ABSTRACT

The study' examined the effect of viral advertising on brand awareness among household based consumers in Abia state, Nigeria. The main objective was to examine the effect of viral advertising on brand awareness among household based consumers. The specific objectives were to examine the most effective tools of viral marketing used by household based consumers, determine whether consumers patronize and make buying decisions based on referrals made through viral marketing, analyse the product offers patronized by consumers via viral marketing, evaluate the relationship between the various brand equity constructs(brand awareness, associating and loyalty) on viral marketing and to analyse the factors affecting consumer's access to viral marketing activities in the study area. About 120 respondents were chosen through imp1e sampling technique from five selected local government areas. Data were collected by the use of structured and pre- tested questionnaires administered on selected respondents. Subsequent data were analyzed using descriptive statistics (tables, frequencies, charts and graphs) and inferential (liker scale, multiple regression and correlation). The result shows that majority of the respondents were still young as about 90% of them were below 35 years. It shows that men constituting 52.7% made use of social media platoons and viral marketing more often than the females( 47.3%), the majority of the respondents were single(88%) while l8.2%, O.9% and 0.9% were married, widowed and separated respectively, also majority of the respondents use Facebook more often than other social media tools. The result showed that income, network availability, level of education, and level of exposure to ICT were the significant variables that affected viral marketing. In line with the findings, it was recommended that brick and mortar firms should carry out more viral marketing activities using the most effective tools of viral marketing in order to reach a large number of the consumers, that marketers must make sure that target audience should receive their marketing communications at right time and right place and that marketers should prioritize viral marketing as their strategy in social media.