Page 137 - The Handbook of Persuasion and Social Marketing

CHAPTER FIVE

The Impact of Word of Mouth and the

Facilitative Effects of Social Media

Michael A. Kamins

Introduction

In his 1850 novel titled White Jacket, Herman Melville described a scene in
which hundreds of sailors, servants, and cooks from all parts of the ship
gathered during the day and night to get their share of water from a source
identified as the “scuttlebutt.” The process of taking a large cask (“butt”)
and putting a hole in it (known as “scuttling”) enabled fresh water to be
withdrawn for immediate consumption on a seafaring voyage. Indeed, the
presence of a scuttlebutt also provided sailors a place to meet and share
information, facilitating the process of word of mouth (WOM) throughout
the ship. The analogy in today’s world would be the “water-cooler effect”
(DiFonzo, 2008). At the scuttlebutt, all sorts of information could be ex-
changed, including opinions about the captain, updates about the sailing
plan, rumors about who was and wasn’t in the captain’s favor, and of
course, plans for mutiny. As sailors exchanged gossip when they gathered
at the scuttlebutt for a drink of water, the term took on a new meaning,
becoming the navy’s slang for gossip or rumor.
While WOM would seemingly be characterized as a recently discovered
phenomenon, because of its impact in today’s Internet- and social media–
driven world, it is better characterized as a rediscovered phenomenon that
has had a dramatic influence on what people know, feel, and do for almost
as long as human history has been documented. Consider Aristotle’s