BUZZ NEWS

Empowered involvement: a study on WOM

Posted on March 31, 2008
Cordula Werle

Martin Oetting and Frank Jacob recently published a research paper entitled "Empowered Involvement and Word of Mouth: an Agenda for Academic Inquiry” in which they review WOM in theory and practice. (You can download the working paper here.) The idea behind their research is to develop a scientifically informed way of creating involvement in WOM Marketing programs that helps stimulate Word of Mouth. A very interesting approach.

What is empowered involvement? It is a new scientific approach in business research and practice, focusing on how advertisers interact with consumers and customers. As traditional advertising approaches are no longer as efficient as they used to be (due to a revolutionary change in the media landscape, globalisation and the rising demands of customers, among other things) marketers need to find new ways to create meaningful links with customers, stakeholder, consumers and the public in general.

Marketing practitioners generally seem to agree that companies need to work pro-actively with fans, promoters or evangelists to support and improve their own word of mouth spread by consumers in the marketplace. However, so far, scientific analysis about all this is still scarce (compare for example the Culture-Buzz articles about research on WOM here, here and here). No one knows exactly what needs to be done with a brand community, with a VIP consumer panel, or with a corporate blog readership, in order to stimulate more of the coveted word of mouth. This is where empowered involvement comes in, providing “a methodical marketing framework and approach, which raises brand enthusiasts’ involvement levels in a highly focused way, with the specific aim of increasing their Word of Mouth activity”. The term “Empowered Involvement” was first coined by Freelance Market Researcher Dr. Paul Marsden.

Martin Oetting is currently working on finalizing his essay on the subject – we are eager for the results!