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Abstract
With online video viewership growing exponentially among U.S. consumers, advertisers and marketers shifted focus and budgets more towards creating advertising campaigns with an eye towards a viral scope. An understanding the determinants of ads "going viral"? has been called "the Holy Grail"? by some in the industry. Social media platforms YouTube and Facebook are of particular importance as the most popular conduits for disseminating viral ads. Extant research has focused mostly on creative components, psychological determinants, and platform-based effects. Very little is known about the impact of brand and interpersonal relationships on the online ad referral process. To address these issues, online survey experiments were conducted to test three proposed social processes that correspond to three stages of ad referral: referral, co-referral, and referral acceptance. Social exchange theory, the trust-based commitment theory of brand relationships, and an exchange and expressive theory of information are infused to provide a conceptual backdrop. Results indicate that the referrer's brand relationship with the brand advertised, the referrer's sharing motivations, and their interactions have significant positive relationships with the likelihood of referral. Referral is driven by self-interested altruism whereby referrers desire to help other but also share to garner reciprocal and social benefits as well as to build and maintain interpersonal relationships. Co-referral is found to be primarily a relationship maintenance function in which the brand relationship has little influence. Referral acceptance demonstrates a triadic relationship between referrer, brand, and recipient wherein brand relationships and interpersonal relationships each have strong positive relationships with the likelihood of accepting an ad referral. Differential independent variable effects are identified based on product category. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.