Impact of Word-of-Mouth on Consumer Attitudes

628 Words2 Pages

Literature Review
Since the 1960s, a large body of marketing research has documented the pervasive impact of word-of-mouth on consumer attitudes and behavior (Bansal & Voyer, 2000; Bone, 1995; Buttle, 1998; Herr et al., 1991; Laczniak, DeCarlo, & Ramaswani, 2001; Smith & Vogt, 1995; Wirtz & Chew, 2002). Word of mouth (WOM) communication is recognized as an important medium for influencing consumer behavior (Arndt, 1967). Consumers generally have greater tendency to be exposed to marketer-dominated sources, therefore, personal word of mouth source was usually the most effective (Arndt1967). Moreover former researches also find that word of mouth is particularly important for service (Murray, 1991) and also adequate to persuade a person to try a particular service provider (Frenzen & Davis, 1990; Reingen, 1987).
However, while the relevance of WOM is widely accepted, considerable research gaps exist. First, forces determining the effectiveness of WOM effects are not well understood (Wangenheim and Bayom, 2002). Although some authors have dealt with the effects of characteristics of the communicator (such as expertise or similarity; Brown and Reingen, 1987; Price et al., 1989) or the relationship between communicator (such as tie-strength; Raluca, 2012) on the strength of influence of a referral, the interaction of these two groups of factors remains widely underresearched.
Marketing research on the determinants of word-of-mouth conceptualizes word-of-mouth as a dyadic communication between a source (i.e., sender) and a recipient (i.e., receiver) (Gilly et al., 1998). This implies that the occurrence of word-of-mouth is determined by the characteristics of the recipient, by the characteristics of the source, and by their mutual relat...

... middle of paper ...

...ionship is defined as the closeness of the social relationship between the recipient and the source of word-of-mouth information (Brown & Konrad, 2001). Close friends are an example of strong ties, whereas seldom-contacted acquaintances represent weak ties (Brown & Reingen, 1987). Stronger ties are typically more readily available and result in more frequent interaction through which word-of-mouth information can be requested or provided (Gilly et al., 1998). Several studies have found that consumers engage more in word-of-mouth with strong ties than with weak ties (Bansal & Voyer, 2000; Bone, 1992; Wirtz & Chew, 2002).
As a closure to discussion above, how effective is the effectiveness of word of mouth in influencing consumer’s behavior is depending on the characteristics of the source, characteristics of the resources and tie-strength (their mutual relationship).

Open Document