Word Mouth in Advertising - Dissertation Example

Dissertation Chapter Introduction The use of word of mouth in advertising is one of the most powerful tools used in marketing. It is a form of interpersonal communication that takes place among consumers about their personal experiences with a product or a firm. Word of mouth has acquired a lot of significance because of the influential role it plays in the marketplace. It is a fact that there is no other marketing force that can persuade the consumers to change their attitudes as much as the word of mouth. Whether positive or negative, word of mouth has a strong influence on the behavior of consumers and ensuring the performance of the business stays on top (Arndt, 1967). Positive word of mouth is perhaps what most companies like to hear because besides increasing the consumers intensions to purchase innovative products; it helps company by creating a favorable brand image and that of the firm. This can subsequently lead to a reduction in the amount of expenditure by companied on promotions. Negative word of mouth on the other hand, dissuades potential buyers from a brand, product or a firm and consequently damages the firm’s financial position as well as and more power than positive word of mouth communication. While many authors have handled the impact of negative word of mouth communication in advertising, there is still a huge gap, especially when it comes to how this marketing tool can be used to influence campaigns that target social problems such as gender bias, smoking, poverty, respecting traffic signs, sexual harassments, and education. It is worth noting the fact that negative word of mouth communication, because of its influential power, can be used to achieve progress in a number of areas in the society. However, the previous researchers have only been delving on how word of mouth advertising has been influencing marketing and sales but failed to conduct a proper investigation on the impact it can have in solving social problems that the society faces today. There is no doubt that it would equally have a big influence in this area as well. Taking an example of smoking, negative word of mouth against it and its effects would definitely prevent several smokers from the habit. This can be done by people talking about their personal experiences and how those close to them have suffered and some even died because of smoking. This is likely to make more people realize the seriousness of the problem and help save the world from more smokers. This of course does not overlook the role of positive word of mouth communication. Moreover, it can be used to spread the benefits of taking part in certain activities such as volunteerism, as well as education. If numerous people could talk on the importance of education and volunteerism, then many people would not be illiterate. Therefore, it is obvious that this would be a great tool for improving literacy levels around the world. This paper, therefore, seeks to unearth the motives that underlying the consumer behavior as they engage in negative word of mouth communication as well as find out how this can be modelled to provide solutions for social problems. What this means is that the paper will closely examine how these motives and the consumers consumption experiences relate. Most companies and businesses strive to create a conducive environment that can help in the growth and propagation of positive word of mouth (Calder & Burnkrant, 1977). Marketing managers and advertisers ought to have an understanding how word of mouth communication works in any given marketplace and how to manage it effectively. This way, they can come up with better ways of adopting these to solving social problems. This study, therefore, seeks to provide marketers with important managerial inputs on how to come up with effective ways of using negative word of mouth communication and investigate the experiences that may lead the consumers to hold the different sets of opinions. It also aims and finding out what motivates the consumers to engage in negative word of mouth communication and relate these to their consumption experiences. From this, it would be easier to establish how this can be instrumental in reducing social problems. Literature Review According to (Arndt, 1967), word of mouth marketing is an interpersonal, verbal communication that a sender and a recipient engage in. The latter is perceived to be neither commercial nor profitable as far as the product, service or brand is concerned. Like (Buttle, 1998), other authors define word of mouth marketing as some kind of interpersonal communication that takes place between consumers with regards to their private, personal familiarity, as well as knowledge and experience with a product or firm. To maintain the consistency with the previous definitions, word of mouth communication is, therefore, defined as all forms of casual communications that target new or different consumers about the usage, possession, or characteristics of products and services. In addition, word of mouth marketing can be any form of personal and verbal communication, whether positive or negative about a brand, product or association, in which the message’s recipient perceives, sees the sender as having no commercial or profitable intentions. Cakim (2010) on the other hand, argues that there is a two level definition for word of mouth marketing, which is separated into internal and external levels. He adds that these levels also have four elements. The internal level consists of the networks, influence of consumers, communication and information exchange. This section of the definition can be said to be fixed and consistent because the elements that internal levels highlights are also the major aspects of word of mouth marketing. Furthermore, the flow of information between the consumers networks is the base of word of mouth phenomenon. Such networks may either be personal or social and may consist of different sized groups. With regards to the second level definition of word of mouth communication, which is also referred to as external level, is made up of the communicator’s role, aim of the review and its context, as well as the communication channel. It is also important to note that they are interchangeable. Word of mouth communication also has two major sides, which are source/sender and searcher/recipient. They perform roles that are different and specific to different contexts. For instance, they can be relatives, friends, or total strangers. One way that Procter and Gamble has been able to generate 27.8% sales boost is because they managed to come up effective word of mouth marketing that helped their new products leverage the social networks, especially of school-age children and many homemakers. Several marketing and advertising literature have given word of mouth marketing a considerable attention. The studies have all been delving on how word of mouth flows in the market, its consequences on firms and products, and how social and situational factors can be controlled by marketers to influence the persuasiveness of word of mouth advertising. This is a limited scope, meaning that they have not been capturing into detail how both positive and negative word of mouth communication can be used to impact on the society through providing solutions for social problems. There are a surprisingly a few number of authors who have given examinations on the antecedents of word of mouth communication ( Ramaswami et Al, 2007) in their study, reveal that most previous authors have been trying to justify that consumers can only engage in word of mouth marketing based on whether they are satisfied by a product or not. Another area that remains unexplored as far as word of mouth communication is concerned is the motives that underlie the practice. (Boni, 2015) examined what motivated people to engage in word of mouth marketing. Using anecdotal evidence, he was able to identify four major categories of motivations as to why people engaged in word of mouth communication, especially positive. Some of these include product involvement, self enhancement, other involvement, and message involvement. Self enhancement is meant to gain attention as well as seek the assurance of others. Product involvement, on the other hand is to get relief from tension or excitement that using a product might cause. Other involvement is aimed at helping others, while message involvement is to share the exposure to intriguing or unique advertisements and selling appeals. From this, it is evident that the existing literature on word of mouth communication has many other gaps than anticipated. The study, therefore, besides conducting an investigation on how word of mouth can be used in solving social problems, will also focus on the various critical consumption experiences that lead to it and further explore the motivations that underlying negative word of mouth communication and how they relate to solving social problems. There are also findings that come from consumer behavior sociology as well as cognitive psychology studies, which suggest that there are effects that consumption experiences produce, such as subjective feelings. Cakim (2010) adds that these effects in turn act as powerful sources of motivations to humans. The motivation that results from such effects determines what kind of post-consumption behaviors, which include complaints, word of mouth communication, as well as repurchase intentions. Hence, it is only reasonable to have speculations on the close relationship between consumers’ experiences and the motivations during the process of the word of mouth transmission. Research suggests that negative information is likely to have a greater impact on an individual than positive information. The intention of this paper, as stated in the previous paragraphs, is to find a solution to social problems using negative word of mouth communication (Arndt, 1967). An attempt to understand the cognitive processes used by the recipients of negative word of mouth communication reveal that these processes have the generation of attributions. This is a consistent proposition with other previous studies that suggested that the receivers of interpersonal influence more than often generate attributions so as to understand the reasons behind a communicator’s transmission of word of mouth communication (Calder & Burnkrant, 1977). Furthermore, attribution theory has been in use by scholars as a framework to better understand the evaluation of the credibility of advertising sources. Therefore, it seems plausible that buyers would adopt such processes to assess the credibility of word of mouth communication sources. More than often, consumers are always apt when it comes to attributing positive information to other causes apart from the attitude object. In contrast, they will attribute negative information to the attitude object itself. There are also other studies that have pointed to the fact that word of mouth communication’s effects in directly influencing the purchasing behaviors of consumers may be reduced greatly under certain situations. A study by Tybaut, Calder & Sternthal (1981) to assess the effects of negative word of mouth communication on the attitude of the consumers revealed that the purchase behavior normally comes from their attitudes towards particular objects. Beliefs are also key decision influencers. In addition, they contend that the cognitive processes that the consumers use to store and make use of word of mouth communication have a great influence on the impact of such information. Calder & Burnkrant (1977) also support this argument and add that consumers observe the purchase and consumption behaviors of others, and while at it, they also form influences about the motives of others to engage in a particular behavior. A plausible conclusion, therefore, would be that the reception of word of mouth communication can lead to the initiation of cognitive processes before evaluating or making a decision about a product or entity. The impacts of negative word of mouth communications on recipients has been focused by a few scholars. Cakim, (2010), conducted a study of the diffusion of innovations and documented the role that opinion leaders play. He says that this group of individuals has the potential to inhibit the diffusion of an innovation with their negative comments. (Arndt, 1967) also carried out a study among wives who were living in married student housing and found out that the wives who were receiving negative word of mouth were not likely to buy new coffee brands unlike their counterparts who were receiving either positive or no word of mouth communications about coffee brands. Negative word of mouth can affect the recipients attitudes for some reasons. A comparison between the effectiveness of word of mouth that is delivered face to face and summary of data from past experience of a group of individuals found out that face to face communications were far more effective in influencing the recipients than the written summary. The study, conducted by Ramaswami et al, (2007) further posits that face to face communication had a superiors impact because of its vividness. Another reason why word of mouth communication has a lot of impact is that it comes from a non-marketing dominated source. It is important to note that such sources have been documented many a times as superior. The nature of negative word of mouth communication contributes greatly to the impact it has on consumers. This impact has the potential to persist even after it has been refuted by the source or those it concerns. Many scholars have made attempts at explaining the strong impacts of negative information and what comes out is that most of them give hypotheses that negative information has some rare unexpectedness that always leads to greater attention to the information and adds to its weight (Erez & Moldovan, 2014). The huge potential impact that negative word of mouth has on recipients is one major reason that it needs more studies. This can be considered as a form of attitude change. There are a number of theories that have been developed by scholars to address the conditions under which attitude change can occur and how persistent the effect is. One of the routes through which attitude change can occur is persuasion, which can take place from a central route whereby the recipient is sufficiently motivated and is able to think about the issue. Persuasion can also take place through the peripheral route, in which case either the ability or motivation is low. In both cases, there is change of attitude that only takes place as a reward for advocating for a particular viewpoint. The attitude change that occurs through the central route can be more enduring unlike the peripheral one. After a review of the existing literature on word of mouth communication and the impact that negative word of mouth has on consumers, it is plausible to conclude that the topic needs more research and attention as it stands. There is more to uncover in the area. Most of the scholars have significantly exhausted the motivators of negative word of mouth communication. Some of the notable motivators from the literature include self and product involvement, other involvement, marketplace involvement, message involvement, and instrumentality. Besides the motivators, the past works have also focused on the definition of negative word of mouth communication, and they seem to lack extensive hypothesis testing. This paper, besides reviewing past works in the negative word of mouth communication area brings new insights into the study looking at how it draws from psychology research. Cognitive dissonance model plays an important role in word of mouth communication. A proposed hypothesis states that the consumer may not feel the burden of any responsibility by engaging in negative even in the presence of consequences that are vital. Outcome of such activities are likely to be influenced by certain personality characteristics. To conclude, this study gives the way forward for what the future research need to focus on. There is need to come up with studies that will have the mediators, motivators, outcomes, as well as the impacts of negative word of mouth on social problems. This will no doubt help practitioners to not only understand this subject, but also solve other urgent societal issues like smoking (Erez,& Moldovan, 2014). 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Influence of Image and Familiarity on Consumer Response to Negative Word-of-Mouth Communication About Retail Entities. The Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice,41-51. Erez, T., & Moldovan, S. (2014). Social Anti-Percolation and Negative Word of Mouth. Handbook of Research on Nature-Inspired Computing for Economics and Management, 822-835. Westby, C. (2012). Children With Bipolar Disorder and Communication Difficulties. Word of Mouth, 1-5. Read More