You market what you speak/post!

• In 2005, disappointed with Dell’s customer service, blogger Jarvis coined the term ‘Dell Hell’ in his blogs, which brought Dell national embarrassment.
• In 2012, McDonalds launched a campaign on twitter with hash tag #McDStories about the heritage of company’s food, which turned into a chaos when the hashtag was being used to share negative or funny stories about the company.
• In 2014, Zomato, had to take back its hiring advertisement and issue an apology. It had created a controversial recruitment ad, comparing two cities—New Delhi and Bengaluru—on different parameters and lifestyles, which did not go down well, especially with people working in Bengaluru.

Word-of-mouth (WOM) communication is widely accepted as a critical factor in building marketing strategies and communications. Invention of the Internet and proliferation of social media have added a new electronic dimension to traditional WOM, thereby converting it into electronicWOM (eWOM).

eWOM impacts—

→    Consumer’s purchase decision process

→    Utilization of eWOM to build brand strength

→    Consumer loyalty

→    Information diffusion, and

→    Creating buzz among potential consumers.

Features of eWOM communication–

→ It can be expressed in different forms such as opinions, online ratings, online feedback, reviews, comments, and experience sharing on the Internet.

→ It utilizes online communication channels, for example, blogs, review sites, discussion forums, online e-retailers, firm’s own brand and product sites, and social networking sites.

A take-away for marketers—

The traditional marketing approach is being revised and modified to utilize the power of the Internet. Consumers have more power with them due to proliferation of social media and the Internet forums and communities.

→ Marketers can utilize eWOM for

• Building product awareness,
• Improving sales and other related performance parameters,
• Strengthening brand value,
• Building customer loyalty.

→ eWOM also acts as direct feedback to marketers.

→ They can use positive and negative eWOM to improve their product and service deliveries and to offer recoveries and address consumer grievances.

—Excerpt taken from eWOM: Extant Research Review and Future Research Avenues in Vikalpa: The Journal for Decision Makers

Click here to know more about electronic Word-of-mouth (WOM) communication.