Slide hành vi người tiêu dùng chapter9 group influence and opinion leadership

Types of Reference GroupsAny external influence that provides social clues can be a reference group • Cultural figure • Parents • Large, formal organization • Small and informal groups

• We are motivated to buy or use products in order to

be consistent with what other people do.

• The things that other consumers tell us about

products (good and bad) are often more influential than the advertising we see.cuu duong than cong com

Chapter Objectives (cont.)

• Online technologies are accelerating the impact of word-of-mouth communication.

• Social networking is changing the way companies and consumers interact.

• Certain people are particularly likely to influence others’ product choices.

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Reference Groups

• Reference group: an actual or imaginary

individual/group conceived of having significant relevance upon an individual’s evaluations,

Reference Group Influences

• Reference group influences stronger for purchases that are:

• Luxuries rather than necessities

• Socially conspicuous/visible to others

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When Reference Groups Are Important

• Social power: capacity to alter the actions of others

• Types of social power:

Reward powercuu duong than cong comCoercive power

Types of Reference Groups

Any external influence that provides social clues can

be a reference group

• Cultural figure

• Parents

• Large, formal organization

• Small and informal groups

• Exert a more powerful influence on individual

consumers

• A part of our day-to-day lives: normative influence

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Brand Communities and Consumer Tribes

• A group of consumers who

share a set of social

relationships based upon usage

or interest in a product

• Brandfests enhance brand

loyalty

• Consumer tribe share emotions,

moral beliefs, styles of life, and

affiliated product

• Tribal marketing: linking a

product to the needs of a

group as a whole

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Membership versus Aspirational

Reference Groups

Membership reference groups: people the

consumer actually knows

• Advertisers use “ordinary people”

Aspirational reference groups: people the

consumer doesn’t know but admires

• Advertisers use celebrity

spokespeople

 Click to view

Quicktime video on use of celebrity

athletes in advertising

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Positive versus Negative Reference

Groups

• Reference groups may exert either a positive or

negative influence on consumption behaviors

• Avoidance groups: motivation to distance oneself

from other people/groups

• Marketers show ads with undesirable people using competitor’s product

• Antibrand communities: coalesce around a celebrity, store, or brand—but in this case they’re united by

their disdain for it

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Consumers Do It in Groups

• Deindividuation: individual identities become

submerged within a group

• Example: binge drinking at college parties

• Social loafing: people don’t devote as much to a task when their contribution is part of a larger group

• Example: we tend to tip less when eating in

groups

• Risky shift: group members show a greater

willingness to consider riskier alternatives following group discussion than if members mad their own

decisions

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Consumers Do It in Groups (cont.)

Decision polarization: after group discussion of an issue, opinions become more extreme

Home shopping parties capitalize on group pressure to boost sales

• Informational and normative social influence

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Home shopping parties—such as Tupperware, Avon, Pampered Chef, Amway, or Botox—are designed to put pressure on friends and neighbors to buy

merchandise.

Why or why not?

women?

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• Most people tend to follow

society’s expectations

regarding how to look/act

• Factors influencing conformity:

Word-of-Mouth Communication

WOM: product information transmitted by individuals

to individuals

• More reliable form of marketing

• Social pressure to conform

• Influences two-thirds of all sales

• We rely upon WOM in later stages of product

adoption

• Powerful when we are unfamiliar with product

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Negative WOM and Power of Rumors

• We weigh negative WOM more heavily than we do positive comments!

• Negative WOM is easy to spread, especially online

The Transmission of Misinformation

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Negative WOM and Power of Rumors

(cont.)

Three basic themes found in Web-based “protest”

communities:

• Injustice: consumers talk about their repeated

attempts to contact the company only to be ignored.

• Identity: posters characterize the violator as evil,

rather than simply wrong.

• Agency: individual Web site creators try to create a

collective identity for those who share their anger with a company.

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Virtual Communities

• A collection of people who share their love of a

product in online interactions

• Multi-user dungeons (MUD)

• Rooms (IRC), rings, and lists

• Boards

• Blogs/blogosphere

• Great potential for abuse via untrustworthy members

• Amazon.com lawsuit (charging publishers to post positive reviews of Web site)

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Virtual Communities

• Which type of Web surfer are you?

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Guerrilla Marketing

• Guerilla marketing: promotional strategies that use unconventional locations and intensive WOM to

push products

• Recruits legions of real consumers for street theater

• Hip-hop “mix tapes”/street teams

• Brand ambassadors

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Viral Marketing

• Viral marketing: getting visitors to a Web site to

forward information on the site to their friends (for product awareness)

• Creating online content that is entertaining or weird

• Example: buzz campaign for Mini Cooper car

Click photo for Miniusa.com cuu duong than cong com

Social Networking and Crowd Power

• Web sites letting members post information about themselves and make contact with similar others

• Share interests, opinions, business contacts

 Click photo for Myspace.com Click photo for

Facebook.com

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Social Networking and Crowd Power

(cont.)

• Wisdom of crowds perspective: under the right

circumstances, groups are smarter than the

smartest people in them

• Some crowd-based Web sites:

• CrowdSpirit.com: participants submit ideas for consumer electronics products and the

community votes for the best ones

• Sermo.com: social network for physicians

• Eventful.com: fans can demand events and

performances in their town and spread the word

to make them happen

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Opinion Leadership

• Opinion leaders: influence

others’ attitudes and

behaviors

• They are good information

sources because they:

• May be experts

• Provide unbiased

evaluation

• Are socially active

• Are similar to the

consumer

• Are among the first to buy

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Reasons to Seek Advice from Opinion Leaders

• Expertise

• Unbiased knowledge power

• Highly interconnected in communities (social

standing)

• Referent power/homophily

• Hands-on product experience (absorb risk)

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Opinion Leadership (cont.)

• Generalize opinion leader versus

monomorphic/polymorphic experts

• Although opinion leaders exist for multiple product categories, expertise tends to overlap across similar categories

• It is rare to find a generalized opinion leader

Perspectives on the Communications Process

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The Market Maven

Market maven: actively involved

in transmitting marketplace information of all types

• Just into shopping and aware what’s happening in the

The Surrogate Consumer

• Surrogate consumer: a marketing intermediary hired

to provide input into purchase decisions

• Interior decorators, stockbrokers, professional

shoppers, college consultants

• Consumer relinquishes control over

Finding Opinion Leaders

Many ads intend to reach influentials rather than average consumer

• Local opinion leaders are harder to find

• Companies try to identify influentials in order to create WOM “ripple effect”

• Exploratory studies identify characteristics of opinion leaders for promotional strategies

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The Self-Designating Method

• Most commonly used technique to identify opinion leaders…

• Simply ask individuals whether they consider

themselves to be opinion leaders

• Method is easy to apply to large group of potential opinion leaders

• View with skepticism—inflation or unawareness

of own importance/influence

• Alternative: key informants identify opinion leaders

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Sociometric Methods

• Sociometric methods: trace communication patterns among group members

• Systematic map of group interactions

• Most precise method of identifying

product-information sources, but is very difficult/expensive

to implement

• Network analysis

• Referral behavior/network, tie strength

• Bridging function, strength of weak ties

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