Brand differentiation without advertisement? : the stimulation of social interaction between customers

21 page(s

Competitive positioning in the Australian online apparel industry : the case of BrandsExclusive

5 page(s

Word-of-mouth marketing : towards an improved understanding of multi-generational campaign reach

Purpose – The paper aims to provide a theoretically informed critique of current measurement practices for word-of-mouth marketing (WOMM) campaigns. Design/methodology/approach – An exploratory field study is conducted on a real-life WOMM campaign. Data are collected from two generations of campaign participants using a custom-built Facebook app and subjected to social network analysis (SNA). We compare our theoretically informed measure of campaign reach with industry standard practice. Findings – Standard metrics for WOMM campaigns assume campaign reach equates to the number of campaign-related conversations. These metrics fail to allow for the possibility that some participants may be exposed multiple times to campaign-related messaging. In this exploratory field study, standard metrics overestimate campaign reach by 57.5 per cent. The campaign is also significantly less efficient in terms of cost-per-conversation. SNA shows that multiple exposures are associated with transitivity and tie strength. Multiple exposures mean that the total number of campaign-related conversations cannot be regarded as equivalent to the number of individuals reached. Research limitations/implications – SNA provides a sound theoretical foundation for the critique of current WOMM measurement practices. Two social-structural network attributes – transitivity and tie strength – inform our critique. A single WOMM campaign provides the field study context. Practical implications – The findings have significant implications for the development and deployment of WOMM effectiveness and efficiency metrics and are relevant to WOMM agencies, agency clients and the Word-of-Mouth Marketing Association. Originality/value – This is the largest field study of its kind having collected data on >5,000 WOMM campaign-related conversations. Participants specified precisely whom they spoke to about the campaign and the strength of that social tie. This is the first SNA-informed critique of standard WOMM campaign measurement practices and first quantification of offline multiple exposures to a WOMM campaign. We demonstrate how standard campaign metrics are based on the false assumption that word-of-mouth flows exclusively along intransitive ties.23 page(s

Word-of-mouth marketing influence on offline and online communications : evidence from case study research

This case study reports results from three research studies conducted over 12 weeks as part of a product seeding campaign. Partnering with a word-of-mouth marketing (WOMM) agency for this research, studies 1 and 2 report agency-conducted surveys of campaign participants' online and offline word-of-mouth (WOM) behaviors. Study 3 deployed an innovative web-based methodology to map and visualize WOM communication patterns, to reveal how campaign-related conversations spread within and across offline friendship networks and the role played by tie strength in that process. We find that agency reports of WOMM campaign results overstate reach and understate frequency. Our results have implications for the measurement of reach and frequency of WOMM campaigns.First published in: the Journal of Marketing Communications 20(1-2) pp. 21-4121 page(s

Deciphering word-of-mouth marketing campaign reach : everyday conversation versus institutionalized word of mouth

Agencies routinely report word-of-mouth marketing (WOMM) campaign results in terms of reach but do not deliver insight about the people who are reached and the types of conversation in which the WOMM message is embedded. Using a specially designed Facebook app and social-network analysis, the current authors revealed that approximately half of campaign-related conversations are initiated intentionally by campaign participants—individuals who deliberately create opportunities to talk to conversation partners in ways aligned with the campaign sponsor's commercial objectives. The other half emerge in everyday conversation. Participants also deliver the brand message into about half of the social-network clusters to which they belong. For a higher proportion of network clusters to be activated, everyday conversation should be facilitated.17 page(s

Word-of-mouth marketing influence on offline and online communications : evidence from case study research

This case study reports results from three research studies conducted over 12 weeks as part of a product seeding campaign. Partnering with a word-of-mouth marketing (WOMM) agency for this research, studies 1 and 2 report agency-conducted surveys of campaign participants' online and offline word-of-mouth (WOM) behaviors. Study 3 deployed an innovative web-based methodology to map and visualize WOM communication patterns, to reveal how campaign-related conversations spread within and across offline friendship networks and the role played by tie strength in that process. We find that agency reports of WOMM campaign results overstate reach and understate frequency. Our results have implications for the measurement of reach and frequency of WOMM campaigns.21 page(s

Understanding word-of-mouth communication : can Rules Theory help?

We interview participants in word-of-mouth marketing (WOMM) campaigns with a view to identifying and categorising the persons campaign participants select as conversation partners, establishing why those persons are selected and the content of their conversations. We then explore the utility of Rules Theory for explaining those decisions and actions. We find that three core structural components of the theory – context, constitutive rule and regulative rule – are evident in the interview data. We are encouraged to conduct further WOM research from the Rules Theory perspective.8 page(s

Embedding offline product seeding referrals into the Facebook friendship network : a field study

We explore the influence on social-structural attributes on the reach, frequency and effectiveness of product seeding campaigns that aim to exploit customer-generated word-ofmouth. In collaboration with a product-seeding agency that uses customer-generated word-ofmouth to influence the purchasing intentions and behaviours of customers’ social networks, we report initial results from a pilot study, involving the seeding of a wine brand to 550 agency panel members. Data are collected using a specially developed Facebook app. The app allows us to download and analyse Facebook friendship networks and to explore the overlap between the networks of connected individuals. Participants report the FB friends they have spoken to about the pilot study product-seeding campaign. The pilot study is the precursor to two large-scale studies.8 page(s