A Viral Product Diffusion Model to Forecast the Market Performance of Products

To investigate the diffusion of products in the market, this paper proposes a viral product diffusion model using an epidemiological approach. This model presents the process of product diffusion through the dynamics of human behaviors. Based on the stability theory of Ordinary Differential Equations, we demonstrate the conditions under which a product in the market persists or dies out eventually. Next, we use Google data to validate the model. Fitting results illustrate that the viral product diffusion model not only depicts the steady growth process of products, but also describes the whole diffusion process during which the products increase at the initial stage and then gradually decrease and sometimes even exhibit multiple peaks. This shows that the viral product diffusion model can be used to forecast the developing tendency of products in the market through early behavior of these products. Moreover, our model also provides useful insights on how to design effective marketing strategies via social contagions.