For a good portion of the 1990's, Emanuel Rosen held the post of Vice President of Marketing at Niles Software, maker of EndNote, an Academics-related software tool designed to facilitate the management of bibliographic references.

By all accounts, Rosen, who was charged with spearheading efforts to market EndNote, conducted an exceedingly successful campaign, ultimately leading to the virtual ubiquity of EndNote at institutions of higher learning worldwide, and to sales in excess of 200,000 copies.

Despite its undisputed success, Rosen recounts being - perhaps, ironically - dissatisfied (and confounded) by one aspect of the marketing campaign for EndNote: the rapidity and extent to which the software tool propagated through the Academic world via word-of-mouth, with little marketing stimulation.

What particularly vexed Rosen, who's natural inclination it was to attempt to precisely adjust and measure every facet of the campaign, was the seemingly erratic and uncontrollable manner in which the word-of-mouth phenomenon was impacting sales of EndNote.

What began as vexation, rapidly gave way to a craving for an understanding of what might be done to systematically harness the word-of-mouth phenomenon for marketing ends. And this, in turn, led Rosen into a period of extensive research into the subject culminating with the eventual production of his seminal work, The Anatomy of Buzz, released in 2000 to highly favorable reviews from the discerning and influential likes of Al Ries, Patricia Seybold, Steve Jurvetson, Geoffrey Moore, and Seth Godin.

In Anatomy, Rosen dissects the structure of the person-to-person communication that underlies the word-of-mouth phenomenon, and attempts to extract from this structure a set of techniques that may be used to stimulate, harness, and accelerate the phenomenon, to positive marketing effect. The sum total of these techniques represents the principles of what Rosen refers to as "Buzz Marketing".

According to Rosen, Viral Marketing, the still nascent, little-understood area of Interactive Marketing is the online strand of Buzz Marketing. As such, he argues in Buzz, the principles of Buzz Marketing may be used to positively enhance the effectiveness of Viral Marketing campaigns.

In what follows, avant|marketer Editor, Ajay Segal speaks to Rosen to gets his insights into the methods, state, and future of Viral Marketing. In the course of the discussion, Rosen shares his thoughts on such matters as in which product areas and industries Viral Marketing tactics are most effectively employed, techniques whereby person-to-person Viral propagation of a marketing message can be stimulated, the correct relationship between traditional Brand Advertising and Viral Marketing, and the proper role of incentives in Viral Marketing campaigns.

avant|marketer: The concept of Viral Marketing has been subject to a number of different, sometimes disparate analyses. Steve Jurvetson, the Venture Capitalist who originally coined the term "Viral Marketing", in fact recently published a lengthy analysis of the concept himself. Distill the concept for us. What should we understand Viral Marketing to be?

Emanuel Rosen: Essentially, it's online marketing activities that stimulate person-to-person communication about a brand.

I view Viral Marketing as a subset of Buzz Marketing, in which the marketer employs both online and offline tactics to maximize positive communication among consumers.

avant|marketer: One often hears marketers and agencies suggest that Viral Marketing campaigns are, in essence, no different than campaigns designed to stimulate word-of-mouth transmission of a marketing message offline, and that, therefore, Viral Marketing campaigns and offline word-of-mouth campaigns can be implemented using essentially the same tactics. What do you think of this analysis?

Emanuel Rosen: The separation between the online and offline worlds is somewhat artificial because, ultimately, the same customers can talk online and offline. People are also motivated to talk by the same factors whether they talk face to face or on the Net. So the concepts are similar.

On the tactical level, however, there are things that are done differently on the Internet, simply because it's a different medium. Speed is an obvious difference. This opens opportunities to strategies that are not available offline.

avant|marketer: You're alluding to certain Buzz Marketing tactics that are available online but not offline. What are the biggest differences between what is possible in Buzz Marketing in the online context versus the offline context? And, is one of these two contexts the overall more powerful Buzz Marketing medium?

Emanuel Rosen: The first difference is that, online, marketers can actually facilitate the communication. The other is that in the online environment, marketers can - very economically - create rich content that people would pass along. In these respects, there's more potential in the online world.

avant|marketer: What manner of firm should be seriously considering incorporating Viral Marketing tactics into their marketing mix? Are there certain categories of company or product that your research has shown to benefit more from leveraging Viral Marketing tactics than others?

Emanuel Rosen: A good first test is to ask the question of whether people talk about your firm's product already or not, even before you have tried any Viral Marketing. If they do, that's a good sign that there may be potential for stimulating additional discussion.

Typically, Viral Marketing works best for products that are, at some level, important to people, so that they would care enough to talk about them. And, in general, people talk about products that they find exciting, innovative, complex or risky in some way. Products and services that are based on personal experience are also [more] likely [than average] to be talked about: hotels, music, cars, books, etc.

avant|marketer: In The Anatomy of Buzz, you speak about the effective identification and harnessing of "Network Hubs" as being critical to the success of Buzz Marketing campaigns. What exactly are Network Hubs and how do marketers effectively identify and harness Network Hubs in the online context, for Viral Marketing purposes?

Emanuel Rosen: Network Hubs are people who communicate with more people than average about a certain category of product. So, for instance, it may be someone online who tells everyone about the latest N'sync album.

The two most important characteristics of these people are that they are vocal and they are always hungry for new information.

How do you find them? Some of them are actually quite easy to identify, because they approach your company for new information. Firms need to treat such individuals well, and not scare them away. You'd be amazed how many companies don't even respond to emails from these people.

Another way to identify Network Hubs is to look for individuals who are vocal. In the online world, you can go to chat rooms and newsgroups and try to identify people who are obviously more influential in that group. You can also conduct surveys to identify these individuals.

Once you identify Network Hubs, you want to start working with them by letting them know about what's coming up next and by starting a conversation with them. The strategy is very similar to PR, but on a much larger scale.

avant|marketer: Why do you say, "on a much larger scale"?

Emanuel Rosen: Although "PR” stands for "public relations", many companies limit it to press relations. There's a significant difference between working with two hundred journalists and going after a broad, less visible population of thousands of Network Hubs.

avant|marketer: If a firm is contemplating the deployment of a Viral Marketing campaign, what steps do you advise that they take? What are the most important considerations to keep in mind, in your analysis?

Emanuel Rosen: Firms must begin by asking a simple question: When end-users use our product or service, is there any actual or potential person-to-person interaction with other individuals who might also use the product or service? Once you have identified points in the usage pattern of the product where there is - or may be - some interaction, you need to devise ways to stimulate or intensify that interaction.

A small example: Gardening products. The main interaction between the user and other individuals, in this case, is after the fact. People are proud of what they have accomplished and want to tell the world about it. So, the question here becomes: Is there a way to stimulate consumers to show what they have done to additional individuals? Perhaps, you let people post "before and after" pictures of their garden on your web site as part of a contest. Then you make it easy for them to invite their friends to view their entry. This isn't necessarily the best example - a little too complex - but it illustrates the concept: Identify why people want to talk. Then, give them an easy way to do it that ties to your brand.

Whatever specific Viral Marketing structure is employed, it must incorporate a reason for people to pass on the information that you give them. The ideal scenario is when a consumer forwards your message because they think very highly that your product or service. This is the best type of buzz, because it's likely to lead to actual sales. But often you can add something that will stimulate additional discussion - say, a funny picture or a clip that people will pass on to their friends. Perhaps, it's something you give for free. We've already discussed the concept of Network Hubs, so I won't repeat myself on this. But, identifying Network Hubs in different clusters, and then working with them, can be very effective [and should not be overlooked].

avant|marketer: Based on your research, what are the areas in which companies most frequently go astray in deploying Viral Marketing campaigns?

Emanuel Rosen: Viral Marketing is a relatively new field and people are being very creative, which is good. One thing to keep in mind, however: Firms must make it easy for people to spread the word. This was an important part of what made Hotmail spread so quickly. A new user could sign up in just 45 seconds. They kept this simple. They also kept their message simple.

Speaking of this example, it's important to keep in mind that, for the majority of companies, Viral Marketing should be part of a larger mix. Companies shouldn't disregard the basics [and put all resources solely into Viral Marketing]. Even in the case of Hotmail, they did use some Advertising. They did work hard on PR. And, they paid significant attention to interface design. It wasn't simply about adding that famous line, "Get your free e-mail at Hotmail.com."

avant|marketer: You mention the need for traditional advertising. What should the relationship between standard Internet Advertising - particularly branding-oriented advertising - and Viral Marketing be? Should advertising and Viral Marketing efforts be closely coordinated to achieve synergistic effects? If so, what manner of coordination is required for positive synergies to be realized?

Emanuel Rosen: It depends. In certain cases you can tie the Viral campaign very closely to your regular Internet Advertising. In other cases, this may work against you as you'll remind people that they are spreading an ad here. Everything depends on how people feel about your brand and ads, and on the nature of your Viral Marketing efforts.

avant|marketer: But, should Viral Marketing efforts precede traditional advertising efforts, and thereby be used to lay a solid foundation for traditional campaigns, or - conversely - should traditional advertising efforts precede the deployment of Viral efforts? For many of the more highly publicized cases of successful Viral Marketing, we seem to have instances in which Viral campaigns preceded any larger-scale traditional advertising efforts.

Emanuel Rosen: Typically, it is best to start with a Viral Marketing campaign and then follow-up with Advertising. Buzz happens when information is distributed unevenly. That is to say, when certain people possess information that others don't. The moment that information becomes common knowledge, there's less of a reason to pass it on.

avant|marketer: The most frequently cited Viral Marketing success stories, such as Hotmail and ICQ involve products that propagated very rapidly and widely without the use of incentives other than the inherent benefits of the products and services themselves? Yet, the suggestion is often heard that in order to successfully implement Viral Marketing campaigns, external incentives must be offered either to Network Hubs or to end users. What are your thoughts on the role of incentives in Viral Marketing?

Emanuel Rosen: I'm glad you make this point about Hotmail and ICQ. These are classic cases by now, but we should keep in mind that they are both communication tools that were given away for free, and the benefit to many users was significant. Giving something valuable for free is definitely going to help your message spread, but it isn't always feasible.

External incentives can be an effective addition, but they shouldn't be the main motivation for the recommendation. An incentive should come on a foundation of a product that people really like.

Another important consideration is to make sure, ahead of time, that your target group is comfortable with your incentive. A cash incentive that may be acceptable by one group of people, may make people in a different group uncomfortable. The sensitive issue here is that people don't want to feel cheap and that they are "selling their friends".

The ideal scenario is one in which you have a product that is well-liked by your customers, and then, you provide an incentive to these customers [to propagate your company's message] and reward the new customers [that the old customers generate], as well.

avant|marketer: What about Network Hubs? Of all the nodes in a Viral Marketing network, one would expect Network Hubs to be the most resistant to incentives. And yet, in order to rapidly propagate a marketing message in a Viral fashion, it's critical, as you said earlier, that the marketer be able to effectively engage Network Hubs. Should incentives be used to engage Network Hubs? If so, are there categories of incentive that work particularly well at engaging this type of individual?

Emanuel Rosen: I would certainly be especially careful in using incentives with Network Hubs. You want them to talk about your product because they are excited about it, not because they got a T-Shirt.

The best "incentive" that motivates Network Hubs is information, plain and simple. But make sure to give them information ahead of everyone else and get them involved in what you firm is doing, early.

But, again, as I mentioned before, it all depends on the attitudes of different groups towards incentives. You may find that certain audiences are more open to incentives than others, and this could include their Network Hubs.

avant|marketer: Ever since the recognition, perhaps starting with Hotmail, that Viral Marketing techniques could be used to accelerate product adoption online, it seems that there has been an attempt to identify methods of Viral Marketing that are not specific to a particular product, but which can be employed to make any product go viral. As one Jupiter Media Metrix Analyst put it, the hope of Internet marketers has been to find a way to "systematically harness the power of Viral Marketing." To what extent do you believe that Viral Marketing can be predictably and systematically harnessed in the way many marketers believe and hope it can?

Emanuel Rosen: If we accept that a pre-requisite for great Viral Marketing is true excitement about a product, it's easy to comprehend why implementing this systematically can be a real challenge. It's simply not very likely that people will get excited about all the products you offer. So what's left is an incentive system.

If you look at the MLM [Multi-level Marketing] industry, you'll see companies that have built incentive systems that work quite well for a wide range of products. But this has not been without problems. The reason is that many people don't feel comfortable mixing money and friendship. I don't want to sell anything to my friends and I don't want them to sell me stuff. You may run into a similar problem in building a viral system if the only things you have to offer are incentives.

Having said that, I wouldn't rule out the possibility of a generic tell-a-friend system that will work just fine in certain [broad] product categories or social clusters. The very existence of the MLM industry proves that it can be done on a limited basis.

avant|marketer: So, you're suggesting that it might be possible to develop some type of generic referral system that is extensible into multiple product categories, with roughly the same level of effectiveness?

Emanuel Rosen: All I'm saying is that I wouldn't rule it out. It depends on people's attitudes towards incentives and these attitudes may vary across social circles and can also shift over time. So a [broad] system of incentives can work in a society that accepts it.

avant|marketer: Seth Godin, the author of Permission Marketing, has also recently written a work that touches on the subject of Viral Marketing, which I'm sure you're familiar with. Both of your works have been widely discussed. What are the most substantive areas of agreement, and, more importantly, disagreement between he and you on the subject of Viral Marketing?

Emanuel Rosen: I think that Godin and I agree on many things. We often use different terms to describe similar concepts. For example, the people I call "Network Hubs" he calls "Sneezers". What he calls "hives", I call "clusters".

The one area where we may have some disagreement is with regards to the role of traditional Marketing. I still see traditional tools as potentially very useful for marketers. In my view, Marketers should pay attention to networks, but shouldn't ignore traditional tools. Simply put, Direct Marketing, Advertising and distribution can be effectively used to stimulate people to talk.

avant|marketer: What do you foresee for the future of Viral Marketing? What do you believe we will we see happening in this area, over the course of the next two to three years?

Emanuel Rosen: The importance of Viral Marketing will continue to grow. Here's why: people are inundated with information and they are skeptical of commercial messages. But, they still listen to their peers. Therefore, companies will continue looking for ways to spread their message through those peers.

Another reason that the importance of Viral Marketing will grow is that person-to-person communication is very popular on the Net and its popularity is likely to increase. Kids and teenagers who are now heavy users of chat rooms, instant messaging and email, are likely to continue using these tools in a significant way, as they grow up. Compounding this, their younger brothers and sisters are now starting to use these technologies as well. Overall, a larger percentage of the population will have more opportunities to talk. And, we humans love to talk. Give us a communication tool and we'll use it.