Page 139 - The Handbook of Persuasion and Social Marketing

The Impact of Word of Mouth and the Facilitative Effects of Social Media 131

communication between a receiver and a communicator whom the re-
ceiver perceives as non-commercial regarding a brand, product or service”
(p. 291). From the perspective of Dichter (1966), for WOM to occur two
parties must be engaged and motivated: the speaker (communicator) and
the listener (receiver). What motivates the speaker to engage in WOM is
different from that which motivates the listener. For the former, such fac-
tors include the speaker’s personality (e.g., self-confidence), goals of the
communication (Balasubramanian & Mahajan, 2001; Lawther 1978), and
involvement with the product and the purchase decision (Day & Landon,
1977; Richins, 1983), as well as situational factors such as one’s degree of
dissatisfaction with the product purchase or experience (Lau & Ng, 2001).
From the perspective of the listener, motivation to engage in WOM in-
cludes the perception of source credibility (Dichter, 1966; Herr, Kardes, &
Kim, 1991), perceived strength of connection or the “ties” between com-
municator and receiver (Brown & Reingen, 1987; Granovetter, 1973), and
the degree of perceived risk (Arndt, 1967).
Early research showing the effectiveness of WOM was undertaken by
Whyte (1954), who examined the diffusion of air conditioners in a rela-
tively demographically homogeneous neighborhood. Whyte found certain
blocks where use of air conditioners was widely prevalent and others
where it was sparse. He concluded anecdotally that the pattern of use
could be best explained by the presence of a vast and powerful network of
neighbors exchanging product information with each other. The interper-
sonal influence pattern seemed to flow within a given block rather than
across the street, implying friendship patterns of children and mothers
(Brooks, 1957, p. 154). A year later, Katz and Lazarsfeld (1955) reported
that WOM was the most important source of marketing influence in the
purchase of food products and household goods. Using brand-switching
behavior as their dependent variable, the authors found that the impact of
WOM was seven times as effective as newspapers and magazines, four
times as effective as personal selling, and twice as effective as radio adver-
tising. Almost 40 years later, Herr, Kardes, and Kim (1991) replicated this
finding, showing that WOM’s impact upon consumer judgment in the
form of brand evaluation was significantly greater than that of Consumer
Reports. Indeed, Brooks (1957) was so bold as to state that the adoption of
hybrid seed corn (made so famous in the 1962 book Diffusion of Innovation
by Everett Rodgers) may not have seen “the superimposition of the snow-
ball effect upon what would otherwise have been a fairly stable adoption
pattern, if the interpersonal network were not in operation, and may well
account for the shape of the curve of ‘innovation’” (p. 155). Other early
research showed that WOM was used as an important source for brand