Profiling the buzz agent: product referral and the study of social community and brand attachment.

AutorClaro, Danny Pimentel
CargoReport

Introduction

We define for our study that a buzz agent refers to any consumer perceived by others as a source of product referral. In a consumer-to-consumer context, no consumers are equal. Some--the buzz agents--have a disproportionate ability to influence others. Increasingly, firms recognize that such consumers need to be identified and recruited to be part of word of mouth marketing (WOMM). A previous study showed a firm's success in promoting a brand by recruiting a few college students from popular fraternities to try out products and implicitly endorse the brand (Dye, 2000). WOMM is the intentional influencing of consumer-to-consumer communications by firms' marketing initiatives (Kozinets, Valck, Wojnicki, & Wilner, 2010) such as social media marketing (Schmitt, Skiera, & Van den Bulte, 2011), viral marketing (Court, Gordon, & Perrey, 2005), endorsement campaign (Dye, 2000) and blogger sponsorship (Cheema & Kaikati, 2010). These initiatives stimulate buzz agents to convert other consumers into users. Even though these are important marketing initiatives, firms still strive to recruit buzz agents because it is hard to profile them.

The buzz agent profile can be built into three characteristics as previous studies disconnectedly suggest. First, buzz agents influence others by capitalizing on who they know and how they are part of communities (e.g. Murphy, Mascardo, & Benckendorff, 2007). The rapid growth of communication phone, instant messaging, social networks--means increased speed, reach and intensity of relationships in different communities. These communities have even further empowered buzz agents to spread their opinions about products and advocate on behalf of brands. Second, buzz agents set up community ties to help them convey the message across a number of potential consumers (e.g. Weiss, Lurie, & Macinnis, 2008). Buzz agents form ties with friends that look alike and combine ties in different community domains. By forming ties with people like them and with friends that are also in the technology community, buzz agents benefit from common backgrounds and familiarity that foster fluid information flow. Third, all underlying associations of brands helps buzz agents to promote themselves as sources of product referral (e.g. Haenlein & Libai, 2013; Kozinets et al., 2010). Consumers rely on other consumers that know the brand and have used the products and services of that brand. Consumers who own desired brands and show convincing knowledge about products are regarded as buzz agents. These three key characteristics support a recruiting and selection system of consumers with potential to become a buzz agent for firms' WOMM.

We aim to study three key characteristics in the current context of booming social communities. Consumers have a need to come together and share information for the purpose of work and entertainment, which always has a component of functionality to it. For instance, a consumer decides to buy a new phone that has a great functional impact on day-to-day matters as well as a great impact on the consumer's social life. In order to tackle such an aim, we profile the buzz agent by gathering information about two key consumer characteristics (social community and brand attachment) and include demographic controls as well as narcissism to control for personality traits. Data from a survey with 542 consumers of a controlled population provided evidence to test two hypotheses of our buzz agent profile.

This study contributes to WOMM literature in two ways. First, our profile integrates different characteristics of the buzz agent, which include the social relationships with friends in a community, the composition of such communities and brand expertise and similarity. The extant research devoted attention to these characteristics in isolation. We combine them in a comprehensive integrated profile to deeper our understanding of the special consumer that we call a buzz agent. For managers, the profile elucidates relevant selection criteria of consumers to become the focal point of the marketing effort. Second, we contribute to WOMM literature by developing an unbiased method to identify consumers to be studied as buzz agents. Rather than relying on self-reported questions about referral behavior, we asked respondents in a controlled population to name the particular consumers who they rely upon to gather information and choose a product. People in the same community are able to accurately identify the buzz agent, who are those consumers to study for the relevant characteristics.

The next section of the paper reviews the literature used to build our hypotheses. We then present our hypotheses and build the argument based on relevant literature in the WOM field. Next, we present our research method as well as our measurement instrument, followed by the results of the regression equations. Finally, we discuss the results and put forward managerial implications and suggestions for future research.

Word of Mouth Marketing and the Role of Buzz Agent

Word-of-mouth (WOM), which refers to consumer-to-consumer communication to spread the word about a brand (i.e. product or service), has been recognized for quite some time as a powerful means to disseminate information about products and services (Brooks, 1957). A seminal study of WOM behavior showed that when a target consumer realizes that a firm is communicating by means of a friend consumer or an unbiased speaker, the target consumer relaxes and is more likely to accept the firm's assertions about the product (Dichter, 1966). Early studies in the field consistently established WOM as a meaningful social force that influences marketing thought and practice (Chevalier & Mayzlin, 2006). The consumer's preference for a product does not happen randomly. It generally involves receiving information about someone else's experience or expertise. Such an interpersonal communication triggers a sociological-involvement mechanism that truly motivates consumers to purchase a product (Goldenberg, Han, Lehmann, & Hong, 2009).

Recent studies in the field of WOM provided evidence for firms to engage in WOMM initiatives. For example, Schmitt, Skiera and Van den Bulte (2011) found that referral programs generate consumers that are more profitable in both the short and long term. Another study focused on high-uniqueness consumers, who are the ones that prefer to differentiate themselves from others of their respective reference groups (i.e. communities) (Cheema & Kaikati, 2010). This study showed that such high-uniqueness consumers were more likely to recommend products which they themselves consumed (Cheema & Kaikati, 2010). Bughin, Doogan and Vetvik (2010) proposed using word-of-mouth equity as an index of a brand's power to generate messages that influence consumers' purchasing decisions. WOMM initiatives are illustrated in several other studies that describe the effects of firms' stimulus to consumer-to-consumer communication and assess the positive effects on purchasing decisions (e.g., Chevalier & Mayzlin, 2006; Murphy et al., 2007; You, Vadakkepatt, & Joshi, 2015).

From the consumer point of view, the perceived costs and benefits of spreading the opinion about a brand will motivate the decision to engage in consumer-to-consumer communication (Frenzen & Nakamoto, 1993). Some consumers may proactively play the role of buzz agents, which often leads them to become known as market mavens or opinion leaders (King & Summers, 1970). These buzz agents are motivated by a greater sense of obligation to pass on information, a desire to help others, and a feeling of pleasure arising from telling others about products (Cheema & Kaikati, 2010). Other consumers may engage in WOM behavior to justify their decisions, generate approval, and achieve social status (Gatignon & Robertson, 1986). In essence, the underlying motivation of buzz agents is to generate WOM as a type of social influence.

The buzz agents are individuals that have some deep knowledge about a brand and are eloquent in passing on the information. In the context of rapid and intense information sharing activity by all different means (e.g. digital and face to face), it becomes essential for firms to profile the consumer more likely to successfully engage in a WOMM. We suggest a profile that encompasses who the buzz agent knows--by looking at social relationships in communities--and what the buzz agent knows by looking at their expertise and experience with the brand. From this starting point, we move towards a model to study the buzz agent profile that is depicted in Figure 1.

Towards a Profile of Buzz Agents

The WOM literature refers to community as a locus for propagation or diffusion as a consumer passes on information or opinion to other consumers (e.g. Goldenberg et al., 2009). Nowadays, consumers are more and more interconnected and create powerful invisible clubs of social support that dominate the adoption (or rejection) of products, ideas and styles (Gatignon & Robertson, 1986; Nam & Kannan, 2014; Patterson, 2007). Psychologists show that the community development process depends on the internalization of norms and values from people in the surroundings, which serve as an internal benchmark (e.g. Mazar, Amir, & Ariely, 2008). Compliance with the internal values provides positive feedbacks that nurture the relationships between individuals. The weight consumers give to their social community's adoption of a product has been recognized in studies of consumer behavior for quite some time (Reingen, Foster, Brown, & Seidman, 1984). A few consumers gather a great number of friends in communities as a result of influential power, such that only a few popular and central consumers in a community are able to play the buzz agent role. Therefore, it is expected that buzz agents are central in a community and able to affect more consumer friends. We hypothesize the following:

[H.sub.1a]: Buzz...

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