营销策略分析 外文文献

外文文献及其译稿

题 目 德芙巧克力在中国市场的营销策略分析

姓 名 谢谢

学 号 2006938046

专业班级 工商管理0696班 所在学院 集美大学诚毅学院

指导教师（职称） 黄彩云

二○壹○年五月十日

外文文献

A marketer’s guide to behavioral economics

Apirl.2010 • Ned Welch • McKinsey Quarterly

Marketers have been applying behavioral economics-often unknowingly for

years. A more systematic approach can unlock significant value.

Long before behavioral economics had a name, marketers were using it. “Three for the price of two” offers and extended-payment layaway plans became widespread because they worked—not because marketers had run scientific studies showing that people prefer a supposedly free incentive to an equivalent price discount or that people often behave irrationally when thinking about future consequences. Yet despite marketing’s inadvertent leadership in using principles of behavioral economics, few companies use them in a systematic way. In this article, we highlight four practical techniques that should be part of every marketer’s tool kit.

1. Make a product’s cost less painful

In almost every purchasing decision, consumers have the option to do nothing: they can always save their money for another day. That’s why the marketer’s task is not just to beat competitors but also to persuade shoppers to part with their money in the first place. According to economic principle, the pain of payment should be identical for every dollar we spend. In marketing practice, however, many factors influence the way consumers value a dollar and how much pain they feel upon spending it.

Retailers know that allowing consumers to delay payment can dramatically increase their willingness to buy. One reason delayed payments work is perfectly logical: the time value of money makes future payments less costly than

immediate ones. But there is a second, less rational basis for this phenomenon. Payments, like all losses, are viscerally unpleasant. But emotions experienced in the present—now—are especially important. Even small delays in payment can soften the immediate sting of parting with your money and remove an important barrier to purchase.

Another way to minimize the pain of payment is to understand the ways “mental accounting” affects decision making. Consumers use different mental accounts for money they obtain from different sources rather than treating every dollar they own equally, as economists believe they do, or should. Commonly observed mental accounts include windfall gains, pocket money, income, and savings. Windfall gains and pocket money are usually the easiest for consumers to spend. Income is less easy to relinquish, and savings the most difficult of all.

Technology creates new frontiers for harnessing mental accounting to benefit both consumers and marketers. A credit card marketer, for instance, could offer a Web-based or mobile-device application that gives consumers real-time feedback on spending against predefined budget and revenue categories—green, say, for below budget, red for above budget, and so on. The budget-conscious consumer is likely to find value in such accounts (although they are not strictly rational) and to concentrate spending on a card that makes use of them. This would not only increase the issuer’s interchange fees and financing income but also improve the issuer’s view of its customers’ overall financial situation. Finally, of course, such an application would make a genuine contribution to these consumers’ desire to live within their means.

2. Harness the power of a default option

The evidence is overwhelming that presenting one option as a default increases the chance it will be chosen. Defaults—what you get if you don’t actively make a choice—work partly by instilling a perception of ownership before any purchase takes place, because the pleasure we derive from gains is less intense than the pain from equivalent losses. When we’re “given” something by default, it becomes more valued than it would have been otherwise—and we are more loath to part with it.

Savvy marketers can harness these principles. An Italian telecom company, for example, increased the acceptance rate of an offer made to customers when they called to cancel their service. Originally, a script informed them that they would receive 100 free calls if they kept their plan. The script was reworded to say, “We have already credited your account with 100 calls—how could you use those?” Many customers did not want to give up free talk time they felt they already owned.

Defaults work best when decision makers are too indifferent, confused, or conflicted to consider their options. That principle is particularly relevant in a world that’s increasingly awash with choices—a default eliminates the need to make a decision. The default, however, must also be a good choice for most people. Attempting to mislead customers will ultimately backfire by breeding distrust.

3. Don’t overwhelm consumers with choice

When a default option isn’t possible, marketers must be wary of generating “choice overload,” which makes consumers less likely to purchase. In a classic field experiment, some grocery store shoppers were offered the chance to taste a selection of 24 jams, while others were offered only 6. The greater variety drew more shoppers to sample the jams, but few made a purchase. By contrast, although fewer consumers stopped to taste the 6 jams on offer, sales from this group were more than five times higher.

Large in-store assortments work against marketers in at least two ways. First, these choices make consumers work harder to find their preferred option, a potential barrier to purchase. Second, large assortments increase the likelihood that each choice will become imbued with a “negative halo”—a heightened awareness that every option requires you to forgo desirable features available in some other product. Reducing the number of options makes people likelier not only to reach a decision but also to feel more satisfied with their choice.

4. Position your preferred option carefully

Economists assume that everything has a price: your willingness to pay may be higher than mine, but each of us has a maximum price we’d be willing to pay. How marketers position a product, though, can change the equation. Consider the experience of the jewelry store owner whose consignment of turquoise jewelry wasn’t selling. Displaying it more prominently didn’t achieve anything, nor did increased efforts by her sales staff. Exasperated, she gave her sales manager instructions to mark the lot down “x½” and departed on a buying trip. On her

return, she found that the manager misread the note and had mistakenly doubled the price of the items—and sold the lot.2 In this case, shoppers almost certainly didn’t base their purchases on an absolute maximum price. Instead, they made inferences from the price about the jewelry’s quality, which generated a context-specific willingness to pay.

The power of this kind of relative positioning explains why marketers sometimes benefit from offering a few clearly inferior options. Even if they don’t sell, they may increase sales of slightly better products the store really wants to move. Similarly, many restaurants find that the second-most-expensive bottle of wine is very popular—and so is the second-cheapest. Customers who buy the former feel they are getting something special but not going over the top. Those who buy the latter feel they are getting a bargain but not being cheap. Sony found the same thing with headphones: consumers buy them at a given price if there is a more expensive option—but not if they are the most expensive option on offer.

Another way to position choices relates not to the products a company offers but to the way it displays them. Our research suggests, for instance, that ice cream shoppers in grocery stores look at the brand first, flavor second, and price last. Organizing supermarket aisles according to way consumers prefer to buy specific products makes customers both happier and less likely to base their purchase decisions on price—allowing retailers to sell higher-priced, higher-margin products. (This explains why aisles are rarely organized by price.) For thermostats, by contrast, people generally start with price, then function, and finally brand. The merchandise layout should therefore be quite different.

Marketers have long been aware that irrationality helps shape consumer behavior. Behavioral economics can make that irrationality more predictable. Understanding exactly how small changes to the details of an offer can influence the way people react to it is crucial to unlocking significant value—often at very low cost.

不可或缺的营销四技巧

多年来，营销商一直在运用行为经济学，但往往是不自觉地运用。一种更系统的做法则能为营销商开发出巨大的价值。

早在行为经济学成为一门学说之前，营销者就已经在使用它了。“买三送一”的招揽和延长付款时间的“先用后付”计划已被商家广泛采用，之所以这样，是因为这些做法很有效，而并不是因为营销商做了什么科学研究，证明了人们更喜欢得到看似免费的奖励，不那么喜欢同等程度的价格折扣，或是证明了人们在考虑将来的后果时常常表现得不理性。然而，尽管营销在运用行为经济学原理方面无意间走到了前头，但却很少有商家能够以系统的方法来运用这些原理。本文重点介绍了四种实用的营销技巧，它们应成为每一位营销商不可缺少的工具。

1. 减轻人们花钱买产品时的心痛感

几乎在每一项购买决策中，消费者都可以选择不买：他们总是可以把钱留下来，改日再买。正因为如此，营销商的任务不仅仅是打败竞争对手，而且还要说服购物者从一开始就掏出钱来。根据经济学原理，对于我们花出的每一元钱，支付的痛感应该都是同样的剧烈。不过，在营销实践中，许多因素会影响人们如何看待一元钱的价值，影响他们在花这

一元钱时痛感的程度。

零售商都知道，让消费者推迟付款的安排能极大地提高买家的购买意愿。推迟付款之所以有效，其中的一个原因是非常符合逻辑的：金钱的时间价值使得将来付款比立即付款更便宜。但这种现象的背后，还有另外一个不是那么理性的原因。付款，就像所有其他损失一样，让人本能地觉得不爽。但此时此刻的情感体验是极其重要的。所以，即使是略微推迟付款，也能减轻马上拿钱出去的那种刺痛感，从而消除阻止人们购买的一个大障碍。

另一个能够最大程度地减轻付款痛苦的方法是，了解“心理会计”影响购买决策的各种方式。消费者会将他们从不同来源获得的钱划分到不同的“心理账户”中，而不是像经济学家认为他们会或应该的那样，平等地看待所拥有的每一元钱。常见的“心理账户”有意外之财、零花钱、收入和储蓄等。通常，意外之财和零花钱是消费者最容易花出去的钱。收入不太容易花出去，而花掉储蓄是最难的。

技术创造了一些利用“心理会计”的新领域，让消费者和营销商都受益。例如，信用卡营销商可以提供一项基于互联网或移动设备的应用，向消费者实时反馈支出与预先确定的预算及收入类别的比较情况，比如说，绿色表示低于预算，红色表示超出预算等等。这些账户的设置并不完全符合理性，但对预算十分在意的消费者可能会觉得这类账户很有价值，并且把支出集中在利用这类账户的卡上。这样，不仅能增加发卡公司的交易费收入和融资收益，还能让发卡公司更好地了解其客户的总体财务状况。当然，这样一项应用程序最终能够为那些希望量入为出的消费者做出真正的贡献。

2. 利用默认选择的力量

有压倒多数的证据表明，如果提供一种选择作为默认选择，会提高这种选择被选中的

可能性。默认选择是人们不用费心劳神就能得到的选择，它起作用的部分原因在于，让人们在任何购买发生之前产生了一种拥有感，因为我们从收获中得到的快乐没有从等价的失去中感受的痛苦那么强烈。当我们被默认地“给予”某样东西时，它就变得比原来没有被“给予”时更有价值，因此，我们更不愿意失去它。

精明的营销商可以利用这些原理。例如，一家意大利电信公司在顾客打电话要取消服务时，却成功地提高了向顾客提供该服务的接受率。一开始，顾客会听到一段录音告诉他们说，如果他们继续接受服务，则可获得100次免费电话。后来，这段录音改为：“我们已经向您的账户赠送100次电话，您打算如何使用呢？”结果，许多顾客不想放弃他们觉得自己已经拥有的免费通话时间。

当决策者在考虑他们的选择时觉得无所谓、困惑或矛盾时，默认选择最能发挥作用。在一个充斥着大量选择的世界里，这个原理尤其有用，一项默认选择可以让人们不必再费力作出决定。不过，对大多数人来说，这个默认选择必须是一个好的选择。如果试图误导顾客，最后只会适得其反，导致顾客的不信任。

3. 切勿让选择压垮消费者

如果不可能给出一项默认选择，营销商必须警惕“选择超载”，这会降低消费者购买的可能性。在一个经典的现场实验中，某家食品店的顾客可以品尝24种果酱，而另一些食品店的顾客只可以品尝6种。24种果酱吸引了更多顾客去品尝，但购买的人却很少。相比之下，虽然停下来品尝6种果酱的顾客相对较少，但该群体贡献的销售额却高出5倍以上。

店内品种繁多至少在两个方面对营销商不利。首先，太多的选择让消费者更难找到自

己喜欢的品种，对购买造成潜在阻碍。其次，大量的品种会增加每个选择都被“负面光环”笼罩的可能性，“负面光环”是一种被强化的感觉，好像每种选择都会让你放弃一些你想要的而且其他某个产品可以提供的功能。减少选择的数量不仅会提高人们做出决定的可能性，而且会让人们对自己的选择感觉更满意。

4. 精心定位首推品种

经济学家认为，每一种东西都有一个价格：你的花钱意愿也许比我高，但我们每个人都有一个愿意支付的最高价格。然而，营销商定位一个产品的方式却有可能打破这个公式。以一家珠宝店老板的经历为例，在她店里寄售的绿松石珠宝卖得不好。把这款珠宝放在显著位置也没有起什么作用，销售人员努力推销也无济于事。一怒之下，她指示销售经理将这批珠宝的标价降低一半，然后就出门去购物旅行了。当她回来时，她发现销售经理看错了她留下的便条，阴差阳错地把价格调高了一倍，结果把这批珠宝都卖掉了。在这个例子中，购物者显然不是根据某个绝对的最高价格来购买的。相反，他们根据价格来推断珠宝的质量，从而产生特定环境下的一种花钱意愿。

这种相对定位的力量解释了为何营销商有时候能够从提供几种明显低劣的产品选择中获益。即使这些品种卖得不好，但它们可以增加那些稍微好一些产品的销量，而后者正是商店想要卖出去的品种。类似地，许多餐馆发现第二贵的瓶装红酒非常受欢迎，还有第二便宜的瓶装红酒也是这样。购买前者的顾客觉得自己得到某种特别的东西，但又不至于太过分。购买后者的顾客觉得自己买到了便宜货，但又不显得小气。索尼公司在耳机产品上也发现了同样的现象：如果还有另一种更贵的产品，消费者就会按照特定价格购买这些产品，然而，同样是这种特定价格，如果这些产品是最贵的，消费者就不会购买。

另一种定位各种选择的方式与企业提供哪些产品无关，而是与产品的陈列方式有关。

例如，我们的研究表明，食品超市里的冰淇淋购买者首先看品牌，然后看口味，最后才是看价格。根据顾客喜欢购买的产品来布置超市的通道，这样不仅让顾客更愉快，而且降低了顾客根据价格来作出购买决策的可能性，从而使商家能够卖出价格和利润更高的产品。这解释了为什么货架很少按照商品价格来布置。相比之下，人们在购买恒温器时，一般首先看价格，然后是功能，最后看品牌。因此，这种商品的布置应采取截然不同的方式。

营销商很早就知道，消费者的行为受到非理性因素的影响。行为经济学能够提高非理性因素的可预测性。如果能够确切了解产品细节上的小小变动如何影响人们对它的反应，则往往能够以很低的代价释放出巨大的价值。

A new way to measure word-of mouth marketing

April.2010 • Jacques Bughin, Jonathan Doogan, and Ole Jrgen Vetvik

• McKinsey Quarterly

Consumers have always valued opinions expressed directly to them. Marketers may spend millions of dollars on elaborately conceived advertising campaigns, yet often what really makes up a consumer’s mind is not only simple but also free: a word-of-mouth recommendation from a trusted source. As consumers overwhelmed by product choices tune out the ever-growing barrage of traditional marketing, word of mouth cuts through the noise quickly and effectively.

Indeed, word of mouth1 is the primary factor behind 20 to 50 percent of all purchasing decisions. Its influence is greatest when consumers are buying a

product for the first time or when products are relatively expensive, factors that tend to make people conduct more research, seek more opinions, and deliberate longer than they otherwise would. And its influence will probably grow: the digital revolution has amplified and accelerated its reach to the point where word of mouth is no longer an act of intimate,one-on-one communication. Today, it also operates on a one-to-many basis: product reviews are posted online and opinions disseminated through social networks. Some customers even create Web sites or blogs to praise or punish brands.

As online communities increase in size, number, and character, marketers have come to recognize word of mouth’s growing importance. But measuring and managing it is far from easy. We believe that word of mouth can be dissected to understand exactly what makes it effective and that its impact can be measured using what we call “word-of-mouth equity”—an index of a brand’s power to generate messages that influence the consumer’s decision to purchase. Understanding how and why messages work allows marketers to craft a coordinated, consistent response that reaches the right people with the right content in the right setting. That generates an exponentially greater impact on the products consumers recommend, buy, and become loyal to.

A consumer-driven world

The sheer volume of information available today has dramatically altered the balance of power between companies and consumers. As consumers have become overloaded, they have become increasingly skeptical about traditional

company-driven advertising and marketing and increasingly prefer to make purchasing decisions largely independent of what companies tell them about products.

This tectonic power shift toward consumers reflects the way people now make purchasing decisions.2 Once consumers make a decision to buy a product, they start with an initial consideration set of brands formed through product experience, recommendations, or awareness-building marketing. Those brands, and others, are actively evaluated as consumers gather product information from a variety of sources and decide which brand to purchase. Their post-sales experience then informs their next purchasing decision. While word of mouth has different degrees of influence on consumers at each stage of this journey, it’s the only factor that ranks among the three biggest consumer influencers at every step.

It’s also the most disruptive factor. Word of mouth can prompt a consumer to consider a brand or product in a way that incremental advertising spending simply cannot. It’s also not a one-hit wonder. The right messages resonate and expand within interested networks, affecting brand perceptions, purchase rates, and market share. The rise of online communities and communication has dramatically increased the potential for significant and far-reaching momentum effects. In the mobile-phone market, for example, we have observed that the pass-on rates for key positive and negative messages can increase a company’s market share by as much as 10 percent or reduce it by 20 percent over a two-year period, all other things being equal. This effect alone makes a case for more systematically investigating and managing word of mouth.

Understanding word of mouth

While word of mouth is undeniably complex and has a multitude of potential origins and motivations, we have identified three forms of word of mouth that marketers should understand: experiential, consequential, and intentional.

Experiential

Experiential word of mouth is the most common and powerful form, typically accounting for 50 to 80 percent of word-of-mouth activity in any given product category. It results from a consumer’s direct experience with a product or service, largely when that experience deviates from what’s expected. Consumers rarely complain about or praise a company when they receive what they expect.) Complaints when airlines lose luggage are classic example of experiential word of mouth, which adversely affects brand sentiment and, ultimately, equity, reducing both receptiveness to traditional marketing and the effect of positive word of mouth from other sources. Positive word of mouth, on the other hand,can generate a tailwind for a product or service.

Consequential

Marketing activities also can trigger word of mouth. The most common is what we call consequential word of mouth, which occurs when consumers directly exposed to traditional marketing campaigns pass on messages about them or brands they publicize. The impact of those messages on consumers is often

stronger than the direct effect of advertisements, because marketing campaigns that trigger positive word of mouth have comparatively higher campaign reach and influence. Marketers need to consider both the direct and the pass-on effects of word of mouth when determining the message and media mix that maximizes the return on their investments.

Intentional

A less common form of word of mouth is intentional—for example, when marketers use celebrity endorsements to trigger positive buzz for product launches. Few companies invest in generating intentional word of mouth, partly because its effects are difficult to measure and because many marketers are unsure if they can successfully execute intentional word of-mouth campaigns. What marketers need for all three forms of word of mouth is a way to understand and measure its impact and financial ramifications, both good and bad.

Word-of-mouth equity

A starting point has been to count the number of recommendations and dissuasions for a given product. There’s an appealing power and simplicity to this approach, but also a challenge: it’s difficult for marketers to account for variability in the power of different kinds of word-of-mouth messages. After all, a consumer is significantly more likely to buy a product as a result of a recommendation made by a family member than by a stranger.

These two kinds of recommendations constitute a single message, yet the difference in their impact on the receiver’s behavior is immense. In fact, our research shows that a high-impact recommendation—from a trusted friend conveying a relevant message, for example—is up to 50 times more likely to trigger a purchase than is a low-impact recommendation.

To assess the impact of these different kinds of recommendations, we developed a way to calculate what we call word-of-mouth equity. It represents the average sales impact of a brand message multiplied by the number of word-of-mouth messages. By looking at the impact—as well as the volume—of these messages, this metric lets a marketer accurately test their effect on sales and market share for brands, individual campaigns, and companies as a whole. That impact—in other words, the ability of any one word of-mouth recommendation or dissuasion to change behavior—reflects what is said, who says it, and where it is said. It also varies by product category.

What’s said is the primary driver of word-of-mouth impact. Across most product categories, we found that the content of a message must address important product or service features if it is to influence consumer decisions. In the mobile-phone category, for example, design is more important than battery life. In skin care, packaging and ingredients create more powerful word of mouth than do emotional messages about how a product makes people feel. Marketers tend to build campaigns around emotional positioning, yet we found that consumers actually tend to talk—and generate buzz—about functional messages.

The second critical driver is the identity of the person who sends a message: the word-of mouth receiver must trust the sender and believe that he or she really knows the product or service in question. Our research does not identify a homogenous group of consumers who are influential across categories: consumers who know cars might influence car buyers but not consumers shopping for beauty products. About 8 to 10 percent of consumers are what we call influentials, whose common factor is trust and competence. Influentials typically generate three times more word-of-mouth messages than noninfluentials do, and each message has four times more impact on a recipient’s purchasing decision. About 1 percent of these people are digital influentials—most notably, bloggers—with disproportionate power.

Finally, the environment where word of mouth circulates is crucial to the power of messages. Typically, messages passed within tight, trusted networks have less reach but greater impact than those circulated through dispersed communities—in part, because there’s usually a high correlation between people whose opinions we trust and the members of networks we most value. That’s why old-fashioned kitchen table recommendations and their online equivalents remain so important. After all, a person with 300 friends on Facebook may happily ignore the advice of 290 of them. It’s the small, close-knit network of trusted friends that has the real influence.

Word-of-mouth equity empowers companies by allowing them to understand word of mouth’s relative impact on brand and product performance. While marketers have always known that the impact can be significant, they may be

surprised to learn just how powerful it really is. When Apple’s iPhone was launched in Germany, for example, its share of word-of-mouth volume in the mobile-phone category—or how many consumers were talking about it—was about 10 percent, or a third less than that of the market leader. Yet the iPhone had launched in other countries, and the buzz accompanying those messages in Germany was about five times more powerful than average. This meant the iPhone’s word of- mouth equity score was 30 percent higher than that of the market leader, with three times more influentials recommending the iPhone over leading handsets. As a result, sales directly attributable to the positive word of mouth surrounding the iPhone outstripped those attributable to Apple’s paid marketing six-fold.Within 24 months of launch, the iPhone was selling almost one million units a year in Germany.

The flexibility of word-of-mouth equity allows us to gauge the word-of-mouth impact of companies, products, and brands regardless of the category or industry. And because it measures performance rather than the sheer volume of messages, it can be used to identify what’s driving—and hurting—word-of-mouth impact. Both insights are critical if marketers are to convert knowledge into power.

Harnessing word of mouth

The rewards of pursuing excellence in word-of-mouth marketing are huge, and it can deliver a sustainable and significant competitive edge few other marketing approaches can match. Yet many marketers avoid it. Some worry that it remains immature as a marketing discipline compared with the highly

sophisticated management of marketing in media such as television and newspapers. Others are concerned that they can’t draw on extensive data or elaborate marketing tools fine-tuned over decades. For those unsure about actively managing word of mouth, consider this: the incremental gain from outperforming competitors with superior television ads, for example, is relatively small. That’s because all companies actively manage their traditional marketing activities and all have similar knowledge. With so few companies actively managing word of mouth—the most powerful form of marketing—the potential upside is exponentially greater.

The starting point for managing word of mouth is understanding which dimensions of word-of-mouth equity are most important to a product category: the who, the what, or the where. In skincare, for example, it’s the what; in retail banks, the who. Word-of-mouth equity analysis can detail the precise nature of a category’s influentials and pinpoint the highest-impact messages, contexts, and networks. Equipped with these insights, companies can then work on generating positive word of mouth, using the three forms we identified: experiential, consequential, and intentional.

Although the importance of these triggers varies category by category, experiential sources are the most important across them. Harnessing experiential word of mouth is fundamentally about providing customers with the opportunity to share positive experiences and making the story relatable and relevant to the audience. Some companies, such as Miele and Lego, build buzz around products before launch and work to have early, highly influential adopters by involving

consumers in product development, supported by online communities. Consistently refreshing the product experience also helps harness experiential word of mouth—consumers are more likely to talk about a product early in its life cycle, which is why product launches or enhancements are so crucial to generating positive word of mouth. Buzz also can be sustained after launch: Apple has maintained interest in and excitement about the iPhone via its apps store, as constantly evolving and user-generated content maintains positive word of mouth.

Most companies actively use customer satisfaction insights when developing new products and services. Yet a satisfied customer base may not be enough to create buzz. To create positive word of mouth that actually has impact, the customer experience must not only deviate significantly from expectations but also deviate on the dimensions that matter to the customer and that he or she is likely to talk about. For instance, while battery life is a crucial driver of satisfaction for mobile-handset consumers, they talk about it less than other product features, such as design and usability. To turn consumers into an effective marketing vehicle, companies need to outperform on product and service attributes that have intrinsic word-of-mouth potential.

Managing consequential word of mouth involves using the insights provided by word-of mouth equity to maximize the return on marketing activities. By understanding the word of- mouth effects of the range of channels and messages employed and allocating marketing activities accordingly, companies can equip consumers to spread marketing messages and drive their reach and impact. In fact, McKinsey research shows that marketing-induced consumer-to-consumer word of

mouth generates more than twice the sales of paid advertising in categories as diverse as skincare and mobile phones.

Two things supercharge the creation of positive consequential word of mouth: interactivity and creativity. They are interrelated, and particularly important for brands in relatively low-innovation categories that often struggle to gain consumer attention. One example of a company successfully harnessing this power is the UK confectioner Cadbury, whose “Glass and a Half Full” advertising campaign used creative, thoughtful, and integrated online and traditional marketing to spur consumer interaction and sales.

The campaign began with a television commercial featuring a gorilla playing drums to an iconic Phil Collins song. The bizarre juxtaposition was an immediate hit. The concept so engaged consumers that they were willing to go online, view the commercial, and create amateur versions of their own, triggering a torrent of YouTube imitations. Within three months of the advertisement’s appearance, the video had been viewed more than six million times online, year-on-year sales of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk chocolate had increased by more than 9 percent, and the brand’s positive perception among consumers had improved by about 20 percent.

Intentional word-of-mouth campaigns revolve around identifying influentials who become brand and product advocates. Of course, companies can’t precisely control what consumers tell others. But ambitious marketers can use word-of-mouth equity insights to shift from consequential to intentional

campaigning.

The type of campaign that companies choose to adopt depends on the degree to which marketers can find and target influentials. Marketers capable of undertaking one-to-one marketing—such as mobile-phone operators—are uniquely positioned to execute controlled and effective intentional word-of-mouth campaigns. Mobile carriers have granular customer data that can precisely locate influentials who know the category, talk to many people, and provide them with trusted opinions. That means messages can be directed at specific individuals who are most likely to spread positive word of mouth through their social networks. As a message spreads, this approach generates an exponential word-of mouth impact, similar to the ripple effect when a pebble is dropped in a pond.

Companies unable to target influentials precisely must take a different approach. While Red Bull, for example, can’t send text messages to specific consumers, it has successfully deployed science to orchestrate effective intentional word-of-mouth campaigns. After identifying influentials among its different target segments, the energy-drink company ensures that celebrities and other opinion makers seed the right messages among consumers, often through events. While it can’t be sure who will attend, Red Bull knows that those who do will be the kinds of consumers it seeks—and that the positive messages they will relay across their own social networks can generate a superior return for its marketing investment.

Marketers have always been aware of the effect of word of mouth, and there is clearly an art to effective word-of-mouth campaigning. Yet the science behind

word-of-mouth equity helps reveal how to hone and deploy that art: it shows which messages consumers are likely to pass on and the impact of those messages, allowing marketers to estimate the tangible effect word of mouth has on brand equity and sales. These insights are essential for companies that want to harness the potential of word of mouth and to realize higher returns on their marketing investments.

衡量口碑营销的新方法

了解口碑

口碑无疑颇为复杂，并拥有多种可能的根源和动机，而我们则确定了营销者应该了解的三种形式的口碑：经验性口碑、继发性口碑，以及有意识口碑。

经验性口碑

经验性口碑是最常见、最有力的形式，通常在任何给定的产品类别中都占到口碑活动的50%～80%。它来源于消费者对某种产品或服务的直接经验，在很大程度上是在经验偏离消费者的预期时所产生的。（当产品或服务符合消费者的预期时，他们很少会投诉或表扬某一企业。）航空公司丢失行李引起的投诉，是经验性口碑的典型例子，它会对品牌感受产生不利影响，并最终影响品牌价值，从而降低受众对传统营销活动的接受程度，并有损出自其他来源的正面口碑的效果。反过来，正面的口碑则会让产品或服务顺风满帆。

继发性口碑

营销活动也会引发口碑传播。最常见的就是我们所称的继发性口碑：当消费者直接感受传统的营销活动传递给他们的信息或所宣传的品牌时形成的口碑。这些消息对消费者的影响通常比广告的直接影响更强，因为引发正面口碑传播的营销活动的覆盖范围以及影响力相对来说都会更大。营销者在决定何种信息及媒体组合能够产生最大的投资回报时，需要考虑口碑的直接效应以及传递效应。

有意识口碑

不像前两种口碑形式那么常见的另一种口碑是有意识口碑——例如，营销者可以利用名人代言来为产品发布上市营造正面的气氛。对制造有意识口碑进行投资的企业是少数，部分原因在于，其效果难以衡量，许多营销商不能确信，他们能否成功地开展有意识口碑的推广活动。

对于这三种形式的口碑，营销商都需要以适当的方式从正反两个方面了解和衡量其影响和财务结果。

口碑价值

计算价值始于对某一产品的推荐及劝阻次数进行计数。这种方法有一定的吸引力并且比较简单，但是也存在一大挑战：营销商难以解释说明不同种类的口碑信息的影响可变性。显然，对于消费者来说，由于家人的推荐而购买某产品的可能性要显著高于陌生人的推荐。这两种推荐可以传达同样的信息，而它们对接收者的影响却不可同日而语。事实上，我们的研究表明，影响力高的推荐（例如，来自于所信任的朋友传达的相关信息）导致购买行为的可能性，是低影响力推荐的50倍。

为了评估这些不同种类的推荐的影响，我们开发了一种方法来计算我们所说的口碑价值，它用一条品牌信息的平均销售影响力来乘以品牌信息的数量。这个指标既考查这些信息的影响力，也考查其总量，可以让营销者准确地测试这些信息对品牌、单项推广活动以及整个企业的销售和市场份额的影响。这种影响（也就是任何口头推荐或劝阻能够改变购买行为的能力）反映了信息所涉及的内容、何人传递的信息、以及在何地所说。这种影响会因产品类别而异。

信息所传递的内容是口碑产生影响力的首要推动因素。我们都发现，在多数产品类别中，如果要影响消费者的决策，信息的内容必须针对产品或服务的重要特性和功能。例如，在手机类产品中，设计比电池寿命更重要。在皮肤护理产品中，关于包装和成份构成的口碑比有关产品为人们带来的感觉这类情感信息更有影响力。营销商往往围绕情感定位来营造推广活动，然而，我们发现，消费者实际上倾向于对功能信息进行讨论并形成口碑。

第二个关键推动因素是信息传递者的身份：口碑接收者必须信任传递者并相信他或她真的了解所说的产品或服务。我们的研究并未发现一个在各类产品中都具有影响力的同质消费者群体：了解汽车的消费者可能对购车者有影响力，但是，不能影响购买美容产品的消费者。大约有8%~10%的消费者属于我们所说的有影响力的人，他们的共同特征是可信和施加影响的能力。有影响力者形成的口碑信息，通常是无影响力者的三倍，其每条信息对接收者购买决策的影响力通常是无影响力者的四倍。在这些人中，大约有1%是通过数字技术发挥影响力，最引人注意的是博客写手，其影响力极其巨大。

最后，传播口碑的地域环境对于信息的影响力至关重要。与通过分散的社区传播相比，在彼此信任、关系密切的圈子中传播的信息覆盖范围通常较小，但影响力较大，部分原因在于，我们信任其意见的人与我们所重视的圈子的成员，通常存在密切的关联性。正是由于这个原因，在餐桌上提供推荐意见的传统方式，以及与之类似的在线方式，现在仍很重

要。毕竟，Facebook上有300名好友的人，可能会轻而易举地忽略其中290人的意见。真正能够产生影响力的，是彼此信任的朋友组成的关系紧密的小圈子。

口碑价值能够让企业了解口碑对于品牌和产品的市场表现产生的相对影响力。虽然营销商一直都知道这种影响可能会非常大，但是，一旦他们真正了解了这种影响力有多大能耐后，他们或许还是会大吃一惊。例如，当苹果公司的iPhone在德国推出时，其在手机产品中所占的口碑数量份额（或者说多少消费者在谈论这种手机）大约为10%，比市场领先产品少三分之一。但是，iPhone也在其他国家推出，在德国传递的这些信息，其口碑影响力是平均水平的五倍。这就意味着iPhone的口碑价值分数比市场领先产品高出30%，推荐iPhone的有影响力者是推荐市场领先手机者的三倍。结果，有关iPhone的正面口碑而产生的直接销售量，是苹果公司付费营销活动所产生的销售量的六倍。在推出24个月后，iPhone在德国的销量几乎达到一年一百万部。

口碑价值所具有的灵活性让我们能够衡量它对企业、产品和品牌的影响，而不论其所在的产品类别或行业如何不同。由于它衡量的是市场表现，而不仅仅是信息的数量，因而可用来分辨是何种因素推动或损害着口碑影响力。营销商要将知识转化为力量，这两点洞见都至关重要。

控制和利用口碑的威力

在口碑营销中追求卓越会带来巨大的回报，可以带来可持续的重大竞争优势，很少有其他营销方法可以匹敌。然而，许多营销商却没有这样做。有些人担心，与诸如电视和报纸这种媒体中高度发达的营销管理相比，这种方式作为一个营销学科还不成熟。还有些人担心，他们无法动用广泛的数据或精心调整经过数十年锤炼的营销工具。那些对积极管理口碑感到没有把握的人，请考虑这一点：通过出色的电视广告（比如说）胜过竞争对手而

产生的累积性收益相对较小。这是因为，所有企业都会积极管理其传统营销活动，并且都拥有类似的知识。由于积极管理口碑这种最有力的营销形式的企业如此之少，其潜在的收益则会大得多。

管理口碑需要从了解口碑价值开始：即口碑价值的哪些方面——何人、何物，还是何地——对某一产品类别最为重要。例如，对于皮肤护理，关键是“何物”；对于零售银行，关键是“何人”。口碑价值分析可详细阐明某一类别中有影响力者的确切性质，并重点指出影响力最大的信息、背景和圈子。企业掌握了这些真知灼见，就可以运用我们发现的三种形式：经验性、继发性和有意识口碑，努力形成正面影响力。

尽管这些诱发因素的重要性因产品类别不同而各异，但经验性口碑对各个产品类别都是最重要的。从根本上说，利用经验性口碑就是要为消费者提供机会以分享正面的经验，并让其经历在受众中引起共鸣。诸如Miele和Lego等企业，在产品推出之前就围绕其营造口碑，并通过在线社区的支持让消费者参与产品开发过程，从而形成具有很高影响力的早期采用者。不断刷新产品体验也有助于利用经验性口碑——消费者在产品生命周期的早期对其进行谈论的可能性较大；正是由于这个原因，产品的推出或产品的改进对于形成正面的口碑至关重要。企业也可以在产品推出之后维持口碑：苹果公司通过其应用软件商店维持对于iPhone的兴趣以及兴奋感，不断变化的、由用户创建的内容帮助保持了正面口碑的不断传播。

多数企业在开发新产品和服务时都积极运用关于客户满意度的深入见解。然而，满意的客户群可能不足以形成口碑。要形成具有实际影响力的正面口碑，客户体验不仅要显著高于期望，而且还要在客户所重视的以及他或她可能谈论的方面高于期望。例如，虽然电池寿命对于手机消费者来说是关键的满意度驱动因素，但是，它们谈论这一因素的频率却少于设计和易用性等其他产品特性。要将消费者转变为有效的营销载体，企业需要在具有

内在口碑潜力的产品和服务属性方面表现出色。

管理继发性口碑需要运用口碑价值概念所提供的深入见解，以最大限度地提高营销活动的回报。企业通过了解所运用的各种渠道和信息产生的口碑效应并相应地分配营销资源，可以让消费者传播其营销信息并提高其覆盖范围和影响力。事实上，麦肯锡的研究表明，在诸如皮肤护理和手机这样的多样化产品中，营销活动诱发的消费者之间的口碑所创造的销量是付费广告的两倍。

有两个因素有助于推动创造正面的继发性口碑：互动性和创造性。这两个因素相互关联，它们对于创新性相对较低、通常难以引起消费者注意的类别的品牌尤为重要。企业成功运用这一做法的一个案例是英国糖果制造商吉百利（Cadbury），其“一杯半”的广告活动周密且颇具创造性地整合了在线及传统营销，推动了消费者互动和销售。

该推广活动由一则电视广告开局，画面上是一个大猩猩在击鼓演奏菲尔•柯林斯的标志性歌曲。这两个因素怪异地并置在一起产生了立竿见影的冲击性效果。这一概念打动了消费者，他们愿意在线浏览该广告，并制作了自己的业余版本，这引发了消费者在YouTube上的模仿热潮。广告上线不到三个月，视频的在线浏览量便已超过了600万次，吉百利牛奶巧克力年销量增加了9%以上，该品牌在消费者中的正面认知度提高了大约20%。

有意识的口碑推广的核心在于确定具有品牌和产品倡导者影响力的人。当然，企业不能准确地控制消费者向他人讲述的内容；但是，志存高远的营销商可运用有关口碑价值的深入见解，从继发性口碑推广转向有意识口碑的推广活动。

企业可选择的推广活动的类型，取决于营销商可以在多大程度上发现并锁定有影响力的人。能够进行一对一营销的营销商（例如手机运营商）拥有得天独厚的优势，可实施有

效的、便于操控的有意识口碑推广。手机运营商拥有精确的客户数据，可以准确地确定有影响力的人，这些人了解相应产品、会告诉许多人并为其提供他们愿意相信的意见。这就意味着，可以将信息发送给那些最有可能通过其社交网络传播正面口碑的特定个人。随着信息的传播，这一方法可产生巨大的口碑影响，类似于一石击起千层浪的涟漪效应。

无法准确地确定有影响力的人的企业，必须采用另外的方法。例如，尽管红牛并不能向特定的消费者发短信，它却成功地运用科学知识组织了有效的有意识口碑推广活动。该能量饮料企业在确定了不同目标细分市场中的有影响力者之后，确信名人及其他意见领袖通常可通过搞活动的方式传递恰当的信息。尽管红牛不能确保何人将出席活动，但是，它知道出席者就是它要寻找的那类消费者，并且他们在自己的社交网络中传递的正面信息可以为企业的营销投资带来出色的回报。

营销者一直都了解口碑的效果，设计有效的口碑推广活动显然有其诀窍。然而，口碑价值背后的科学道理，却帮助揭示了如何磨砺并运用这一艺术：它展示了消费者可能传递哪些信息以及这些信息的影响力，让营销者能够估计口碑对品牌价值和销量产生的实际影响。对于希望利用口碑的潜力并实现营销投资更高回报的企业来说，这些真知灼见具有重要意义。