Transcript Document 7206728

Chapter 11
Group Influence and
Opinion Leadership
CONSUMER
BEHAVIOR, 8e
Michael Solomon
Chapter Objectives
When you finish this chapter you should understand
why:
• Others, especially those who possess some kind of
social power, often influence us.
• We seek out others who share our interests in
products or services.
• 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.
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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,
aspirations, or behavior
• Influences consumers in three ways:
• Informational
• Utilitarian
• Value-expressive
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Reference Group Influences
• Reference group influences stronger for purchases
that are:
• Luxuries rather than necessities
• Socially conspicuous/visible to others
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Figure 11.1
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When Reference Groups Are Important
• Social power: capacity to alter the actions of others
• Types of social power:
Referent power
Information power
Legitimate power
Expert power
Reward power
Coercive power
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Discussion
High schools have all types of reference groups, with
members representing all types of social power.
Think back to high school and try to identify people
who had the following types of power (consider not
only peers but also teachers and administrators).
•
•
•
•
•
•
Referent power
Information power
Legitimate power
Expert power
Reward power
Coercive power
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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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Discussion
• Do you agree that deindividuation encourages binge
drinking on campus?
• What can or should a college do to discourage this
behavior?
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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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Discussion
Home shopping parties—such as Tupperware, Avon,
Pampered Chef, Amway, or Botox—are designed to
put pressure on friends and neighbors to buy
merchandise.
• Have you attended these parties? Why or why not?
• Do you believe putting social pressure is ethical?
Why or why not?
• Why are these parties more common among
women?
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Conformity
• Most people tend to follow
society’s expectations regarding
how to look/act
• Factors influencing conformity:
• Cultural pressures
• Fear of deviance
• Commitment to group
•
•
membership
Group unanimity, size,
expertise
Susceptibility to
interpersonal influence
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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
category
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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
• Determined detractors
• Information/rumor distortion
Click photo for
Ihatestarbucks.com
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The Transmission of Misinformation
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Figure 11.2
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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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Figure 11.3
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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 
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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
• Innovative communicators
• Opinion seekers
• More likely to talk about products with others and
solicit others’ opinions
• Casual interaction prompted by situation
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Perspectives on the Communications
Process
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Figure 11.4
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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
marketplace
• Overall knowledge of how and
where to get products
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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 decisionmaking functions
• Marketers should not overlook influence of
surrogates!
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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 productinformation 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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