Firm-Created Word-of-Mouth Communication: Evidence from a Field Test
Abstract
In this paper, we investigate the effectiveness of a firm's proactive management of customer-to-customer communication. We are particularly interested in understanding how, if at all, the firm should go about effecting meaningful word-of-mouth (WOM) communications. To tackle this problem, we collect data from two sources: (1) we implement a large-scale field test in which a national firm created word of mouth through two populations: customers and noncustomers, and (2) we collect data from an online experiment. We break our theoretical problem into two subproblems. First, we ask: “What kind of WOM drives sales?” Motivated by previous research, we hypothesize that for a product with a low initial awareness level, WOM that is most effective at driving sales is created by less loyal (not highly loyal) customers and occurs between acquaintances (not friends). We find support for this in the field test as well as in an experimental setting. Hence, we demonstrate the potential usefulness of exogenously created WOM: conversations are created where none would naturally have occured otherwise. Then, we ask: “Which agents are most effective at creating this kind of WOM?” In particular, we are interested in evaluating the effectiveness of the commonly used opinion leader designation. We find that although opinion leadership is useful in identifying potentially effective spreaders of WOM among very loyal customers, it is less useful for the sample of less loyal customers.
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Libai, B., Muller, E., & Peres, R. (2012) · Journal of Marketing Research · doi:10.1509/jmr.11.0305 · Cited by 280 · see citing works
Verhoef, P. C., Stephen, A. T., Kannan, P. K., Luo, X., Abhishek, V., Andrews, M., Bart, Y., Datta, H., Fong, N. M., Hoffman, D. L., et al. (2017) · Journal of Interactive Marketing · doi:10.1016/j.intmar.2017.06.001 · Cited by 281 · see citing works
“Many studies have examined how consumers influence each other and marketing-related outcomes in these settings (e.g., Chae et al. 2017; Godes and Mayzlin 2004, 2009; Minnema et al. 2016; Srinivasan, Rutz, and Pauwels 2016; Stephen and Galak 2012).”
Friendships in Online Peer-To-Peer Lending: Pipes, Prisms, and Relational Herding1
De, L., Brass, D. J., Lü, Y., & Chen, D. (2015) · MIS Quarterly · doi:10.25300/misq/2015/39.3.11 · Cited by 291 · see citing works
“According to Granovetter’s (1995) theory of embeddedness, there is “widespread preference for transacting with individuals of known reputation,” and there is no better basis for trust than our own past dealings with people.”
Not All Fun and Games: Viral Marketing for Utilitarian Products
Schulze, C., Schöler, L., & Skiera, B. (2013) · Journal of Marketing · doi:10.1509/jm.11.0528 · Cited by 277 · see citing works
“Whereas in these studies, the firms create and largely remain in control of the viral marketing messages, Godes and Mayzlin (2009) analyze a unique form of communication among consumers, in which the firm initiates the process but does not prescribe the message content.”
BackgroundUnstructured data in marketing
Balducci, B., & Marinova, D. (2018) · Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science · doi:10.1007/s11747-018-0581-x · Cited by 300 · see citing works
Schlosser, A. E. (2011) · Journal of Consumer Psychology · doi:10.1016/j.jcps.2011.04.002 · Cited by 265 · see citing works
Unpacking the social media phenomenon: towards a research agenda
Kietzmann, J., Silvestre, B. S., McCarthy, I. P., & PITT, L. F. (2012) · Journal of Public Affairs · doi:10.1002/pa.1412 · Cited by 267 · see citing works
“…from enough personal historical data for such predictions, the reputation of other individuals, of a firm or of a product is a socially shaped opinion based on aggregate experiences, shared through word of mouth, coverage in the popular press and so on (Dellarocas, 2003; Godes and Mayzlin, 2009).”
BackgroundUnderstanding User-Generated Content and Customer Engagement on Facebook Business Pages
Yang, M., Ren, Y., & Adomavičius, G. (2019) · Information Systems Research · doi:10.1287/isre.2019.0834 · Cited by 258 · see citing works
“Prior research has focused primarily on consumer reviews on online shopping websites and discussion forums around books, movies, TV shows, hotels, and restaurants (Chevalier and Mayzlin 2006; Forman et al. 2008; Godes and Mayzlin 2004, 2009; Archak et al. 2011; Ghose and Ipeirotis 2011).”
Ma, L., Sun, B., & Kekre, S. (2015) · Marketing Science · doi:10.1287/mksc.2015.0912 · Cited by 252 · see citing works
“…has substantial implications for sales and other marketing outcomes (Godes and Mayzlin 2004, Chevalier and Mayzlin 2006, Liu 2006, Duan et al. 2008, Godes and Mayzlin 2009, Trusov et al. 2009, Chintagunta et al. 2010, Stephen and Galak 2012, Tirunillai and Tellis 2012, Kumar et al. 2013, Gopinath…”
BackgroundSharing with Friends versus Strangers: How Interpersonal Closeness Influences Word-of-Mouth Valence
Dubois, D., Bonezzi, A., & Angelis, M. D. (2016) · Journal of Marketing Research · doi:10.1509/jmr.13.0312 · Cited by 251 · see citing works
“…(Frenzen and Nakamoto 1993; Wilcox and Stephen 2013), subsequent empirical work has primarily viewed and assessed tie strength in terms of frequency of observable interactions between both sides of a social dyad (Bakshy et al. 2012; Brown and Reingen 1987; Godes and Mayzlin 2004; Weimann 1983).”
BackgroundInfluentialIdentifying influencers on social media
Harrigan, P., Daly, T. M., Coussement, K., Lee, J. A., Soutar, G. N., & Evers, U. (2020) · International Journal of Information Management · doi:10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2020.102246 · Cited by 250 · see citing works
Referral Programs and Customer Value
Schmitt, P., Skiera, B., & Van den Bulte, C. (2011) · Journal of Marketing · doi:10.1509/jm.75.1.46 · Cited by 249 · see citing works
“Moving beyond referral programs specifically, our study indicates that a stronger focus on stimulated as opposed to organic WOM is worth considering (Godes and Mayzlin 2009 ).”
BackgroundInfluencing the influencers: a theory of strategic diffusion
Galeotti, A., & Goyal, S. (2009) · The RAND Journal of Economics · doi:10.1111/j.1756-2171.2009.00075.x · Cited by 241 · see citing works
Modeling Consumer Learning from Online Product Reviews
Zhao, Y., Yang, S., Narayan, V., & Ying, Z. (2012) · Marketing Science · doi:10.1287/mksc.1120.0755 · Cited by 242 · see citing works
“Consider a firm that manages word-of-mouth activity (Godes and Mayzlin 2009) by incentivizing consumers to post online product reviews.”
BackgroundEndogeneity and marketing strategy research: an overview
Rutz, O. J., & Watson, G. F. (2019) · Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science · doi:10.1007/s11747-019-00630-4 · Cited by 245 · see citing works
When, Why, and How Controversy Causes Conversation
Chen, Z., & Berger, J. A. (2013) · Journal of Consumer Research · doi:10.1086/671465 · Cited by 241 · see citing works
Driving Profitability by Encouraging Customer Referrals: Who, When, and How
Kumar, V., Petersen, J. A., & Leone, R. P. (2010) · Journal of Marketing · doi:10.1509/jmkg.74.5.1 · Cited by 238 · see citing works
How Do Consumer Buzz and Traffic in Social Media Marketing Predict the Value of the Firm?
Luo, X., & Zhang, J. (2013) · Journal of Management Information Systems · doi:10.2753/mis0742-1222300208 · Cited by 227 · see citing works
“” Consumer buzz refers to user-generated word-of-mouth messages, such as product reviews that are voluntarily posted on a website by consumers about their consumption experiences [10, 28, 70].”
BackgroundA multidisciplinary perspective of big data in management research
Sheng, J., Amankwah‐Amoah, J., & Wang, X. (2017) · International Journal of Production Economics · doi:10.1016/j.ijpe.2017.06.006 · Cited by 238 · see citing works
Spreading the word through likes on Facebook
Swani, K., Milne, G. R., & Brown, B. P. (2013) · Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing · doi:10.1108/jrim-05-2013-0026 · Cited by 227 · see citing works
Impact of social network structure on content propagation: A study using YouTube data
Yoganarasimhan, H. (2011) · Quantitative Marketing and Economics · doi:10.1007/s11129-011-9105-4 · Cited by 209 · see citing works
Linking pop-up brand stores to brand experience and word of mouth: The case of luxury retail
Klein, J. F., Falk, T., Esch, F., & Gloukhovtsev, A. (2016) · Journal of Business Research · doi:10.1016/j.jbusres.2016.04.172 · Cited by 220 · see citing works
“In others words, positive WOM not only augments the reach of a luxury brand, but also its relevance, particularly within new target groups that have previously only had limited exposure to the brand (Godes & Mayzlin, 2009; Kim & Ko, 2012).”
A Dynamic Model of the Effect of Online Communications on Firm Sales
Sonnier, G. P., McAlister, L. M., & Rutz, O. J. (2011) · Marketing Science · doi:10.1287/mksc.1110.0642 · Cited by 212 · see citing works
“Previous research has noted the increasing propensity of firms to attempt to initiate word-of-mouth communications among existing and potential customers (Godes and Mayzlin 2009).”
BackgroundInfluentialThe Impact of User Personality Traits on Word of Mouth: Text-Mining Social Media Platforms
Adamopoulos, P., Ghose, A., & Todri, V. (2018) · Information Systems Research · doi:10.1287/isre.2017.0768 · Cited by 210 · see citing works
“More specifically, Godes and Mayzlin (2009) study how loyalty of the disseminators of WOM toward a brand (e.g., frequency of purchases) facilitates WOM and demonstrate that firms should look for less loyal customers to spread WOM.”
BackgroundCham, T., Lim, Y.-M., Sia, B. C., Cheah, J., & Ting, H. (2020) · Journal of China Tourism Research · doi:10.1080/19388160.2020.1734514 · Cited by 202 · see citing works
“Firm-created social media allows the firm to have full control over their communication topic and to focus on its target audience (Godes & Mayzlin, 2009; Goh, Heng, & Lin, 2013).”
BackgroundXu, P., Chen, L., & Santhanam, R. (2015) · Decision Support Systems · doi:10.1016/j.dss.2015.03.001 · Cited by 202 · see citing works
Measuring and Managing Consumer Sentiment in an Online Community Environment
Homburg, C., Ehm, L., & Artz, M. (2015) · Journal of Marketing Research · doi:10.1509/jmr.11.0448 · Cited by 196 · see citing works
“Finally, recent work in social media participation has highlighted the role of consumer characteristics and the differing reactions of various consumer segments to firms’ social media initiatives (Chen and Xie 2008; Godes and Mayzlin 2009; Rishika et al. 2013).”
BackgroundOnline Consumer Review Factors Affecting Offline Hotel Popularity: Evidence from Tripadvisor
Xie, K., Chen, C., & Wu, S. (2015) · Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing · doi:10.1080/10548408.2015.1050538 · Cited by 195 · see citing works
“In the meantime, hotel managers can regularly post their product and service information (Zhang et al., 2009) and also proactively induce their consumers to spread the word about their products online (Godes & Mayzlin, 2009).”
BackgroundEelen, J., Özturan, P., & Verlegh, P. W. J. (2017) · International Journal of Research in Marketing · doi:10.1016/j.ijresmar.2017.08.002 · Cited by 199 · see citing works
Active Social Media Management: The Case of Health Care
Miller, A. R., & Tucker, C. E. (2012) · Information Systems Research · doi:10.1287/isre.1120.0466 · Cited by 185 · see citing works
“However, active firm promotion of word of mouth has also been found to be effective offline (Godes and Mayzlin 2009).”
Adaptive personalization using social networks
Chung, T. S., Wedel, M., & Rust, R. T. (2016) · Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science · doi:10.1007/s11747-015-0441-x · Cited by 184 · see citing works
“Further, the rapidly growing literature on social contagion has shown that social proximity to others can influence whether consumers try new goods and services (Bell and Song 2007; Godes and Mayzlin 2009; Iyengar et al. 2011).”
BackgroundOnline Customer Reviews of Hotels
González, S. M., Bulchand‐Gidumal, J., & López‐Valcárcel, B. G. (2013) · Cornell Hospitality Quarterly · doi:10.1177/1938965513481498 · Cited by 183 · see citing works
Oh, C., & Sheng, O. R. L. (2011) · Journal of the Association for Information Systems · Cited by 182 · see citing works
Hornik, J., Satchi, R. S., Cesareo, L., & Pastore, A. (2015) · Computers in Human Behavior · doi:10.1016/j.chb.2014.11.008 · Cited by 174 · see citing works
“The two procedures were drawn from previously validated procedures and measures (Chen et al., 2011; Godes & Mayzlin, 2009).”
BackgroundMethodNegative Reviews, Positive Impact: Consumer Empathetic Responding to Unfair Word of Mouth
Allard, T., Dunn, L., & White, K. (2020) · Journal of Marketing · doi:10.1177/0022242920924389 · Cited by 177 · see citing works
Aral, S., & Walker, D. (2010) · SSRN Electronic Journal · doi:10.2139/ssrn.1564856 · Cited by 173 · see citing works
To Keep or Not to Keep: Effects of Online Customer Reviews on Product Returns
Minnema, A., Bijmolt, T. H. A., Gensler, S., & Wiesel, T. (2016) · Journal of Retailing · doi:10.1016/j.jretai.2016.03.001 · Cited by 169 · see citing works
Selectively Emotional: How Smartphone Use Changes User-Generated Content
Melumad, S., Inman, J. J., & Pham, M. T. (2019) · Journal of Marketing Research · doi:10.1177/0022243718815429 · Cited by 164 · see citing works
“Prior work on online WOM has shown that its impact or persuasiveness depends on factors such as the characteristics of the reviewer (e.g., Godes and Mayzlin 2009) and the characteristics of the review itself, such as its linguistic characteristics (e.g., Schellekens, Verlegh, and Smidts 2010).”
Receiver responses to rewarded referrals: the motive inferences framework
Verlegh, P. W. J., Ryu, G., Tuk, M. A., & Feick, L. (2013) · Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science · doi:10.1007/s11747-013-0327-8 · Cited by 161 · see citing works
“However, Godes and Mayzlin (2008) showed that WOM programs may trigger referrals from customers who would otherwise would not be reached otherwise, and they may be effective if they are not perceived as blatant persuasion attempts.”
BackgroundZhang, W., Chintagunta, P., & Kalwani, M. U. (2021) · Journal of Marketing · doi:10.1177/0022242920985784 · Cited by 129 · see citing works
“In the context of online social media, the literature has examined the roles of influencers in consumer marketing (e.g., Goldenberg et al. 2009; Gong et al. 2017; Katona, Zubcsek, and Sarvary 2011) and opinion leaders in business marketing (Hada, Grewal, and Lilien 2014; Iyengar, Van den Bulte, and…”
BackgroundMotivations to interact with brands on Facebook – Towards a typology of consumer–brand interactions
Azar, S., Machado, J. C., de Carvalho, L. V., & Mendes, A. (2016) · Journal of Brand Management · doi:10.1057/bm.2016.3 · Cited by 157 · see citing works
Modeling the role of message content and influencers in social media rebroadcasting
Zhang, Y., Moe, W. W., & Schweidel, D. A. (2016) · International Journal of Research in Marketing · doi:10.1016/j.ijresmar.2016.07.003 · Cited by 156 · see citing works
“Along with Goldenberg et al (2009), they characterize individuals who follow a large number of others as information seekers while those who are followed by others are characterized as information disseminators.”
BackgroundBlogs, Advertising, and Local-Market Movie Box Office Performance
Gopinath, S., Chintagunta, P. K., & Venkataraman, S. (2013) · Management Science · doi:10.1287/mnsc.2013.1732 · Cited by 153 · see citing works
“Finally, in a recent paper, Godes and Mayzlin (2009) explore the effects of firmgenerated WOM communication.”
Grewal, L., Stephen, A. T., & Coleman, N. V. (2019) · Journal of Marketing Research · doi:10.1177/0022243718821960 · Cited by 151 · see citing works
“We consider situations in which consumers have been prompted to post, as this imitates real social media practice wherein brands encourage posting and engagement from consumers (Chae et al. 2017; Godes and Mayzlin 2009).”
BackgroundThe Economics of Buyer Uncertainty: Advance Selling vs. Probabilistic Selling
Fay, S., & Xie, J. (2009) · Marketing Science · doi:10.1287/mksc.1100.0576 · Cited by 146 · see citing works
Song, T., Huang, J., Tan, Y., & Yu, Y. (2019) · Information Systems Research · doi:10.1287/isre.2018.0797 · Cited by 148 · see citing works
Engineering social contagions: Optimal network seeding in the presence of homophily
Aral, S., Muchnik, L., & Sundararajan, A. (2013) · Network Science · doi:10.1017/nws.2013.6 · Cited by 152 · see citing works
“Specifically, a firm may encourage current adopters to exert more influence on their peers (Godes & Mayzlin, 2009) or alternatively may increase the susceptibility of potential customers to the influence of their peers (Aral & Taylor, 2011); some firms may choose to do both.”
BackgroundSocial Contagion in New Product Trial and Repeat
Iyengar, R., den Bulte, C. V., & Lee, J. (2015) · Marketing Science · doi:10.1287/mksc.2014.0888 · Cited by 141 · see citing works
“…but, to our knowledge, only in the realm of new product adoption (e.g., Aral and Walker 2012, Goldenberg et al. 2009, Hu and Van den Bulte 2014, Iyengar et al. 2011a, Katona et al. 2011) or outside the realm of new products altogether (e.g., Godes and Mayzlin 2009, Trusov et al. 2010).”
BackgroundHsu, L., & Lawrence, B. (2015) · International Journal of Research in Marketing · doi:10.1016/j.ijresmar.2015.04.004 · Cited by 147 · see citing works
“(Godes and Mayzlin 2009).”
BackgroundTweeting as a Marketing Tool: A Field Experiment in the TV Industry
Gong, S., Zhang, J., Ping, Z., & Jiang, X. (2017) · Journal of Marketing Research · doi:10.1509/jmr.14.0348 · Cited by 146 · see citing works
Seeing Ourselves in Others: Reviewer Ambiguity, Egocentric Anchoring, and Persuasion
Reczek, R. W., Lamberton, C. P., & Norton, D. A. (2011) · Journal of Marketing Research · doi:10.1509/jmkr.48.3.617 · Cited by 145 · see citing works
“Practical Implications Marketers are increasingly interested in proactively managing customer-to-customer communication (Godes and Mayzlin 2009).”
BackgroundFu, P.-W., Wu, C.-C., & Cho, Y.-J. (2017) · Computers in Human Behavior · doi:10.1016/j.chb.2016.10.010 · Cited by 129 · see citing works
“The marketing literature has documented thatWoM, especially from significant others, has a decisive influence on consumers' purchasing decisions (Chevalier & Mayzlin, 2006; Godes & Mayzlin, 2009).”
BackgroundDynamic Effectiveness of Advertising and Word of Mouth in Sequential Distribution of New Products
Bruce, N. I., Foutz, N., & Kolsarici, C. (2012) · Journal of Marketing Research · doi:10.1509/jmr.07.0441 · Cited by 152 · see citing works
“…multiple distribution stages, and their relationship with other aspects of consumer behavior, such as observational learning, or firm decisions, such as participation in stimulating WOM (Godes and Mayzlin 2009) or whether to provide review platforms (Chen, Wang, and Xie 2011; Chen and Xie 2008).”
BackgroundDou, Y., Niculescu, M. F., & Wu, D. J. (2012) · Information Systems Research · doi:10.1287/isre.1120.0463 · Cited by 139 · see citing works
“Godes and Mayzlin (2009) empirically study how firms should strategically recruit customers for WOM campaigns based on loyalty considerations to drive sales.”
BackgroundeWOM credibility on social networking sites: A framework
Moran, G., & Muzellec, L. (2014) · Journal of Marketing Communications · doi:10.1080/13527266.2014.969756 · Cited by 144 · see citing works
Measuring Information Diffusion in an Online Community
Garg, R., Smith, M. D., & Telang, R. (2011) · Journal of Management Information Systems · doi:10.2753/mis0742-1222280202 · Cited by 137 · see citing works
“! ! #! significant impact on online community members, empirical research is only beginning to analyze how online social communities help users discover and diffuse new content [2, 23, 24, 42].”
BackgroundIT-Enabled Broadcasting in Social Media: An Empirical Study of Artists’ Activities and Music Sales
Chen, H., De, P., & Hu, Y. J. (2015) · Information Systems Research · doi:10.1287/isre.2015.0582 · Cited by 137 · see citing works
Herding and Social Media Word-of-Mouth: Evidence from Groupon1
Li, X., & Wu, L. (2013) · MIS Quarterly · doi:10.25300/misq/2018/14108 · Cited by 155 · see citing works
- Authors
- Godes, D., & Mayzlin, D.
- Affiliations
- Harvard University (US)
- Yale University (US)
- Venue
- Marketing Science
- Published
- 2009-07
- Volume
- 28
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 721-739
- ISSN
- 0732-2399 (ISSN-L)
- 1526-548X
- OpenAlex
- W2132559268
- Cited by
- 837
- References
- 59
- Citations by year
- 2026: 11 · 2025: 22 · 2024: 24 · 2023: 52 · 2022: 41 · 2021: 46 · 2020: 54 · 2019: 55 · 2018: 52 · 2017: 50 · 2016: 57 · 2015: 72 · 2014: 73 · 2013: 81 · 2012: 53
- FWCI
- 155.67
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Marketing Science (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Digital Marketing and Social Media
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Marketing › Marketing and Advertising Strategies
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Statistical and Nonlinear Physics › Complex Network Analysis Techniques
- Keywords
- word of mouth, opinion leadership, customer loyalty, sales effectiveness, customer awareness
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