Exam 9: Reference Groups and Word-Of-Mouth

John thought he had been cheated by a local Chevrolet car dealership. He was so upset that he created a website to share his story with the world. What is the most likely result of John's action?

Products sold by well-known, quality stores that carry the added endorsement (and implicit guarantee) of the store itself (e.g., "If Amazon.com recommends it, it must be a good book") is referred to as ________.

Consumer innovators are not as interested as late adopters or nonadopters in the product categories that they are among the first to purchase.

________ sources generally have more credibility than ________ sources.

In which product category would the role of the opinion leader during the decision-making process likely be most important to the marketer?

BZZAGENT MINI CASE: BzzAgent is a word-of-mouth marketing agency that runs brand advocate programs for global brands. It recently partnered with a company to pair its social media and word-of-mouth insights with shopper loyalty data. The results indicated that consumers who were making repeat purchases were also more engaged and created a higher volume of advocacy. The information from this study is important to marketers, who are trying to find ways to engage advocates and influencers, especially via social media. Marketers are trying to figure out the characteristics of individuals who are most likely to influence others. -In the BZZAGENT MINI CASE, marketers are interested in finding individuals who influence others. The process by which one influential person informally influences the actions or attitudes of others is known as ________.

A ________ is when celebrities appear on behalf of products with which they may or may not have any direct experience or familiarity, for extended periods of time.

The members of the ________ category of adopters are the very last consumers to purchase a new product. They are generally high risk-perceivers and the last ones to recognize the value of innovative products.

When Damon filled out a survey for the sporting goods store he favors, it asked him to respond to items that asked for his agreement on items about his influence on his friends. These items were attempting to measure his opinion leadership using the ________ method.

Individuals may be influenced to conform to a group based on the group's ________, but they are unlikely to change their attitudes or internalize their choices if they conform for this reason.

Before e-readers, many women avoided reading printed erotica books in public because they felt the titles and covers of the books would reflect badly on them. The use of e-readers made the consumption of erotica books in public less ________.

Which of the following statements is true about spokespersons?

STUMBLEUPON MINI CASE: StumbleUpon calls itself a "discovery engine" because, at one time, 50.27% of all traffic from a top 10 list of social sites came from StumbleUpon. Their relatively small group of users (15 million) often out-refers the larger user base from Facebook (over 1.15 billion). In fact, the influential users of StumbleUpon generate 1 billion page referrals per month. Their users, called "Stumblers," introduce other Stumblers and non-users to web content, providing a "map to an adventure you wouldn't otherwise have found out about." The influence of these Stumblers was deemed valuable by film marketers, who worked with StumbleUpon to promote films like Jurassic Park 3D and Evil Dead. Stumblers are young and highly engaged, so studios see the personalized search engine, which "learns" the preferences of its Stumblers, as a way to reach early influencers. -In the STUMBLEUPON MINI CASE, the Stumblers are engaged in ________ when they advocate on behalf of products, like films, in social networks, brand communities, and blogs.

A symbolic group is a reference group to which an individual is unlikely to belong, but whose values and behaviors that person adopts.

Opinion leaders are never opinion receivers.

________ are groups that serve as sources of comparison, influence, and norms for people's opinions, values, and behaviors.

A person's ethnic identification is the degree to which she identifies herself as a member of her ethnic group.

Which of the following is NOT something a reference group must do to influence its members?

The degree of ________ that a reference group exerts on an individual's behavior depends on the individual, product, and social factors.

A group to which a person either belongs or would qualify to belong to is called a(n) ________ group.