Liz Bigham, SVP/Director of Brand Marketing for Jack Morton Worldwide, recently wrote an article about Brand Advocacy, titled Advocacy: priceless.
Here are some of the highlights from Liz Bigham’s article:
- A recent Journal of Marketing Research article reports that “a majority of consumers hold negative beliefs toward advertising and that distrust is a central feature of these beliefs.” It notes that complaints about deceptive advertising doubled between 1997 and 2001.
- Advocacy is a priceless marketing channel for this simple reason: earned opinions trump bought impressions. An earned opinion, which presumes that the audience has been actively engaged and won over, is simply more lasting. Additionally, it’s more likely to result in participants sharing their brand experience—and hopefully a brand recommendation—with others.
- The value of brand recommendations and word of mouth cannot be underestimated. Consumers commonly cite recommendations from friends, family and colleagues as a leading driver of consideration and purchase. According to Yankelovich, 68% of consumers say they “trust people like themselves.”
- 88% of respondents to a Millward Brown study said they bought a product because of a personal recommendation.
- The Keller Fay Group estimates that consumers have 112 marketing-relevant conversations a week; 61% of these conversations have an impact on likelihood to buy a product or brand.
- The core question for marketers is then, how do I generate advocacy? How do I get people to talk? The answer—engage people to become advocates by creating brand experiences—is part common sense, part science and pure marketing.
- Research confirms the propensity of people who’ve been engaged by an experience to take action and talk to others. In 2006, Jack Morton Worldwide surveyed 1,625 individuals in the US, UK, Australia and China: 82% identified participating in a live experience as the most engaging form of communication; and 85% said that participating in a live experience would cause them to talk to others.
For the full article please visit Advocacy: priceless.
