Allan J. Kimmel

Philip J. Kitchen

This collection examines a key new development in the contemporary marketing landscape, the relationship between the informal exchange of information and advice among consumers – known as word of mouth (WOM) – and emerging social media. Whereas WOM has been around since as long as people have engaged in conversations, its transmission is no longer limited to face-to-face interactions over the clothesline and across backyard fences. Today, the dissemination of WOM through online channels such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube channels, blogs, and consumer forums has significantly altered the alacrity by which product and service messages are spread across a dramatically expanded consumer audience. As marketing practitioners have come to recognize the power of online WOM in terms of its impact on consumer beliefs, attitudes, and purchasing behavior, effective strategies for leveraging the consumer conversation require greater insight and understanding of WOM and social media. Towards that end, this book offers ground-breaking research from an impressive array of internationally renowned marketing researchers on the nature and dynamics of WOM transmitted through social media channels, advancing our understanding of consumer influence, which to date has largely focused on offline WOM. Among the topical issues covered are best practices for marketing practitioners, the conversational nature of online WOM, the dynamic interplay between online and offline WOM, WOM measurement and monitoring, and cross-cultural influences on WOM. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Marketing Communications.

Word of Mouth and Social Media

This book offers a thorough examination of rumors and proposes strategies for organizations to use in combatting rumors that occur both internally and externally. Author Allan J. Kimmel explores the rumor phenomenon and distinguishes it as a distinct form of communication. He looks at psychological and social processes underlying rumor transmission to understand the circumstances under which people invent and circulate rumors. In addition, he examines how rumors are spread--both interpersonally and through mediated processes--and offers strategies for organizations to respond to rumors when they surface and methods for preventing their occurrence. Numerous examples are provided of actual rumor cases for which managers either successfully or unsuccessfully coped, including such companies as Procter & Gamble, McDonald's, Snapple, Pepsi-Cola, and Gerber. Intended to serve as a comprehensive compendium of strategies, this book was written with two objectives in mind. The first is to shed light on the often perplexing phenomenon of rumor by integrating disparate approaches from the behavioral sciences, marketing, and communication fields. The second is to offer a blueprint for going about the formidable tasks of attempting to prevent and neutralize rumors in business contexts. With these dual goals in mind--one theoretical, the other applied--this book will be of equal interest to both academics and managers in a wide range of professional contexts. In addition, it will guide organizational and marketing managers in their efforts to combat the potentially destructive consequences of rumors.

A Manager's Guide to Understanding and Combatting Rumors

Rumors and Rumor Control

By examining the interface between consumer behavior and new product development, People and Products: Consumer Behavior and Product Design demonstrates the ways in which consumers contribute to product design, enhance product utility, and determine brand identity. With increased connectedness and advances in technology, consumers and marketers are more closely connected than ever before. Yet consumer behavior texts often overlook the application of the subject to product design, testing, and success. This is the first book to explore this interface in detail, exploring such issues as: the attributes and qualities that consumers demand from products and services, and social and cultural forces to be aware of; design and form and how they facilitate product usage; technological developments and the ways they have changed how consumers interact with products; product disposal and sustainability; emerging and future trends in consumer behavior and product development and design. This exciting volume is relevant to anyone interested in marketing, consumer behavior, product development, technology, engineering, design, and brand management.

Consumer Behavior and Product Design

People and Products

These are exciting times for business marketing professionals, yet the challenges imposed by ongoing social and technological developments are daunting. This book calls on marketers to make a choice: embrace the ongoing changes as opportunities for reshaping relationships with consumers, or cling to the past at the risk of becoming irrelevant.

Marketing For New Marketplace Realities

Connecting With Consumers

These are exciting times for business managers and marketing professionals, yet the challenges imposed by ongoing social and technological developments are daunting. In an age in which marketers can reach their audiences with greater facility than ever before, firms have never been less in control of their customer targets. This increasing connectedness of consumers provides a range of unique and promising opportunities for product and brand managers. Connecting With Consumers describes the various strategies and techniques that can be utilized to harness consumer influence. The book traces evolving developments in the consumer marketplace, considers their impact on the potential reshaping of the marketing profession, and describes the emerging set of tools that can enable marketers to respond to new marketplace realities. It provides, clear, up-to-date coverage of a number of topics currently on the minds of many: Web 2.0, word of mouth, buzz, the social web, social media metrics, customer engagement, viral and guerrilla marketing. The book critically assesses emerging marketing strategies and tools within the context of research and theory, and provides numerous applied examples to illustrate marketing successes and common pitfalls to avoid. It argues throughout for a more collaborative relationship between companies and consumers towards their mutual benefit. Although the balance of power has shifted to the consumer for each of the various aspects of the marketing process, collaboration is what the future of marketing likely will be all about. Marketers can avoid irrelevance in the face of change, but this will require a clear commitment to connecting with consumers rather than searching for ways to regain control over them. The book challenges marketers to make a choice: embrace the ongoing changes as opportunities for reshaping relationships with consumers, or cling to the past at the risk of becoming irrelevant. This is the book for those who choose the first alternative.

Allan J. Kimmel

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