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Journal of Marketing Communications

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WOM and social media: Presaging future

directions for research and practice
a b
Allan J. Kimmel & Philip J. Kitchen
a
Marketing Department, ESCP Europe 79 avenue de la
République , 75543 Paris Cedex 11 , France
b
ESC Rennes School of Business, 2, Rue Robert d'Abrissel , Rennes
35000 , France
Published online: 09 Jun 2013.

To cite this article: Journal of Marketing Communications (2013): WOM and social media:
Presaging future directions for research and practice, Journal of Marketing Communications, DOI:
10.1080/13527266.2013.797730

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 Journal of Marketing Communications, 2013
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13527266.2013.797730

WOM and social media: Presaging future directions for research and
practice
Allan J. Kimmela* and Philip J. Kitchenb
a
Marketing Department, ESCP Europe 79 avenue de la République, 75543 Paris Cedex 11, France;
b
ESC Rennes School of Business, 2, Rue Robert d’Abrissel, Rennes 35000, France

Word of mouth (WOM) has become the focus of growing interest among marketing
practitioners and consumers. However, the promises of WOM marketing are often
oversold, and various assertions about the nature of WOM, its dynamics, antecedents,
and consequences at times have been misstated in mass-mediated articles and books on
the topic. In this introductory paper for the special issue on WOM and social media, we
survey the current state of WOM knowledge and the role of WOM in contemporary
marketing, reconsider common beliefs about the WOM process in an effort to separate
WOM facts from fallacies, and presage some future directions and best practices in
light of evolving online channels of WOM generation and transmission.
Journal of Marketing Communications

Keywords: word of mouth; word-of-mouth marketing; social media; online word of

mouth; connected marketing

In a 2005 chapter on the subject, George Silverman, author of The Secrets of Word of
Mouth Marketing, astutely characterized word of mouth (WOM) as ‘the oldest, newest
marketing medium’. Despite grammatical awkwardness, the phrase perfectly describes the
status of WOM in the contemporary marketing landscape. Although journalists, pundits,
bloggers, and others of their ilk herald WOM influence as if it were a relatively new
phenomenon, the WOM process has been part and parcel of human discourse for as long as
people have engaged in conversation. Silverman’s phrase is a reminder that although
WOM is as old as the oral tradition, it has gained new prominence today, in marketing and
other areas, as a result of the greater connectedness of people via social media and the
considerable speed with which interpersonal messages can spread.
Technological developments have facilitated the means by which people connect to
each other, bringing to the fore the influence of social networks and interpersonal
communication. Managers now recognize that their customers and prospects are more
powerful and skeptical than ever before, with consumer-to-consumer influence at times
taking precedence over purchasing and related behaviors previously shaped by the
business-to-consumer marketing tools of advertising, public relations, promotion, direct
mail, and personal selling. With the advent and rapid evolution of the Internet and mobile
communication devices, the familiar adage, ‘there is power in numbers’ perhaps has never
had greater resonance. In an age in which marketers can reach their audiences with greater
facility than in the past, firms have never been less influential in relation to their customer
targets. These developments underscore the growing prominence of social media in
marketing communication plans, as practitioners strive to leverage online consumer
conversations to achieve marketing objectives. In our introductory article for this special
issue on WOM and social media, we provide a brief overview of the current state of

*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]

q 2013 Taylor & Francis

 2 A.J. Kimmel and P.J. Kitchen

knowledge, trace the growing role of WOM in marketing, review common beliefs about
the WOM process, and presage some future directions and best practices in light of
evolving online channels of WOM generation and transmission.

WOM preface: a brief history

WOM has entered the public’s collective consciousness largely as a result of various
developments, including publication of successful trade books, such as The Tipping Point
(Gladwell 2000), Unleashing the Idea Virus (Godin 2001), and The Anatomy of Buzz (Rosen
2002), and a growing awareness of successful word-of-mouth marketing (WOMM) campaigns
(e.g., Hotmail, Procter & Gamble’s Tremor, the Blair Witch Project, Hunger Games, and
Dove’s ‘Share a Secret’). Yet, the term ‘word of mouth’ began appearing in the literature much
earlier, having been originally coined by William H. Whyte, Jr. in a 1954 Fortune magazine
article entitled ‘The Web of Word of Mouth’. In his article, Whyte reported an interesting
phenomenon regarding room air conditioners, which at that time had just been introduced into
the American consumer market. He observed that if one passed through urban neighborhoods
(where the air conditioners typically were mounted in a front window), the appliance appeared
to be distributed in clusters of homes rather than in a random fashion. That is, six houses in a
Journal of Marketing Communications

row might have had an air conditioner, whereas three on either side would not. A similar
patterning was apparent with the distribution of televisions, as indicated by antennas on
rooftops around the same time. Whyte concluded that the ownership of such consumer goods
reflected patterns of social communication within the neighborhoods – that people who talked
together about products and services showed similar purchase and usage behaviors; that is, they
were influenced by others in consumption-related decisions. Of course, communication tools
then were much more limited then than they are today, so it is understandable that a linear
pattern of communication prevailed in analyses of interpersonal exchange during the early
1950s. As Whyte (1954, 140) described it, interpersonal communication was most likely to
occur in informal exchanges ‘over the clothesline’ and ‘across backyard fences’.
One year after the appearance of Whyte’s article, Katz and Lazarsfeld (1955)
published their landmark book, Personal Influence, which elaborated on the role of WOM
in the mass communication process. Their ‘two-step flow’ model of communication
postulated that certain people among close personal friends and family members – opinion
leaders – can exert personal influence on the decision-making of others by passing on
through informal WOM conversations information they received from the media.
Although long since supplanted by more complex models of communication transmission
(see Kimmel 2010), the early WOM publications acknowledged how consumers have
the capacity to affect each other’s attitudes and behaviors relative to something in the
marketplace (e.g., a brand, a store sale, an advertisement), and were influential in
undermining the image of a passive audience at the mercy of all-persuasive mass media –
the so-called one-step flow (Weiman 1982).
However novel these early observations about consumer influence (e.g., Katz and
Lazarsfeld 1955; Whyte 1954) must have seemed a half-century ago, the power of WOM
as understood today is taken as a given in the contemporary marketplace. There is
evidence that WOM represents a primary source of information for consumer buying
decisions (Chevalier and Mayzlin 2006; East, Hammond, and Wright 2007; Liu 2006;
Mangold, Miller, and Brockway 1999), and can shape consumer expectations (Anderson
and Salisbury 2003; Zeithaml and Bitner 1996), pre-usage attitudes (Herr, Kardes, and
Kim 1991), and post-usage perceptions of a product or service (Bone 1995; Burzynski and
Bayer 1977). By contrast, the influence of traditional marketing campaigns, such as mass
 Journal of Marketing Communications 3

media advertising, has diminished (cf. Kitchen 2010; McConnell and Huba 2007),
whereas integration of messages has accelerated (Schultz, Patti, and Kitchen 2011). As
consumers worldwide are disillusioned by the relentless bombardment from traditionally
mass-mediated marketing messages, they are turning to each other for insight into brands,
products, and services, in large part because of the perceived greater trustworthiness of the
advice they receive from interpersonal relations (e.g., Edelman 2008; Rusticus 2006).
To date, although there is compelling evidence that a majority of instances of WOM
occur offline, largely among intimates such as friends and family members (so-called close
ties) (e.g., Keller 2011), online social networking channels are providing an increasingly
attractive means for the rapid and widespread dissemination of electronic WOM (eWOM)
among people who, for the most part, never encounter one another in any offline context.
Thus, social media provide incidental means for WOM to disseminate across multitudes of
persons who may only be linked by a common interest or need (so-called weak ties).
Because of the nature of interpersonal contacts involved in offline WOM episodes, such
communications tend to be imbued with higher levels of trust and credibility than eWOM.
However, in addition to its greater reach, eWOM is characterized by greater
specialization, that is, there is likely to be an apparent expert about virtually anything
online, as opposed to one’s close circle of intimates, and there is evidence that trust levels
Journal of Marketing Communications

can be high for unknown consumers engaged in eWOM on trusted websites (e.g., Brown,
Broderick, and Lee 2007). Moreover, because eWOM is likely to be written, it is less
transitory than offline WOM. In light of these points, it is easy to understand why a
majority of consumer firms in recent years have become active participants in social media
forums to better engage with consumers and to have some influence over eWOM.
According to an August 2012 eMarketer report, 88% of US companies with at least 100
employees were using proprietary public-facing social network tools for marketing
purposes, a figure that is projected to rise to 92% by 2014 (eMarketer 2012).
Although it may be true that most companies today are using social media to satisfy the
objective of influencing WOM, in many cases, such efforts are merely perfunctory, carried
out with minimum degrees of acumen regarding methods for connecting with customers
and leveraging consumer conversations, and without a clearly established social media
strategy or policy. According to various models of social media maturity (e.g., Diaz 2010;
van Luxemburg and Zwiggelaar 2012), companies are classified as ‘pre-social’ or ‘ad hoc’
when their online activity consists of nothing more than establishing websites and
emailing customers without any social media strategy or policy. Such firms often operate
under the false assumption that these kinds of one-directional communication activities
equate to active social media involvement. Other companies are more aptly classified at
the stage of ‘connection’ or ‘experimental’, going through the motions of setting up a
Facebook page, Twitter accounts, and YouTube channels without a clearly thought-out
social media strategy, and with operational functions siloed within a corporate division,
such as a public relations or human resources department. A truer form of social media
involvement occurs at the ‘engagement’ or ‘functional’ stage, which typically involves
engaging in two-way communication with consumers (e.g., responding to comments
posted on a firm’s blog or Facebook page), with social media utilized for well-defined
purposes and integrated within marketing campaigns. At this functional level of social
media maturity, borders between corporate divisions fade because of the use of social
media throughout a firm, the development of a social media policy, and the establishment
of a structure for responding to consumers. At the most advanced level of social media
maturity, the ‘social advantage’ or ‘transformation’ stage, organizations take steps to make
conversations actionable through cocreation and collaborative problem solving (van
 4 A.J. Kimmel and P.J. Kitchen

Luxemburg and Zwiggelaar 2012). This approach to social media, exemplified by well-
known crowdsourcing projects such as Dell’s Ideastorm and Starbucks’ My Starbucks Idea,
involves the formulation and employment of a social media strategy that eliminates
divisions between internal and external stakeholders, enabling the firm to establish a truly
cooperative network (Kimmel 2010).
Although these stages of social media maturity are more directly relevant to
conversations between firms and consumers, it seems reasonable to assume that a firm’s
efforts to stimulate or support WOM among consumers are more likely to succeed at
advanced maturity levels. For example, at the transformation stage, incorporating
consumers’ ideas into product or service design can give rise to a feeling among
consumers that they have a vested interest in an offering’s success and are willing to
support and promote it among other consumers.
It has been said that social media have revolutionized corporate communications,
enabling companies to shift from traditional, delayed, one-way messaging to a more direct,
instantaneous, and expanded dialog with consumers and other carefully selected
stakeholders, constituencies, and publics (Matthews 2010). By extension, the nature and
content of consumer conversations are also being transformed by social media. However,
to date, much of what is known about WOM and the WOM process stems from research
Journal of Marketing Communications

focused primarily on offline WOM and from rudimentary comparisons of the frequency,
credibility, and evaluative nature of offline WOM and eWOM.

WOM: separating fact from fallacy

Over the years, an impressive body of evidence has accumulated demonstrating how WOM
plays a significant role in shaping consumer attitudes and behavior (e.g., Brown and Reingen
1987; Katz and Lazarsfeld 1955; Rusticus 2006). However, as the term ‘word of mouth’ has
entered widespread parlance, various conflicting assertions and exaggerated claims have

Table 1. WOM: some representative definitions.

‘Word of mouth is defined as oral, person-to-person communication between a receiver and a
communicator whom the receiver perceives as non-commercial, concerning a brand, a product, or a
service’ (Arndt 1967, 3)
‘Word of mouth is the act of a consumer creating and/or distributing marketing-relevant information
to another consumer’ (WOMMA 2006)
‘By ‘word of mouth,’ I mean positive or negative communication of products, services, and ideas via
personal communication of people who have no commercial vested interest in making that
recommendation’ (Silverman 2005, 193)
‘Word of mouth (WOM) is a message about an organisation’s products or services or about the
organisation itself. Usually WOM involves comments about product performance, service quality,
trustworthiness, and modus operandi, passed on from one person to another’ (Charlett, Garland, and
Marr 1995)
‘In a post-purchase context, consumer word-of-mouth transmissions consist of informal
communications directed at other consumers about the ownership, usage, or characteristics of
particular goods and services and/or their sellers’ (Westbrook 1987, 261)
‘Conversations motivated by salient experiences are likely to be an important part of information
diffusion’ (Higie, Feick, and Prince 1987, 263)
‘Word of mouth refers to informal communication between private parties concerning evaluations of
goods and services’ (Anderson 1998, 6)
‘Word of mouth is the interpersonal communication between two or more individuals, such as
members of a reference group or a customer and a salesperson’ (Kim, Han, and Lee 2001, 276)
 Journal of Marketing Communications 5

appeared about the concept and its functioning. Even within the marketing discipline,
definitions of the term vary (cf. Goyette et al. 2010), with some conceptualizing WOM as an
activity (e.g., Arndt 1967; WOMMA 2005), and others as the result of such activity (Charlett,
Garland, and Marr 1995) (see Table 1). Without denying its potential impact in the
marketplace, where informal recommendations can have a more significant influence on brand
image and purchasing behavior than formal marketing communications, hyperbole about the
power of WOM is widespread. For example, WOM has been described as ‘the most important
marketing element that exists’ (Alsop 1984), ‘more powerful than all of the other marketing
methods put together’ (Silverman 2005), ‘the greatest of all brand messages’ (Dobele and
Ward 2003), ‘the only kind of persuasion that most of us respond to anymore’ (Gladwell 2000),
and ‘the ultimate test of the customer relationship’ (Bendapudi and Berry 1997).
In their review of the WOM literature, De Bruyn and Lilien (2008) identified three
emergent streams of research to explain the antecedents and consequences of WOM. The first
stream focuses on factors that compel consumers to proactively spread the word about
marketplace offerings that they have directly experienced. Among the factors that have been
linked to such behavior are extreme satisfaction or dissatisfaction (Anderson 1998; Bowman
and Narayandas 2001; Maxham and Netemeyer 2002), novelty of the product (Bone 1992),
and consumers’ commitment to the firm (Dick and Basu 1994; Wangenheim and Bayon
Journal of Marketing Communications

2004). Another research stream concerns consumer information-seeking behaviors, focusing

on the circumstances that lead consumers to rely more heavily on WOM communications than
formal information sources to arrive at purchase decisions. The research evidence to date
suggests that consumers are more likely to seek out the opinions of others when they have little
expertise in the product category (Furse, Punj, and Stewart 1984; Gilly et al. 1998) or when the
purchase decision is characterized by high perceived risk (Bansal and Voyer 2000; Kiel and
Layton 1981) and high involvement (Beatty and Smith 1987). The third research stream
reflects efforts to explain the greater influence on consumers of personal information sources
than other sources. Factors such as source expertise (Bansal and Voyer 2000; Gilly et al.
1998), strength of social ties (Brown and Reingen 1987; Frenzen and Nakamoto 1993), and
demographic similarity (Brown and Reingen 1987) have emerged as important antecedents
underlying WOM influence.
According to De Bruyn and Lilien (2008), there remains a great deal of uncertainty
about how WOM works, which can be attributed to four key factors: (1) prior research has
largely focused on WOM communications that have successfully influenced the decision-
maker; (2) studies have emphasized WOM situations in which recipients were actively
seeking information and already interested in the product category; (3) data typically are
collected retrospectively, sometimes long after the WOM conversations have taken place;
and (4) WOM surveys tend to emphasize buying behavior, while ignoring possible effects
on intermediate stages of consumer decision-making. Moreover, the fact that prior
research has predominately focused on offline WOM also limits understanding about the
mechanisms underlying the rapid and widespread dissemination of WOM emanating from
social media. In light of these factors, it perhaps is not surprising that unsupported claims
about WOM abound in the marketing literature.

Frequency and drivers of WOM

According to estimates from Keller-Fay’s TalkTrackTM system (which provides
continuous monitoring of marketing-relevant conversations in the USA and the UK
based on data obtained from interviews with nationally representative samples of 700
consumers per week), on average, people engage in 125 product and service conversations
 6 A.J. Kimmel and P.J. Kitchen

per week and mention about 12 specific brands per day (see also East, Hammond, and
Wright 2007). The most frequently discussed topical categories are media and
entertainment, food and dining, beverages, travel services, and shopping and retail. A
majority of these conversations take place offline (face-to-face, 73%; telephone, 17%) as
opposed to online (email/instant messaging/texting, 6%; chat/blog, 1%; other, 3%),
although younger people (aged 13 –17 years) transmit proportionately more WOM online
(19%) than each successive category of older consumers, with 60- to 69-year-olds
engaging in the lowest percentage of online WOM (3%).
In addition to the differences between offline WOM and eWOM already mentioned,
there is evidence suggesting key differences between the drivers or factors that give rise to
WOM in online and offline contexts. In his groundbreaking Harvard Business Review
paper, ‘How Word-of-Mouth Advertising Works’, Dichter (1966) sought in part to
identify the various motivations that move a person to talk positively about a product or
service. Through the use of depth interviews, he found evidence suggesting that people
engage in the WOM process to obtain various satisfactions linked to four types of
involvements: (1) product, (2) self, (3) other, and (4) message involvements. In short,
according to Dichter (148), a consumer will not speak (favorably) about a product or
service unless he or she ‘gets something out of it’. Admittedly, Dichter’s work initially was
Journal of Marketing Communications

criticized and fell into disuse for some time, until its reemergence as one of several streams
underpinning hedonic experientialism (Hirschman and Holbrook 1982).
Since Dichter’s early analysis, it has long been assumed that the typical catalyst of
positive and negative WOM is customer satisfaction or dissatisfaction (East, Vanhuele,
and Wright 2008). In part, this assumption is derived from research showing higher
frequencies of WOM when satisfaction or dissatisfaction is at its highest levels, that is,
when consumers are extremely satisfied or dissatisfied (e.g., Anderson 1998; Söderlund
1998; Swan and Oliver 1989). However, a growing body of research suggests that
opportunities may serve as significant drivers of WOM in addition to customer
satisfaction/dissatisfaction and other social- and ego-related motivations, such as
dissonance reduction and self-enhancement (East, Hammond, and Wright 2007; cf. Engel,
Blackwell, and Miniard 1993; Heath 1996; Lau and Ng 2001). For example, Mangold,
Miller, and Brockway (1999) found that ‘felt need’ of the recipient (usually stimulated by
a request for information; 50%) and ‘coincidental communication’ (i.e., WOM arising out
of a conversation; 19%) were more likely to provide the impetus for WOM than the
communicator’s satisfaction or dissatisfaction (9%). Customer satisfaction/dissatisfaction
may serve as an antecedent for the production of WOM, but appears to be less important
than other factors in prompting informal consumer conversations.
The majority of studies on the factors that give rise to WOM for the most part have
focused on offline WOM; as a result, the question remains as to the extent to which similar
drivers operate in the online context. In their widely cited paper on the primary factors
leading to eWOM behavior, Hennig-Thurau et al. (2004) provided some preliminary
insight into this issue. Starting from the assumption that offline WOM and eWOM are
conceptually close communication behaviors, they expected that some of the drivers of
offline WOM would also be relevant for explaining the onset of eWOM. Their analysis of
the extant literature led to the identification of 11 motives for giving eWOM, including
concern for other consumers, exertion of power over companies, venting of negative
emotions, and post-purchase advice seeking. To identify the structure and relevance
of these motives, Hennig-Thurau et al. conducted an online survey of German
opinion-platform users, resulting in the identification of eight motive factors: (1) venting
negative feelings, (2) concern for other consumers, (3) social benefits, (4) economic
 Journal of Marketing Communications 7

incentives, (5) helping the company, (6) advice seeking, (7) platform assistance, and (8)
extraversion/positive self-enhancement.
Further analysis revealed that these factors were likely to influence both frequency of
consumer visits to opinion websites and the number of comments written by consumers at
those sites (Hennig-Thurau et al. 2004). Moreover, it was possible to classify consumers
into four segments according to the drivers most likely to prompt them to transmit eWOM:
(1) self-interested helpers (driven primarily by economic incentives), (2) multiple-motive
consumers (motivated by a large number of drivers), (3) consumer advocates (motivated
by their concern for others), and (4) true altruists (driven to help companies and other
consumers). Overall, the multiple-motive consumers segment was likely to engage in the
most eWOM communication, whereas true altruists and consumer advocates contributed
the least eWOM. Taken together, the research suggests that myriad forces drive WOM,
although there appear to be differences in terms of drivers and WOM targets (self, other
consumers, and companies) underlying the communication of WOM online and offline.

Relative frequency of positive word of mouth (PWOM) and negative word of mouth
(NWOM)
Journal of Marketing Communications

A common assertion in the marketing literature is that the incidence of negative word of
mouth (NWOM) far exceeds that of positive word of mouth (PWOM). For example, in his
trade book The Secrets of Word-of-Mouth Marketing, Silverman (2001, 134) asserted that
‘Most word of mouth, studies have shown, is negative’. Similarly, Naylor and Kleiser (2000),
upon finding that PWOM exceeded NWOM in their research, chose to title their paper
‘Negative Versus Positive Word of Mouth: An Exception to the Rule’. However, products
that cause dissatisfaction in competitive markets are not likely to survive, and so most product
experiences tend to be satisfactory for consumers (East, Vanhuele, and Wright 2008).
Across 15 studies, East, Hammond, and Wright (2007) reported a greater incidence of
PWOM than NWOM, with an average ratio of 3:1. Furthermore, the studies revealed that
categories with high levels of NWOM also tended to have high levels of PWOM. These
findings are consistent with independent studies on volume of positive and negative advice
conducted by Chevalier and Mayzlin (2006; online consumer book reviews), Godes and
Mayzlin (2004; online comments about TV shows), Naylor and Kleiser (2000; WOM
about health and fitness resorts), Holmes and Lett (1977; coffee), and Swan and Oliver
(1989; car dealerships). Similarly, findings obtained via Keller Fay’s TalkTrackTM
methodology revealed that nearly two-thirds (62%) of brand-related discussions portray
products favorably, as opposed to , 10% that feature products negatively – a 6:1 ratio in
favor of PWOM (Siegel 2006). In a more recent large-scale European study, Oetting et al.
(2010) reported that 89% of more than 20,000 consumers surveyed recalled positive
instances of WOM as opposed to negative instances. The researchers concluded that
contrary to common belief, PWOM is more memorable than NWOM.
It is also likely that PWOM is more common than NWOM because most products are
satisfactory and up to 83% of consumers, on average, tend to be satisfied with their
purchases (Mittal and Lassar 1998; Peterson and Wilson 1992). Indeed, on average, a
greater percentage of WOM instances concern the consumer’s main brand as opposed to a
never-owned or previously-owned brand, and PWOM is more frequent for main brands.
Consumers rarely recommend a previously-owned or never-owned brand, but often advise
against them (East, Hammond, and Wright 2007; Wangenheim 2005). It seems reasonable
to assume that these points are as relevant to eWOM as they are to the offline contexts in
which these studies have been carried out. Nonetheless, we are unaware of research to date
 8 A.J. Kimmel and P.J. Kitchen

that has considered possible differences in the evaluative content of offline WOM and
eWOM.

Relative impact of PWOM and NWOM on consumer choice

Another widely held belief about WOM is that NWOM from dissatisfied customers has a
significantly stronger effect on recipients than PWOM received from satisfied customers.
Assael’s (1995, 639) assertion that ‘negative word of mouth tends to be more powerful
than positive information’ is typical of this belief. There does appear to be a modicum of
research support for this claim; however, the results are anything but clear-cut. There are
certain considerations that limit the applicability of experimental results to naturalistic
situations in which WOM about familiar brands occurs, and the greater influence of
NWOM does not appear to extend to shifts in brand purchase probability, except in certain
specified circumstances (East, Vanhuele, and Wright 2008). It is logical to assume that the
greater rarity of negative information increases its usefulness or value of its diagnostic
information (Feldman and Lynch 1988; Lynch, Marmorstein, and Weigold 1988) and may
draw more attention because its infrequency makes NWOM instances more surprising
(Laczniak, DeCarlo, and Ramaswami 2001; Mizerski 1982). However, psychological
Journal of Marketing Communications

research in support of these contentions has predominantly focused on the impact of

advice on recipients’ attitudes, rather than the more appropriate consumer measure of
change in purchase probability (which operationalizes the impact of WOM on choice).
In perhaps the most extensive analysis to date, using various measures and covering a
large number of categories, East, Vanhuele, and Wright (2008, 215) report that for familiar
brands, ‘the impact of PWOM is generally greater than NWOM’ on brand purchase
probability. Their results revealed that the pre-WOM probability of purchase typically
falls below the 0.50 level, suggesting that PWOM has more latitude to increase purchase
probablility than NWOM stands to decrease it. Furthermore, the impact of WOM was
found to be related to whether the WOM pertained to the recipient’s preferred brand.
Consistent with the latter finding, recipients were found to resist NWOM on brands they
are likely to choose, and resist PWOM on brands they are unlikely to choose. Similarly,
other studies have found evidence of a reactance effect, whereby people become more
committed to a favored brand in the face of negative advice (Fitzsimons and Lehmann
2004; Wilson and Peterson 1989). In sum, the question of the relative impact of PWOM
and NWOM on consumer behavior is complex and depends on a variety of mediating
factors. Accordingly, the unqualified assumption that NWOM has greater impact than
PWOM cannot be supported.

Types of transmitters of PWOM and NWOM

Marketers are well aware that some consumers are harder to please than others; thus, it is
logical to assume that typically dissatisfied consumers tend to be more critical of products
and services in their advice to others than consumers who are easier to please and more
commonly satisfied. However, the belief that satisfied customers always produce PWOM
and dissatisfied customers always produce NWOM appears to be unfounded (East,
Hammond, and Wright 2007; Mangold, Miller, and Brockway 1999).
Under certain conditions, people may communicate both positive and negative advice
about the same product or service to different persons, depending on the characteristics of
the recipients. For example, an urban vacation destination may be recommended for
someone who appreciates city life, but advised against for a person who prefers pastoral
 Journal of Marketing Communications 9

getaways. Research on whether PWOM and NWOM come from different groups of people
suggests the contrary – in 10 of 15 studies across a broad range of categories, significant
correlations were obtained between PWOM and NWOM at the individual level (East,
Hammond, and Wright 2007). Overall, it was found that consumers who advised against
a brand are 3.5 times more likely to also recommend a brand (although, importantly, not
necessarily the same one).
Taken together, the foregoing research overview reveals – in contrast to how the nature,
antecedents, and consequences are often described in general discussions of WOM – that
(a) satisfaction/dissatisfaction accounts for a relatively small proportion of WOM,
(b) PWOM is more common than NWOM, (c) NWOM may or may not have a greater
impact than PWOM, and (d) people generally do not limit themselves to the transmission of
either PWOM or NWOM.

Future directions for WOM research

If social media have changed the game in terms of the alacrity and reach of eWOM, then it
can be affirmed that current knowledge about WOM requires a comprehensive
reconsideration. This recognition to a great extent prompted us to develop this special
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double issue of the Journal of Marketing Communications. In addition to the contributions

to the literature that we alluded to in our brief ‘Editors’ Introduction’ to the special issue,
the research reported in the papers that follow in this issue suggests certain essential
emerging directions in WOM research and best practices.

From dyadic instrumental exchanges to complex network conversations

If there is one critical distinction between offline WOM and WOM communicated through
social media that marketers need to acknowledge as a starting point for meeting research
or practical objectives, it is that the offline model of a static, dyadic exchange no longer
applies, if it ever did, to the online environment. At the time of their breakthrough work on
opinion leaders, the two-step exchange process depicted by Katz and Lazarsfeld (1955), by
which information flowed from influentials who made heavy use of mass media
information sources to others who did not, did an adequate job of characterizing WOM
participants and the WOM process. WOM transmission was understood as a simple dyadic
exchange, with the better informed members of a community sharing what they knew
about products and services with passive, solicitous recipients. Based on this static,
unidirectional model, subsequent research has focused on interpersonal dyads (WOM
source and WOM seeker), whose roles are presumed to be fixed throughout the interaction,
with one participant requesting information and the other providing it.
Research conducted by Toder-Alon, Brunel, and Fournier and Groeger and Buttle (this
issue) highlights how in the Marketing 2.0 era, there is nothing intimate about public
WOM communication conveyed through social media. Applying different methodologies
and guided by different objectives, both papers demonstrate how the instrumental
perspective of WOM as a means of achieving private consumption goals, with participants
playing unchanging roles in the process, is far too limiting. For example, Toder-Alon
et al.’s rhetorical analysis of online community discussions revealed how various
participants may play multiple, dynamic roles in the complex exchange of information and
opinions that are better described as conversations than transactions, whereby affiliation
with the group can provide social identification and social integration benefits. Importantly,
the authors also clarified how WOM may simultaneously influence a variety of consumption
 10 A.J. Kimmel and P.J. Kitchen

behaviors across multiple participants. That some of those WOM outcomes are likely to be
implicit raises the bar for researchers and practitioners in their efforts to tap both explicit and
silently noted WOM effects. Furthermore, in their case study assessments of how WOM
spreads across friendship networks, Groeger and Buttle concluded that marketers still are
not in a position to assess the degree of conversational overlap between online and offline
WOM participants during a WOMM campaign. These findings suggest various challenges
for marketers that can provide a starting point for the development of an empirical agenda
toward better understanding eWOM communication and its impact.

Offline WOM and online WOM: a symbiotic relationship

Groeger and Buttle’s recognition of conversational overlap occurring between online and
offline participants underscores how social media have become integrated as a fundamental
element of everyday life for many people. Given the increasing pervasiveness of social media
and the dynamic interplay between various social media platforms (such as Facebook,
Twitter, and blogs), the time has come for marketers to stop treating online and offline WOM
as if they were separate and discrete entities. For example, it is difficult to ascertain exactly
from where a WOM episode originates. Just as efforts to identify the starting point of a joke
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or rumor typically prove fruitless (Fearn-Banks 1996; Kimmel 2004), WOM is better
understood as a fluid communication that evolves and is transformed via the ebb and flow of
conversations that shift from online to offline to online contexts, and jump from one social
media platform to others. In many cases, an attribution to a specific source is indeterminable,
as suggested by a lead-in remark along the lines of ‘I heard that . . . ’, or left ambiguous
(e.g., ‘A friend of a friend said that . . . ’). In order to add legitimacy to the story, a reference
may be made to ‘having heard on good authority’, or a vague reference may be made to a
conversational thread on a social network or to the mass media.
From a managerial or public relations perspective, the specific origins of WOM or the
relative frequency of online versus eWOM is far less important than determining where
specific hotbeds of WOM activity are located, both online and offline. As Pfeffer, Zorbach,
and Corely discuss in their paper (this issue), efforts to address negative online WOM and
complaint behavior require a focus on network structure and cross-media dynamics,
among other factors. In addition, research by Goodrich and Mooij (this issue)
demonstrates that despite an increasing global connectedness to social media, whereby
consumers instantaneously can obtain product and service information from complete
strangers half a globe away, significant cultural differences exist in terms of which social
media are used and how they are used within different country contexts. These points not
only complicate the monitoring and measurement of WOM and its outcomes, but also
suggest that marketing practitioners not put all their eggs in one social media basket in
efforts to leverage consumer conversations.

Rethinking ‘WOM on Steroids’

One of the general assumptions underlying marketing communicators’ greater attention to
social media is reflected by the so-called social steroids notion, which holds that if a face-
to-face conversation signifies a potentially important WOM interaction, then a comment
on social media represents that same quality interaction multiplied by the number of
people participating in the network. However, this promising argument has been tempered
by evidence suggesting that high levels of social media users do not actively engage with
social media content but that a vast majority of sharing occurs in spontaneous
 Journal of Marketing Communications 11

conversational WOM encounters. For example, data from brands with millions of
Facebook fans reveal that a mere 0.45% are active fans (Keller 2012) and that only 1% of
fans ever engage with a brand once they click ‘like’ on a Facebook fan page (Nelson-Field
and Taylor 2012). Such estimates highlight how mere presence on social media is not
enough to get people talking; rather, the best way to have an online WOM impact is to
create content that consumers will want to share or, in the popular vernacular, something
that is ‘talkable’ (Wetpaint/Altimeter Group 2009). Reichelt, Sievert, and Jacobs shed
further light on the social steroids argument by demonstrating that although few people
contribute, but many consume, personal information about products and services
communicated online from nonbrand sources, the trustworthiness of online content is key
to whether that content positively affects attitudes toward and intentions to read eWOM.
Perhaps it is not surprising that several of the contributions to this special issue emphasize
the importance of measurement and monitoring WOM on social media. Although an
increasing number of companies are adopting social media as a key element of their marketing
communication strategy, reports issued during the first decade of the new millennium revealed
that firms have struggled to find effective metrics to evaluate them, with little evidence that
this situation has changed in more recent years (see, e.g., Altimeter 2012; ‘Social Media
Marketing’ 2008). A study jointly sponsored by Osterman Research and BoldMouth.com
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reported that 51.2% of the firms that utilize WOMM are unable to track the performance of
their marketing efforts and 67.4% lack faith in the data they gather for measuring WOM
performance in terms of value or meaningfulness (‘Study Reveals’ 2006). Only 28.6% of the
firms studied were found to have a WOMM plan in place, and lack of metrics to evaluate
effectiveness was identified as the single largest reason (cited by 36.8% of the 112 WOMM
respondents) for not establishing a formal WOMM plan.
The results of such studies have prompted a growing number of marketing experts to
conclude that marketers lack the measures necessary for launching WOM and other connected
marketing campaigns (cf. Kimmel 2010). Research by Barnes and Jacobsen (this issue)
further revealed that many businesses, nonprofit organizations, and academic institutions are
remiss in terms of monitoring eWOM altogether, another reflection of how presence on social
media does not necessarily equate with depth of organizational involvement. Barnes and
Jacobsen also reiterated how listening to online consumer conversations is of critical
importance if social media involvement is to prove fruitful. Accordingly, the papers in this
special issue provide some important recommendations with regard to social media metrics.
For example, Toder-Alon et al.’s rhetorical analysis of an online Internet community revealed
how measurement approaches not only need to go beyond the standard codifying of amount
and valence of WOM content, but also need to consider the discursive conversational aspects
of content as woven into exchanges between multiple participants. Groeger and Buttle’s
insightful social network analysis of an actual referral campaign emphasizes the importance
for companies to assess both the reach and frequency of their WOMM efforts. Their research
provided evidence suggesting that although weak ties may increase reach, strong ties may
increase frequency, and that multiple exposures to the same WOM content provide an
indication that many campaigns may overestimate their actual reach.

Traditional media still matter

It is easy for marketing communicators to fall into the trap that WOM in the contemporary
marketing landscape is all about social media and nontraditional communication channels.
The aforementioned dynamic between online and offline WOM, and the continued high
levels of ad spending on traditional media, should at least for the foreseeable future put
 12 A.J. Kimmel and P.J. Kitchen

that notion to rest. Renowned futurist Sir Arthur C. Clarke once asserted that ‘no
communication technology has ever disappeared, but instead becomes increasingly less
important as the technological horizon widens’, a caveat that sounds particularly relevant
in today’s marketing communication environment.
Nonetheless, some of the tried-and-true methods of traditional marketing
communication continue to bear relevance to online WOMM efforts and suggested best
practices for social media involvement, albeit with some necessary tweaking based on
essential differences in the ways consumers interact with traditional and nontraditional
media. For example, Wood and Burkhalter’s research provides insight into how brands can
effectively connect with participants in microblogging contexts such as Twitter through
celebrity endorsements (i.e., tweeting) but that, as is the case with traditional media, the
benefits of the approach appear to be limited to drawing attention to unfamiliar brands. As
the capturing of consumer attention has long been understood as an essential challenge of
traditional marketing communication campaigns, Daugherty and Hoffman’s work (this
issue) addresses the issue of how attention constitutes a critical behavioral response to
online WOM content, in which marketing clutter is not only widespread, but often in
constant flux. Daugherty and Hoffman develop and, through the use of behavioral eye
tracking, test a conceptual framework for assessing how consumer attention relates to and
Journal of Marketing Communications

influences a progression of behavioral responses to eWOM, with WOM message valence

playing a critical role in differentially influencing consumer attention. The upshot of these
and other results reported in this special issue is that much can be learned from lessons
gleaned over the years from traditional marketing communication research, but that
although those lessons should not be ignored, it is also essential to acknowledge that their
application to social media WOMM efforts must be implemented with caution.

Conclusion
As the papers in this special issue demonstrate, the optimal social media marketing strategy
for connecting with consumers and leveraging their conversations will depend on a variety of
factors. Engagement with consumers through social media cannot succeed if the marketing
effort is merely a cursory or sporadic one. Because true engagement requires full engagement
in those channels in which marketing communicators choose to invest, it is essential that the
choice of channels be a carefully considered one (Wetpaint/Altimeter Group 2009).
Moreover, research, theory, and practical applications are likely to have an impact on the
extent that academic researchers and marketing practitioners engage in mutually beneficial
collaborations. As much as marketing researchers cannot lose sight of the potential practical
applications of their empirical and theoretical work, it is essential that marketing practitioners
come to acknowledge applied psychologist Lewin’s (1951, 169) early observation that ‘there
is nothing so practical as a good theory’. Along these lines, social psychologist McGuire
(1965, 139) once adroitly commented that application without regard to theory is ‘as inelegant
and inefficient as trying to push a piece of cooked spaghetti across the table from the back end’.
Similarly, we can say that efforts to influence and manage consumer conversations through
social media without an appreciation of what has been revealed to date about the multifaceted
and elusive nature of WOM are ultimately doomed to failure.

Notes on contributors
Allan J. Kimmel is Professor of Marketing at ESCP Europe in Paris, France. His research and
writing interests focus on consumer behavior, marketing and research ethics, connected marketing
 Journal of Marketing Communications 13

and word of mouth, and the relationship between people and products. He has published articles in
the Journal of Consumer Psychology, Psychology & Marketing, and American Psychologist, among
others. His most recent books are Marketing Communication: New Approaches, Technologies, and
Styles (Oxford University Press, 2005), Ethical Issues in Behavioral Research: Basic and Applied
Perspectives (Wiley-Blackwell, 2007), Connecting With Consumers: Marketing for New
Marketplace Realities (Oxford University Press, 2010), and Psychological Foundations of
Marketing (Routledge, 2012).
Philip J. Kitchen is Research Professor of Marketing, ESC Rennes School of Business, France. His
research interests lie in the fields of marketing and corporate communications, marketing theory, and
applications of marketing as seen from a consumer as compared to an organizational perspective. He
has published academic papers in the Journal of Advertising Research, Journal of Business Ethics,
European Journal of Marketing, and in many other marketing and communication journals. His
latest books include: Marketing Metaphors and Metamorphosis (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2008),
Integrated Brand Marketing and Measuring Returns (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2010), The Evolution of
Integrated Marketing Communications: The Customer-Driven Marketplace (Routledge, 2011) with
Schultz, D. and Patti, C.; The Dominant Influence of Marketing in the 21st Century: The Marketing
Leviathan (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2013).
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