> Marks & Spencer, in conjunction with Persimmon Homes, are giving away free vouchers. Marks & Spencer’s are trying word-of-mouth advertising to introduce its products and the reward you receive for advertising for them is free non-refundable vouchers to be used in any M &S store.
> To receive your free vouchers by e-mail all you have to do is send this e-mail out to 8 people (for £100 of free vouchers) or 20 people (for £500 of free vouchers). Within 2 weeks you will receive an e-mail with your vouchers attached.
> They will contact you through your e-mail address.
> Please mark a copy to:>
> xxxx@persimmonshomes.com
>
> Anna

I was momentarily elated - could this be the new viral marketing scheme of 2008? I had visions of this being the newest thing since Hotmail appeared in our inboxes years and years ago. With the harshest budget of all time occurring today, surely a bit of good news in the form of an email could only be a good thing!

Alas, you can sense my dispair when I did a google search and found out that it a scam.

The email system should be a feeding ground for legitimate viral marketing campaigns. How easy is it to pass along a mail to a couple of your friends and the jobs done. A good message should lend itself to be sent around. If so, then the message is sent to more and more people. It’s a simple way of marketing.

But aside from Hotmail in the early 90s, what campaigns purely work on the email system? Viral marketing has been described as word of mouth or word of mouse - it can be compared to a relay team…a baton is passed along and passed along and passed along until one day the message reaches mass market….through no other marketing methods.

Can a viral campaign today work soley through email or does it need brotherly marketing support of a placement on Youtube or any social networking site to create the interest?

Has email on its own (a la Hotmail) become redundant as a viral marketing tool?

Answers on a postcard!