Consumer Behavior: Building Marketing Strategy 13th Edition by Delbert Hawkins, David Mothersbaugh

Exercise 64

Online Buzz, WOM, and Astrosurfing
As we've seen, the Internet continues to change the nature of interpersonal communications. New avenues are rapidly evolving, and the rewards can be huge for companies that can harness the speed and ease of interconnectivity that the Internet allows. Here are a few examples:
• Viral marketing is an online "pass-it-along" strategy. It "uses electronic communications to trigger brand messages throughout a widespread network of buyers." Viral marketing comes in many forms but often involves e-mail. Honda U.K. developed a successful viral marketing campaign that started with "cutting-edge" creativity in the form of a two-minute advertisement called "The Cog." The ad aired in the United Kingdom during the Brazilian Formula 1 Grand Prix to hit likely opinion leaders and was available on Honda's website. That's when the viral aspect kicked in, as people "wowed" by the ad e-mailed it to friends and acquaintances around the world. Honda, Volvo, and Gillette are among a growing list of companies using viral techniques. 61
• Blogs are personalized journals where people and organizations can keep a running dialogue. Blogs can be used in several ways by marketers. First, they can place banner ads in blogs and package ads with blog feeds. Second, they can use product sampling by getting their products in the hands of well-known bloggers in the category with the idea that they will create buzz about them on their blogs. Third, marketers can use blogs by observing important blog sites for marketing intelligence. Fourth, a company can create its own blog and put a company representative in charge of blogging, as Dell has done with Direct2Dell and its chief blogger. 62
• Twitter is a micro-blogging tool. It limits posts to 140 characters. It has evolved quickly into one of the largest and fastest-growing social media outlets. For marketers there are a number of uses for Twitter. First, as we saw earlier, consumers can post complaints or information requests to a brand's Twitter account, to which companies can respond. Second, companies can utilize a Twitter feature called Promoted Tweets. The promotion indicator (like an advertisement) shows up on the Tweet and then the Tweet itself comes up on the search results, even of those who aren't the brand's followers on Twitter. Finally, companies like Sponsored Tweets and Ad.ly are connecting brands with influential tweeters. These tweeters, often celebrities like Charlie Sheen and Kim Kardashian who have millions of followers, get paid for tweeting about specific brands, often at the rate of $1000 or more per tweet. As with regular blogs, full disclosure is an important facet of this model. 64
• Customer reviews and review functionality on a website can be a critical marketing tool. Amazon and others allow consumers to easily post reviews of products on their site. Given the power of WOM, this online version of WOM is a powerful decision influencer. For example, restaurant revenues have been found to increase between 5 and 9 percent if they increase their ranking on Yelp by one star. However, there are at least two factors that marketers must be concerned with regarding online reviews. First, since existing reviews are "public information," they tend to "sway" future reviews in that direction. So, if reviews trend down, that likely feeds more downward bias than if reviews were done independent of knowledge of prior reviews. This is a challenge for both marketers and consumers. Marketers can find themselves in a battle against a misguided trend, and consumers likely are not getting the best, most accurate advice. A second concern is fake reviews, where it is estimated that one in seven reviews is fake. Astrosurfing is the practice whereby companies buy positive reviews of themselves and negative reviews for their competitors. Companies can use algorithms to distinguish genuine and fake reviews and then take legal action. The "buying" of fake reviews by one company for another is akin to false advertising. Samsung was recently fined for hiring people to criticize HTC (a competitor) products. 65
Clearly marketers are learning how to leverage the WOM potential of the Internet. It will be interesting to see what the future brings!
What other Internet alternatives exist for Interpersonal communication