Predicting Virality : Does Message Creativity Matter?

A very small percentage of potentially viral advertisement messages actually go viral. The creativity of these advertisement messages is considered crucial in making them viral. Through a review of literature, this study develops a measure to assess the creativity of potentially viral advertisement messages that can help predict their success. Using a controlled experiment on a sample of internet users, it pre-tests the measure of viral ad message creativity and explores its role in predicting viral success. The study assesses and compares the creativity, sharing, and liking of a sample of viral advertisements versus a sample of control advertisements. The results indicate the significant positive effects of perceptual creativity on shares and likes, which in turn determine viral succes