marketers to promote their products. One of the emerging techniques of products promotion through the use of technology is viral marketing that is becoming a popular direct marketing tool for marketers across the world. Therefore, marketers should understand factors that result in increased acceptance of viral marketing by consumers. The present research was conducted to investigate consumers’ attitude towards viral marketing in Pakistan. The data was gathered through a five point Likert scale questionnaire from 216 respondents across Pakistan. Correlation and regression analysis were carried out to find out the relationship between dependent and independent variables. The study findings indicate a positive relationship between the independent variables of informativeness, entertainment and source credibility with the dependent variable of attitude towards viral marketing, informativeness and source credibility being the most important attributes affecting attitude towards viral marketing, whereas, irritation has no significant affect on consumers’ attitude towards viral marketing. Implications for the marketing managers are to design and deliver viral marketing messages through a credible source that provides informative, entertaining, authentic and trustworthy messages to customers. Moreover, the adoption of permission based marketing concept in viral marketing campaigns may lead to a more positive consumers’ attitude towards viral marketing in Pakistan.