ABSTRACT For decades, marketers have trumpeted the importance of word of mouth in influencing purchase choice, but have still spent billions on brand advertising—without any proof of the link between the two. Using newly available data, we sought to resolve this contradiction by searching for the “missing link” between positive word of mouth about brands and brand advertising. We also tested the relationship between advertising and measurable behaviors of brand interest—namely, brand searches and website visits. The analysis involved 35 brands over a 26-week period using six sources of data. The results indicate that brands should redouble their efforts in using advertising to grow brand advocacy through the integration of online and offline branded consumer contact points.

提携研究機関誌からの論文紹介 ARF 『Journal of advertising research』より Finding the "missing link": advertising's impact on word of mouth, web searches, and site visits

Seeding strategies have strong influences on the success of viral marketing campaigns, but previous studies using computer simulations and analytical models have produced conflicting recommendations about the optimal seeding strategy. This study compares four seeding strategies in two complementary small-scale field experiments, as well as in one real-life viral marketing campaign involving more than 200,000 customers of a mobile phone service provider. The empirical results show that the best seeding strategies can be up to eight times more successful than other seeding strategies. Seeding to well-connected people is the most successful approach because these attractive seeding points are more likely to participate in viral marketing campaigns. This finding contradicts a common assumption in other studies. Well-connected people also actively use their greater reach but do not have more influence on their peers than do less well-connected people.

Seeding Strategies for Viral Marketing: An Empirical Comparison

Indian Journal of Marketing : A Bibliometric Analysis

A critical element of word of mouth (WOM) or buzz marketing is to identify seeds, often central actors with high degree in the social network. Seed identiﬁcation typically requires data on the full network structure, which is often unavailable. We therefore examine the impact of WOM seeding strategies motivated by the friendship paradox to obtain more central nodes without knowing network structure. But higher-degree nodes may communicate less with neighbors; therefore whether friendship paradox motivated seeding strategies increase or reduce WOM and adoption remains an empirical question. We develop and estimate a model of WOM and adoption using data on microﬁnance adoption across 43 villages in India for which we have data on social networks. Counterfactuals show that the proposed seeding strategies are about 15-20% more effective than random seeding in increasing adoption. Remarkably, they are also about 5-11% more effective than opinion leader seeding, and are relative more effective when we have fewer seeds.

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Can Friends Seed More Buzz and Adoption

Buzz marketing is becoming a more and more relevant topic. Yet, most research is descriptive and does not provide insights into the underlying mechanisms. To overcome this void, the paper provides a causal model of buzz marketing focusing on the motives of potential buzz agents and their effects on the intention to engage in such marketing activities. The results of a survey with 129 young consumers show that the intention to participate is driven by intrin-sic as well as extrinsic motives. Still, there is an incremental influence of extrinsic motives. Additionally, the effect of intrinsic motives is moderated by moral concern. Implication for further research and practitioners are given.

Effective Incentives for Buzz Marketing: How Moral Concern Moderates the Willingness to Engage as Buzz Agents

Buzz marketing is widely used by marketers to generate buzz about products in the market. The purpose of this paper was to provide a complete overview of the existing 'buzz marketing' literature and to study current trends and future directions for researchers interested in exploring and contributing to the field of buzz marketing. The bibliometric and network methods of analysis of citation and co-citation were used to achieve the purpose of this research paper. This research included an evaluation of articles published in the Scopus database journals from 2001 – 2019. The bibliometric analysis was carried out using VOS Viewer software. The findings showed that the number of papers dedicated to the study of “buzz marketing” has diminished significantly in recent years, though there has been a significant increase in the number of activities to create buzz through buzz marketing by companies. In addition, the paper highlighted some of the area's most prominent papers. A conceptual model of buzz marketing has been developed from this bibliometric analysis. Lastly, the paper emphasized the new trends and addressed the relevant challenges faced in buzz marketing. This study concentrated exclusively on buzz marketing concepts, trends and challenges, and future directions.

ashutosh bhagwat gadekar

Papers

A Bibliometric Analysis of Buzz Marketing : Research Areas, Concerns, and Suggestions for Advancement