Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-jr42d Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-18T13:11:11.155Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Quantifying the Ripple: Word-of-Mouth and Advertising Effectiveness

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 January 2005

JOHN E. HOGAN
Affiliation:
Strategic Pricing Groupjhogan@spgconsulting.com
KATHERINE N. LEMON
Affiliation:
Carroll School of Management, Boston Collegekatherine.lemon@bc.edu
BARAK LIBAI
Affiliation:
Faculty of Management, Tel-Aviv Universitylibai@post.tau.ac.il
Get access

Abstract

In this article the authors demonstrate how a customer lifetime value approach can provide a better assessment of advertising effectiveness that takes into account postpurchase behaviors such as word-of-mouth. Although for many advertisers word-of-mouth is viewed as an alternative to advertising, the authors show that it is possible to quantify the way in which word-of-mouth often complements and extends the effects of advertising. The authors provide a simple approach to the measurement of postpurchase word-of-mouth sales effects and demonstrate how firms may be underestimating advertising effectiveness by ignoring such effects. Their approach illustrates how customer lifetime value models can provide an important tool to assess the long-term effects of advertising campaigns.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© Copyright © 1960-2004, The ARF

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Ambler, Tim, C.B. Bhattacharya, Julie Edell, Kevin L. Keller, Katherine N. Lemon, and Vikas Mittal. “Relating Brand and Customer Perspectives on Marketing Management.” Journal of Service Research 5, 1 (2002): 1325.Google Scholar
Anderson, Eugene. “Customer Satisfaction and Word of Mouth.” Journal of Service Research 1, 1 (1998): 517.Google Scholar
Arndt, Johan. “The Role of Product Related Conversation in the Diffusion of a New Product.” Journal of Marketing Research 4, 3 (1967): 291295.Google Scholar
Bayus, Barry. “Word of Mouth: The Indirect Effects of Marketing Efforts.” Journal of Advertising Research 25, 3 (1985): 3139.Google Scholar
Berger, Paul D., and Nada I. Nasr. “Customer Lifetime Value: Marketing Models and Applications.” Journal of Interactive Marketing 12, 1 (1998): 1730.Google Scholar
Biyalogorsky, Eyal, Eitan Gerstner, and Barak Libai. “Customer Referral Management: Optimal Reward Programs.” Marketing Science 20, 1 (2001): 8295.Google Scholar
Blattberg, Robert C., and John Deighton. “Manage Marketing by the Customer Equity Test.” Harvard Business Review 74, 4 (1996): 136144.Google Scholar
Brady, Diane. “Why Service Stinks.” Business Week, October 23, 2000.Google Scholar
Buttle, F.A.Word-of-Mouth: Understanding and Managing Referral Marketing.” Journal of Strategic Marketing 6, 3 (1998): 241254.Google Scholar
Danaher, P., and Roland T. Rust. “Indirect Financial Benefits from Service Quality.” Quality Management Journal 3, 2 (1996): 6375.Google Scholar
Dye, Renee. “The Buzz About Buzz.” Harvard Business Review, 78, 6 (2000): 139146.Google Scholar
Gallaugher, John M.Internet Commerce Strategies: Challenging the New Conventional Wisdom.” Communications of the Association for Computing Machinery 42, (July 1999): 2729.Google Scholar
Goldenberg, Jacob, Barak Libai, and Eitan Muller. “Talk of the Network: A Complex System Look at the Underlying Process of Word-of-Mouth.” Marketing Letters 12, 3 (2001): 209221.Google Scholar
Gupta, Sunil, Donald R. Lehmann, and Jennifer Ames Stuart. “Valuing Customers.” Journal of Marketing Research 41, 1 (2004): 718.Google Scholar
Herr, Paul M., Frank R. Kardes, and John Kim. “Effects of Word of Mouth and Product Attributes Information on Persuasion: An Accessibility—Diagnosticity Perspective.” Journal of Consumer Research 17, 4 (1991): 454462.Google Scholar
Hogan, John E., Donald R. Lehmann, Maria Merino, Rajendra K. Srivastava, and Peter C. Verhoef. “Linking Customer Assets to Financial Performance.” Journal of Service Research 5, 1 (2002): 2638.Google Scholar
Hogan, John E., Katherine N. Lemon, and Barak Libai. “What is the True Value of a Lost Customer?Journal of Service Research 5, 3 (2003): 196208.Google Scholar
Hogan, John E., Katherine N. Lemon, and Roland T. Rust. “Customer Equity Management: Charting New Directions for the Future of Marketing.” Journal of Service Research 5, 1 (2002): 412.Google Scholar
Jain, Dipak, and Siddhartha Singh. “Customer Lifetime Value Research in Marketing: A Review and Future Directions.” Journal of Interactive Marketing 16, 2 (2002): 3446.Google Scholar
Keller, Kevin Lane. Strategic Brand Management, 2nd ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2003.
Kirby, Justin. “Getting the Bug.” Brand Strategy 184, (July/August 2004): 33.Google Scholar
Libai, Barak, Eyal Biyalogorsky, and Eitan Gerstner. “Setting Referral Fees in Affiliate Marketing.” Journal of Service Research 5, 4 (2003): 303315.Google Scholar
Monahan, George E.A Pure Birth Model of Optimal Advertising with Word-of-Mouth.” Marketing Science 3, 2 (1984): 169178.Google Scholar
Murray, Keith B.A Test of Services Marketing Theory: Consumer Information Acquisition Activities.” Journal of Marketing 55, 1 (1991): 1025.Google Scholar
Reichheld, Frederick F. The Loyalty Effect: The Hidden Force Behind Growth, Profits, and Lasting Value. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1996.
Rogers, Everett M. The Diffusion of Innovations. New York: Free Press, 1995.
Rust, Roland T., Katherine N. Lemon, and Valarie A. Zeithaml. “Return on Marketing: Using Customer Equity to Focus Marketing Strategy.” Journal of Marketing 68, 1 (2004): 109127.Google Scholar
Rust, Roland T., Valerie A. Zeithaml, and Katherine N. Lemon. Driving Customer Equity: How Customer Lifetime Value is Reshaping Corporate Strategy. New York: Free Press, 2000.
Venkatesan, Rajkumar, and V. Kumar. “A Customer Lifetime Value Framework for Customer Selection and Resource Allocation Strategy.” Journal of Marketing 68, 4 (2004): 106125.Google Scholar
Walker, C.Word-of-Mouth.” American Demographics 17, 7 (1995): 3844.Google Scholar
Wangenheim, Florian, and Tomás Bayón. “Customer Satisfaction, Word-of-Mouth Referrals and New Customer Acquisition: The Satisfaction-Profit Chain Revisited.” Working Paper, Universität Dortmund, Dortmund, Germany, 2003.
Zahay, Debra, James Peltier, Don E. Schultz, and Abbie Griffin. “The Role of Transactional Versus Relational Data in IMC Programs: Bringing Customer Data Together.” Journal of Advertising Research 44, 1 (2004): 318.Google Scholar
Zeithaml, Valarie A.Service Quality, Profitability and the Economic Worth of Customers: What We Know and What We Need to Learn.” Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 28, 1 (2000): 6785.Google Scholar