Word of mouth has long been one of marketing's most powerful tools, but marketers still struggle to understand what makes it effective. On this episode, we talk with Koen Pauwels, Professor of Marketing at Northeastern University and Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Research in Marketing (IJRM), about how word of mouth has changed from the early days of social media to the age of influencers and generative AI.
Pauwels' research offers several important lessons for marketers:
Word of mouth can dramatically outperform paid marketing.
Not all word of mouth is equal.
Influencer marketing depends on the objective.
Online conversations are not necessarily representative.
Real buzz travels.
Generative AI makes third-party credibility even more important.
The takeaway for CMOs: word of mouth is too valuable to ignore, but too complicated to measure with a single social listening dashboard. Brands should cultivate genuine advocacy, understand what they are paying influencers to accomplish, and connect those investments to measurable business outcomes.
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