Class 3 Agenda: Citizen Marketers in the Age of Conversational Marketing, Part II

Learning Objective(s):

· Identify factors contributing to the recent resurgence in WOM;

· Articulate how WOM is both a set of activities and a larger philosophy.

Readings for This Class:

· Citizen Marketers: When People Are the Message. Ben McConnell & Jackie Huba. 2007. Pages 97-134 (Chapters 5-6; CIT)

Content:

• PowerPoint on Citizen Marketers:
• Introduction (7 pages): Overview
• Chapter 1 (1-30): Filters, Fanatics, Facilitators, and Firecrackers
• Chapter 2 (31-50): The 1 Percenters (also has explanation for choice of term “citizens” versus “consumers” – Ancient Greece and politeia [community of citizens, constitution, form of government, and way of life])
• Chapter 3 (51-70): The Democratization of Everything – tension between democratization and control. Pathfinder.com, Cubs, Six Apart’s Movable Type, U.S. Gov’t transparency; Web 2.0 (“creating collaborative Web experiences when information is shared multilaterally”; Mashups (p. 57); Social media; Ray Kurzweil (“the speed, capacity, bandwidth, and overall power of computers and electronic gadgets has begun to double every year” (Moore’s law suggested every 18 months the number of transistors that could fit on a chip would double); Kuhn and paradigm shift; broadband saturation;
• Chapter 4 (71-96): Everyone Is a Publisher; Everyone Is a Broadcaster; short overview of media history: Acta Diurna, printing press: blogs, podcasts, RSS, TiVo case study, MySpace & You Tube
• Chapter 5 (97-120): Hobbies and Altruism; Surge case study (Karcovack and Coca-Cola); citizen marketers crave a sense of ownership of the brand; hobbies, productive leisure, disguised affirmation (p. 108), market helping behavior (109), motivations to engage in market-helping behaviors (altruism, personal relevance, common good, and status, 110-115); “America’s Funniest Home Videos” and “the sophisticated delivery of stupidity”; millenials (born after 1982) and pop culture
• Chapter 6 (121-134): The Power of One; case studies: Apple iPod and the meme; Comcast and the spread of a meme; Target (introduces “astroturfing”), Diet Coke and Mentos; Flickr and the “interestingness algorithm”; “the act of consumption is itself becoming an act of production” (p. 134).

Activities:

• Assign Blog Participation
• Explain Bloglines account
• Assign WOM Diary
• Sign-up for 4-digit IDs.
• Discuss citizen marketers – students generate discussion topics based on questions and comments prepared for class.

To Do (for next class):

• Continue research on your organized WOMM programs
• Readings:

• Word of Mouth: What We Really Know – And Don’t. Greg Nyilasy. 2006. Pages 161-184. (CM).
• Word of Mouth Marketing Association Terminology Framework. WOMMA. 2005. (Bb)
• Suggested Reading: What’s All the Buzz About? Everyday Communication and the Relational Basis of Word-of-Mouth and Buzz Marketing Practices. Walter J. Carl. Management Communication Quarterly, 19(4), 601-634. 2006. (Bb)
• Suggested Reading: Word-of-Mouth: Understanding and Managing Referral Marketing. Francis Buttle. Journal of Strategic Marketing, 6, 241-254. 1998. (Bb).
• Suggested Reading: Social Hubs: A Valuable Segmentation Construct in the Word-of-Mouth Consumer Network. Andrea C. Wojnicki. 2004. Advances in Consumer Research, 31, 521-522. (Bb)

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Tags: WOM word of mouth Word-of-Mouth Marketing buzz marketing viral marketing marketing communication Northeastern University