Week 13 - eWOM and Webcare
Fournier & Avery (2011)
The main point of the article is that social media was made for people and not brands. Therefore, brands must relinquish control in order to gain coveted resonance. We’ve moved from a world where the brand sets the agenda, to a world where consumers decide if and when brands are invited in.
Shifts in Branding Philosophy
From brand building to brand protection
Essentially, traditional brand management would focus on brand building by increasing shareholder value and brand equity. However, with the rise of web 2.0, brands are now more susceptible to criticism online. Therefore, brand management should shift to risk management, making sure that threats are identified and a response plan is developed. Most brand managers are not prepared for this type of role and that is why there is a need for greater integration of PR functions in digital social media marketing.
From strategic planning to executional excellence
Traditional marketing requires careful analysis and strategic planning with a well coordinated plan across various areas such as communication, media, and promotion. However, now social media demands flexibility, opportunism, and adaption from brands. Success is now driven by executional excellence, and crafting engaging content and encouraging virality are key. Effective communications strategies are overlooked. Cultural resonance rather than brand differentiation is now the primary criteria for strong brands on social media.
From differentiation to resonance
Traditional branding focused on differentiating itself from competitors by showing consumers they can provide what they want, which the competitors cannot deliver. Due to social media’s unreceptive and at times hostile environment, there is now a shift towards culture-defined relevance. Brands now gain resonance by naturally embedding themselves into online conversations. Managers that create branded artifacts, social rituals, and cultural icons issue invitations to their own ‘parties’ rather than waiting patiently for consumer hosts to invite the brand in.
Strategies brands can adopt to confront the changes caused by social
media
The Age of the Social Collective
Creating an official hashtag for a certain event. For example, #GuardiansOfTheGalaxyVol3 used by Marvel/Disney and the official Guardians of the Galaxy social media page to encourage its usage for the upcoming movie. Also connects fans of the franchise.
The Age of Transparency
McDonald’s Canada “Our food, Your questions” campaign which addressed questions regarding the way their food is made as a lot of misinformation and myths were being spread. They also shared video footage from inside its Canadian beef processing plant.
The Age of Criticism
The McDonald example also works for this. Alternatively, Volkswagen handled the criticism for the emission scandal by going quiet on social media for a week before addressing it. Some argue this was a good move as it showed they were fully focused on dealing with the issue.
The Age of Parody
Ikea provides a good parody of Apple (although it was not made by consumers or social media users)
Why do you think it is difficult for companies to give up the control over their
brands?
I think that companies find it difficult to give up control over their brands because they are worried about the consequences if things get out of hand. Certain social media users can get quite invested and aggressive when it comes to targeting, exposing, or making fun of brands. If companies do not monitor this or maintain some control on this, it could lead to irreparable damage to brand reputation and image. I think it also depends on how controversial the brand is to begin with, as the more controversial they are, the riskier it is to give up control. If the brand is already seen as good, positive, or environmentally friendly, then the chances that significant damage is done to their reputation and image is quite low.
Van Noort & Willemsen (2012)
In academic terms, platform type would be the moderator of this study. In layman’s terms, it means that the blog being consumer-generated or brand-generated will have an effect on brand evaluation and human voice.
Conversational human voice is “an engaging and natural style of organizational communication as perceived by an organization's publics based on interactions between individuals in the organization and individuals in publics”. It is a mediator because the authors believe that higher perception of conversational human voice will mediate the moderation effect of platform type on the effect of webcare strategy on consumers' brand evaluations.
Connection with Fournier and Avery (2011) and follow-up study
The platform type moderator is one way this article connects with Fournier and Avery’s (2011) study. Consumer-generated blog indicating the relinquished control while the brand-generated blog representing the more traditional approach. The conversational human voice is also another connection as it represents the resonance concept in Fournier and Avery's paper. As follow-up study they could try to include the transparency or criticism concepts, mentioned in Fournier and Avery’s paper, as moderators or mediators. For example, level of transparency for moderator or perceived transparency for mediator.
Independent Variables
Webcare (Reactive or Proactive)
No Webcare
Dependent Variable
Brand Evaluations
Moderator
Platform Type
Brand-generated blogs vs. Consumer-generated blogs
Mediator
(Perceived) Human Voice
How to counter negative eWOM (NWOM)?
Webcare
The act of engaging in online interactions with consumers, by actively searching the web to address consumer feedback (e.g., questions, concerns and complaints)
Main Findings
Webcare is better than no webcare
Reactive webcare evaluated positively on both brand-generated and consumer-generated blogs
Proactive webcare only evaluated positively on brand-generated blogs
Conversational Human Voice mediates the effect of webcare
Tips from KLM
You have to be where your customers are
If you are active on social media you must offer customer support
Fast and Faster - Quick response time
Stay authentic
One-stop shop - Offer full support on channel that customer approached you on. Do not redirect to other websites or links
Improve your business - Monitor customer feedback on social media and use insights to improve products/services
Hennig-Thurau et al. (2015)
Negativity Bias
The negativity bias relates to the idea that people pay more attention and give more weight to negative information or stimuli rather than positive information or stimuli. Negative information runs counter to consumers’ expectations, such that negative messages have a higher diagnostic value for consumers. Additionally, prospect theory argues that people assign more importance to negative versus positive information in general (Kanouse 1984). In the context of WOM, consumers are more concerned about ensuring that they do not suffer from an unwise product choice than they are about benefiting from a wise choice (Luo and Homburg 2007); therefore, consumers should be more influenced by negative MWOM.
Why is PWOM less influential than NWOM?
As mentioned earlier, negative information runs counter to consumers expectations therefore holding more value and consumers are more concerned with not suffering from an unwise product choice than they are about benefiting from a wise choice. Additionally, as stated by Van Noort and Willemsen (2012), “the anonymity of the Internet relaxes social constraints of complaining, consumers unhesitatingly promote these negative sentiments among a broad audience of Internet users”
What makes MWOM more important for the initial success of movies than
TWOM and EWOM?
“MWOM (Microblogging) differs from TWOM (Traditional) because the receiver of a WOM message is not just an individual person or small group but potentially a very large group and in that the information is delivered in written instead of oral form. MWOM shares its large audience potential and the written form with EWOM (Electronic), but it also differs in several ways: its real-time character (versus asynchronous, as is the case with EWOM), the personal connection (versus the sender usually being personally unknown to the receiver), the lack of summary signals (versus valence and volume signals), its feedback options (versus discrete articulation), and its combination of push and pull (with EWOM being pull only). Finally, the brevity of MWOM mentioned by our respondents is a unique element that is not typical for either EWOM or TWOM, but that contributes to very clear evaluations that are perceived as unequivocal by our respondents.”
How the “Twitter-effect” may require producers of highly experiential products to change their business models
The Twitter effect could have a significant economic impact on products that rely on immediate success, such as music, movies, and video games. Early adopters can quickly spread their opinions about new products through MWOM, reducing the information asymmetry between producers and consumers. This could lower the revenue generated from consumers' negative perceptions of a product's quality. “The economic viability of the current “blockbuster” business model (which centers on the production of a small number of very expensive blockbuster products) relies on the information asymmetry between producers and consumers upon the release of the new product, because producers cannot afford their products to “flop” even if they are creative failures.” “Before the advent of MWOM, this blockbuster model guaranteed the success of releases to some degree, at least for products that were deemed sufficiently interesting to stimulate strong pre-release buzz; however, it is unclear whether this model will continue to be viable now that consumers have access to early MWOM reviews.”
And the connection with Fournier and Avery (2011)
The link here can be seen in Fournier and Avery’s concept of brand protection. We have reached a point where Twitter and MWOM are becoming powerful factors in a movie's success which may lead to studios wanting to protect their brand/movie on social media. If risk management in this regard is not being carried out, then it could lead to major financial problems for the studio.
Follow-up Study
Although relatively different, as a follow-up of this study I would explore MWOM in a social media scandal context to see its role in forming opinions on “celebrities” that are involved in certain scandals, whether true or not.
Main Findings
Roughly 80% positive eWOM and 20% negative eWOM
Negative eWOM stronger impact than positive eWOM on brand attitude, product sales, and new product adoptions
Negative eWOM had 5.38 times more impact than positive eWOM
Diagnosticity of Information
Negative information runs counter to consumers’ expectations, therefore it stands out more
Prospect Theory
Negativity bias could occur as people try to avoid the risk of making a bad decision
Credibility
Negative information can be seen as more honest and trustworthy than positive information. Consumers are less likely to think that the authors are guided by ulterior motives such as monetary gain
Managers can also cede power to the collective for specific brand decisions and tasks