Viral marketing content for Universal Health Coverage campaign in Indonesia

Purpose Today, viral marketing is popular as a highly effective marketing strategy with a low cost for mass targeting. This is suitable for the Universal Health Coverage campaign which seeks to attract the whole nation’s population to voluntarily register with social health insurance. It uses the target market itself as a weapon and the marketing content as a bullet. This study aims to determine the exact viral marketing content for the Universal Health Coverage campaign in Indonesia. Design/methodology/approach Viral marketing content is formulated based on the feelings of the target market toward social health insurance. Qualitative content analysis was conducted to identify the media framing and the audience’s response. Two of the biggest online news websites were analysed to determine the media framing. The audience’s response was identified through a Facebook group discussion. Findings This study shows that negative media framing makes people question the benefit of participating in social health insurance. Considering the local wisdom of Indonesia, helping poor people through social health insurance would be the best viral marketing content. Research limitations/implications Because of the limited number of sources focused on the audience’s responses that have been analysed, the variations in the audience response could not be captured completely. Researchers should also analyse other audience channels (social media and messenger application) besides Facebook. Practical implications The paper includes implications for the future marketing agenda of insurance providers in relation to engaging the community. Originality/value This study operationally introduced how to use the media channel selected and audience framing in designing an effective viral marketing content in health-care marketing.