By touching this report you will lose 0.0005 ml 1 of sweat containing
40 mmol /L of chloride. 2 Remember to eat at least one grain of salt 3 to
compensate this deficiency. 4
1 found at Scirus.com
2 found at Scirus.com
3 found at Scirus.com
4 found at Scirus.com Research on Scirus
Catching Students in the Word-of-Mouse Trap Nicole Smeenk - December 2004
Catching Students in the Word-of-Mouse Trap
A research for Scirus on the enlargement of brand awareness in the student market
Author: Nicole Smeenk Student number: 1090151 University of Groningen
Faculty of Management and Organisation
Supervisors University:
Dr. J. Kratzer Dr. W. Jager
Supervisor Scirus:
Drs. S. Vugts
Preface
This thesis is the result of a research on the scientific search engine Scirus. A research was conducted on the enlargement of brand awareness in the student market. During this research, the power of word-of-mouth in this market was brought to light. Studying this phenomenon proved to be a really interesting research field.
I hope this report reflects the interest and enthusiasm I had while learning in detail about this fascinating process. Moreover I enjoyed working at the Scirus department, cooperated with a lot of great people and learned a lot of management and organisation in real life.
I would like to thank the Scirus team for their support and enthusiasm and special gratitude goes out to Susan Vugts for her supervision and coaching during my time at Scirus.
Moreover, I would like to thank everybody who cooperated with me on the online questionnaire; special thanks go out to Judson Dunham and Koen van Haaren. Finally, I would like to express gratitude to Dr. J. Kratzer for his directions and pleasant cooperation and Dr. W. Jager for co-supervising this research.
Nicole Smeenk, December 2004
Summary
This is a study on Scirus, a free web search engine for scientific and scholarly information, www.scirus.com. The aim of this research was to explore how Scirus can enlarge brand awareness in the student market.
The background of this research was the fact that Scirus usage showed a relatively disappointing growth percentage over the last three years. Scirus wanted to improve its results and grow its market share. It was assumed that increase of usage could be attained through a more effective marketing campaign in order to create brand awareness.
Furthermore, the research was focused on the student market, a market in which Scirus is not yet active.
To be able to recommend how to create brand awareness and positively influence the student market, information was needed on what factors play an important role for the student, in relation to the first trial of Scirus. In order to do so, the different marketing channels and their influence related to first trial were described.
The preliminary investigation showed that the Internet is an important communication channel for this market. Furthermore, informal or word-of-mouth communication plays an important role nowadays; the traditional marketing tools are having a tougher time getting through to the customer and informal communication is becoming more powerful.
The consumer becomes more sophisticated and overloaded with information because of the speed and reach of the Internet, which contributes to the power of word-of-mouth. Besides this he is capable of communicating with almost everyone around the world when using the World Wide Web, often referred to as ‘Word-of-Mouse’. Word-of-mouth communication is considered to be one of the most influential types of communication for products and services.
To investigate how these phenomena affect Scirus, a more in-depth study was carried out on students in the context of Scirus. The research sample for this investigation consisted of 115 UK and USA students approached by means of an online questionnaire.
The analysis on the effectiveness of the communication channels showed a significant difference between the Internet channel and the other formal channels. Moreover, a significant difference was found between the effectiveness of informal and formal communication, with informal channels being the most powerful, although the Internet channel individually did not show a significant difference with the informal channels.
Furthermore, a positive relationship was found between the satisfaction rate and the number of recommendations.
Based upon the investigated sample it can be concluded that Internet is the most effective formal channel for Scirus, through which it can obtain brand awareness in the student market.
However, informal communication can become the most powerful marketing channel for Scirus. The importance of this channel should be taken into account more.
Since a positive relationship between satisfaction and informal communication was found, product quality will play an important role in the effectiveness of the marketing campaign.
The power of word-of-mouth was proven once again in the further research. It was found that information and training courses also play an important role in this market, which can be regarded as word-of-mouth communication from professor-to-student.
In order to harness the word-of-mouth process, more information was needed on the social network of students in the context of Scirus. Several authors claimed the first step in directing the word-of-mouth process is finding the hub in the social network. Scirus regards library personnel as the hub in this specific network; they are expected to be the gatekeepers and influencers of students. After analysing the social network for students in the context of Scirus, the library personnel appeared less influential than assumed in the first place.
Based on the sample is it shown that friends and professors mostly spark the buzz for scientific search engines, followed by the library personnel. An explanation for this can be the fact that students are making fewer visits to the campus library to retrieve information and use the World Wide Web as an information resource, preferably accessing this at home.
Communication to the students as well as to the professors is needed for a successful word- of-mouth campaign and wide adoption of the product. Communication to professors can accelerate the adoption on a macro-level because diverse social networks will be reached.
Communication to students can speed up the adoption process in the social network on a micro-level.
Regarding the influence of word-of-mouth, in cases of a successful product, both types of communication can speed up the adoption process but if the user is not satisfied with the product, both types can accelerate its failure. From several investigations comes enough evidence to say that dissatisfied customers communicate more with others than satisfied individuals and that the recipients of this type of communication place more weight on negative information. Product quality plays an important role in this process; delivering a high quality product seems to be the first step for a successful word-of-mouth campaign, otherwise negative word-of-mouth will take the lead.
Although students and professors seem to be the main influencers for students in this network, the library personnel remains important. To reach the student by means of the university channel, effective communication with the professors and library personnel is required, since these groups are the gatekeepers for this channel and are required to facilitate several campaigns. Moreover, also library personnel can accelerate the adoption on a macro- level because this group is able to reach diverse social networks of students.
Contents
Preface Summary Contents
Chapter 1 Introduction ...11
1.1 Elsevier...11
1.2 Scirus ...11
1.2.1 Strategy... 12
1.2.2 Strategic value Scirus for Elsevier... 13
1.2.3 Customer groups ... 14
1.2.4 Market size... 15
Chapter 2 The Research...16
2.1 The research background ...16
2.1.1 View of the Scirus team ... 16
2.2 Research approach...18
2.2.1 Research question... 18
2.3 Conceptual framework ...19
2.3.1 Brand awareness... 19
2.3.2 Promotion and communication ... 20
2.3.3 Word-of-mouth communication... 21
2.3.4 Product quality ... 22
2.4 Conceptual model ...24
2.5 Boundary conditions...24
2.6 Research questions ...25
Chapter 3 Theoretical Framework ...26
3.1 Brand awareness...26
3.1.1 The communication channels and brand awareness ... 27
3.1.2 User satisfaction and brand awareness ... 29
3.2 Word-of-Mouth Communication...30
3.2.1 The power of word-of-mouth... 31
3.2.2 The underlying process ... 31
3.2.3 Influencing the process... 35
3.3 Conclusion...37
3.4 The hypotheses ...38
Chapter 4 Methodology...41
4.1 Introduction...41
4.2 Type of research...41
4.3 Data collection ...41
4.3.1 Preliminary investigation... 42
4.3.2 Main research ... 42
4.4 Trustworthiness ...43
4.4.1 The questionnaire ... 43
4.5 Boundary conditions...44
4.6 The population ...44
4.7 The respondents...45
4.8 Methods of data analysis...46
4.8.1 Qualitative method of analysis... 46
4.8.2 Quantitative method of analysis... 46
4.9 The hypotheses ...47
4.9.1 Hypothesis 1 ... 47
4.9.2 Hypothesis 2 ... 50
4.9.3 Hypothesis 3 ... 52
Chapter 5 Results...54
5.1 The hypotheses ...54
5.1.1 Hypothesis 1 ... 54
5.1.2 Hypothesis 2 ... 56
Chapter 6 Conclusions ...59
6.1 The hypotheses ...59
6.1.1 Hypothesis 1 ... 59
6.1.2 Hypothesis 2 ... 59
6.1.3 Hypothesis 3 ... 59
6.2 Effectiveness of the channels...60
Chapter 7 Further Research...61
7.1 Introduction...61
7.2 Revealing the social network...62
7.2.1 Recommendations to others... 62
7.2.2 Recommendations from others... 64
7.2.3 The content of the word-of-mouth ... 66
7.3 Conclusion...69
Chapter 8 Conclusions and Recommendations...70
8.1 The hypotheses ...70
8.2 Student Market Marketing ...70
8.2.1 The message ... 71
8.2.2 Internet campaign ... 71
8.2.3 Word-of-mouth campaign ... 72
8.2.4 Target group ... 74
8.3 Further research ...74
Chapter 9 Bibliography ...76
Appendix I The Decision Matrix Appendix II The Questionnaire
Appendix III Graphs on Satisfaction Levels
‘Knowledge is of two kinds.
We know a subject ourselves or we know where we can find information upon it.’
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), British Author, Lexicographer
Chapter 1 Introduction
There seems to be an infinite amount of information available on the Web. Search engines find and categorize varying amounts of that information and make it available in a form more easily accessible to users. Without search engines, doing a search on the Internet would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.5 This paper is about the search engine Scirus, a product from the Elsevier line.
In this chapter a general description of Elsevier is made. Furthermore the Scirus strategy and the target groups are portrayed.
1.1 Elsevier
Elsevier is a multiple-media publisher of more than 20.000 products and services serving global scientific, technical and medical communities.
Globally, over nine million professionals rely on Elsevier publications, delivered to them through printed or online journals and books. By pulling
together and publishing this specific information, Elsevier plays a key role in the dissemination and sharing of knowledge within scientific communities. Over 2200 books and 1800 journals containing millions of articles are published each year to researchers, scientists, doctors, nurses and students worldwide. Besides this Elsevier develops and markets online products.
One of Elsevier’s most important products is Science Direct; this is widely regarded as the most comprehensive and advanced source of full text scientific research in the world, which makes Elsevier, in effect, the largest Internet publisher in the world. Another important electronic source is MD Consult; this is used by more than 250,000 healthcare professionals and is licensed to nearly 1,000 health care organizations, including more than 90 percent of US medical schools. Elsevier also supplies abstracting and indexing databases including Embase, which features biomedical and pharmacological information, much of which is unavailable elsewhere. These products are all subscription paid products. 6
1.2 Scirus
Research showed that scientists (researchers and students) most frequent turn to Internet search engines (80 %) when searching for scientific information. Elsevier responded to this by launching Scirus in April 2001. Scirus (www.scirus.com) is a free search engine for scientific and scholarly information. Scirus was created to offer scientists an improved tool for locating especially relevant science, technology and medical information (STM) on the Web. Scirus offers unique functionalities designed for scientists and researchers and it covers a combination of scientific journals, unpublished research, university websites, corporate Internet sites, conference agendas and minutes, discussion groups and mailing-list archives.
5 http://www.nifl.gov/nifl/fellowship/reports/susanc/needle1.htm, found April 2004
6 www.elsevier.com, found February 2004
1.2.1 Strategy Mission
The mission of a company is the reason of its existence. The mission of Scirus is to expand Elsevier’s domain of authoritative and proprietary information with everything else that is of scientific value and available on the web by which value for the users, customers, authors, editors and overall to Elsevier will be created.
Vision
The vision of a company can be defined as the reason of existence in the long run. Scirus’
vision is to become the preferred web search engine for scientific information.
Goals
Goals are set for one or two years, for this year Scirus´ goals are:
Increase usage (amount of searches and visitors) Increase index (the amount of content)
Generate revenues (via advertising or paid products)
1.2.1.1 Shift in strategy
Scirus.com is offered for free to the scientific community and has had a business-to-consumer strategy for the last years. An extension for the current strategy is the Powered-By strategy, which means a shift to a business-to-business strategy.
The Powered-By strategy implies that Scirus is actively seeking for agreements with academic and governmental institutions to index their public repositories. Scirus will offer a free search solution for publicly accessible repositories of these institutes, which is called
Figure 1.1 Screenshot Scirus home page (l) and result page (r)
The Powered-By strategy represents an extension of the general strategy because it shifts from only business-to-consumer to business-to-business. Besides this, the Repository Search and Scirus Federated IN are two new kinds of products in the Scirus product line and at the same time these product are meant as marketing tool and simultaneously product tool (product quality improvement). So the Scirus product portfolio becomes: www.scirus.com, Repository Search and Federated Search IN.
1.2.1.2 Marketing strategy
A marketing goal for Scirus is becoming familiar for offering a truly valuable and independent web research tool for the scientific community. The Scirus target brand personality is being an expert in scientific/scholarly web searching. Besides this Scirus wants to be known for its quality content, its comprehensiveness and ease of use. Furthermore it wants to be regarded as a trustworthy search engine and suitable for identifying valuable sources
Towards competitors Scirus is positioned as a specialized search engine and a tool designed for science with multiple years of experience within the scientific community. Also emphasized is that Scirus is able to offer extra product features designed for the target audience, whereas competition is offering a standard product for everybody.
Within Elsevier, Scirus is clearly positioned as the product for web searching. Scirus gives results from web pages, databases and freely accessible repositories. Scirus has also indexed proprietary (subscription-based) sources, but will only index these sources when there is a substantially free layer of content (abstracts for example).
1.2.2 Strategic value Scirus for Elsevier
First of all Scirus’ strategic value for Elsevier is represented by its own vision; through Scirus, Elsevier expands its domain of authoritative and proprietary information with everything else that is of scientific value and available on the web. Scirus is the only web search engine in the Elsevier product line, so through Scirus it gains foothold in the search engine market. This is important because a growing percentage of Elsevier’s audience turns to search engines to find relevant information. Especially students turn to mainstream search engines when looking for scientific information. So it can also be considered as strengthening or even maintaining Elsevier’s position in the end-user market. Scirus simply makes Elsevier content findable. It is crucial to Elsevier’s business that end-users are able to find the content and see the value of it. This is illustrated in figure 1.2, on the next page.
Figure 1.2 Strategic Value 7
Furthermore Scirus enriches other paid Elsevier library products: the index of Scirus is used to add extra value to other paid products, the Scirus index allows Elsevier to develop advanced and customised repository search services for (corporate) customers in the future and it is a PR–tool for Elsevier because Elsevier is perceived in the market as providing high quality content, but also as a monopolistic and expensive market leader. Scirus is a free research tool that positively supports the Elsevier brand within the scientific community.
1.2.3 Customer groups
Scirus distinguishes multiple customer groups. These groups are end users, library personnel and the educational staff at universities.
End users: researchers and students
Researchers are a target group because this group is expected to be looking for (scientific) information for their research all the time. Students use search engines for finding nearly everything on the Internet, including their research (assignments).
Revenue Drivers Intangibles
End Users
Content Owners
Web Content
&
Knowledge of / influence search enginemarket
Foothold in student market The future user group
Referrals to Elsevier’s paid platforms Driving SD Usage
Enhance Elsevier Library Products
Develop advanced paid web search services
$$$
$$$
Search Functionality &
PR, partnering with institutes in making content findable
Advertising
Library personnel: Librarians and webmasters
This target group consists of librarians and webmasters from academic, corporate and governmental institutions. Librarians are expected to be the gatekeepers and influencers of students and researchers because they are likely to decide which tools and products are used in the library/search platform.
For the Repository Search, webmasters are probably an important target audience, because they are expected to decide on the search technology used on the website.
Educational staff at universities: professors and suchlike
Furthermore the expectation is that the educational staffs mainly influence the end-users; the researchers and students.
1.2.4 Market size
Elsevier estimates that the total science and related market with access to the Internet vary, but a likely figure has been set at 20 million worldwide. This figure includes not only the core Elsevier market (8.5 million researchers, authors and professors) but also students, corporate users and anyone else who has a connection to the STM arena. In this respect, Scirus is unique as it is the only Elsevier product that can have outreach into this wider market.8
8Vugts S., Revised marketing plan 2004, Confidential Elsevier Report, February 2004
Chapter 2 The Research
Scirus, launched in 2001, showed a relatively disappointing growth percentage over the last three years in usages. In recent discussions with the Elsevier Board it is decided that the results should improve and extra effort is needed to increase usage as well as to grow the index of Scirus.
In this chapter a description is made on the research background and research approach, which include the research goal and central question. Besides this the conceptual framework and the conceptual model for this research will be illustrated. Furthermore the research questions and boundary conditions can be found in the end of this chapter.
2.1 The research background
2.1.1 View of the Scirus team
Looking for an explanation for the relatively disappointing number of usages, several Scirus team members were interviewed to obtain insight in their point of view concerning this issue.
Their personal view could often be confirmed with quotations from the respondents that participated in the Scirus usability test, held in June 2004.9 Furthermore an interview with the online information librarian from the University Library Groningen, Peter van Laarhoven, was conducted.
The first explanation can be found in the initial period of the product. According to the product manager, Scirus was launched too early. Scirus’ quality was too poor at the time and received a lot of negative publicity because of this. The same conclusion was drawn from the interview with the librarian of the University Library Groningen. His opinion on Scirus was still based on an article from those days and he did not pay attention to Scirus anymore after reading this negative article.
The marketing manager mentions more organisational reasons like the relatively limited marketing budget and small team, especially compared to Google. Furthermore she emphasises the dominance of Google in the search engine market.
‘It’s not as good as Google – but then again, not much else is.’
(Academic Chemistry Researcher, US)
The reasons mentioned by the content manager are more in the promotion/communication area. Besides not knowing Scirus at all, she is of opinion that the market does not know exactly what kind of content can be found in Scirus. Often when a user uses the search engine, he or she is very enthusiastic about the content.
‘Not heard of that particular search engine before but it produced very relevant and impressive results’ (UK Student, Pharmacology, toxicology and pharmaceutics)
The content manager also mentions that Scirus sometimes is regarded as a search engine for Science Direct contents only and furthermore a publicity tool for Elsevier.
‘It is a good resource for scientific information, although biased towards the publisher.’
(UK Student, Biochemistry, Genetics)
Besides these reasons the whole Scirus team mentions the lack of brand awareness. From research came that Scirus awareness and usage is still peripheral when compared to Google and that Google has reinforced its position as the dominant free search engine for scientific information, at the expense of most competitors. The Scirus brand awareness is low in the general market as well as in the core scientific market.
The usage issue seems to be derived from the promotion/communication area continuum;
with wrong impression of the product by the audience on the one hand and on the other end the audience not being familiar to the product at all. More effective promotion and communication seem to be a solution to the problems; providing more information on Scirus in general with an emphasis on the actual content it contains. But when consumers do not know the brand at all, brand awareness becomes important. The audience cannot use the search engine unless she is aware of it.
An additional communication problem is that some members of the target group have difficulties in remembering the name. This can be regarded as another difficulty lying in the promotion/communication area.
‘I can't even remember the name of it. It would require a bit more advertising for me to use it.’ (UK student, Computer Sciences/IT)
‘Can’t even remember the name and its only been a few seconds since I last saw it!’
(UK student, Economics)
2.2 Research approach
Scirus is of opinion that its chances are in the student market, a market in which Scirus is not yet active. Regarding several researches, the student market seems to be a prosperous target market. Research shows that more and more people turn to Internet for obtaining information and that especially college students are the passionate user group. (Outsell Custom Report, 2002; Flanagin, Metzger and Zwarun, 2003; iProspect Search Engine User Attitudes April 2004) Many students perceive Internet as “a vast library with speedy retrieval and no closing hours”. (Blake, 2000, p4) Students seem to like using the Internet for their studies: the Pew Center (2002) found that 79% of college students feel the Internet has had a positive impact on their academic experience. (Flanagin et al., 2003, p275)
Regarding the situation at Scirus, there seems to be no fit between market and product; the product was launched a few years ago but its market share is growing too slow. Interviews with the Scirus team and theoretical concepts below will be used to understand the situation and to come to a conceptual model.
To come to a recommendation on how Scirus can obtain more usage in the student market, the ways to enlarge brand awareness in the student market are brought to light. In order to do so, the factors that play an important role for the student, in relation to the first trial of Scirus will be revealed.
2.2.1 Research question
From what is stated above, it is assumed that the increase of usages could be attained through a more effective marketing campaign in order to create more brand awareness.
Besides this the research is focused on the student market, a market in which Scirus is not active yet.
Research goal
Research on how Scirus can enlarge brand awareness in the student market.
Research question
Which factors are important concerning brand awareness in the student market and how can Scirus influence these factors?
2.3 Conceptual framework
The central theme of this research is brand awareness and influencing the student market to receive this. This paragraph gives an outline how a customer comes to try a product for the first time. The role of brand awareness is set out and subsequently the influence of marketing and the influence of product quality on brand awareness will be explained.
2.3.1 Brand awareness
2.3.1.1 The power of brand awareness
Creating brand awareness is an important goal for all promotion strategies. This is due to the simple fact consumers cannot buy and use a brand unless they are aware of it. Aaker (1992, p209-210)is of opinion that ‘brand awareness can be a key strategic asset.’’ Also according to Keller (1998) and Peter and Olsen (2002), brand awareness plays an important role in the decision process.
Within certain markets, when products are of equal value, brand awareness can provide a sustainable competitive advantage. Especially when it comes to low-involvement products, familiarity of a product can drive a buying decision. Besides this, name awareness can be a signal of presence, commitment and substance, which can be very important for a potential user, also for expensive and/or durable products. So raising brand awareness enlarges the change that a product will be seriously considered for purchase. (Keller, 1998, p88-91)
Keller claims that raising brand awareness increases the likelihood that the brand will be a member of the consideration set. This is a set that includes the few brands that receive serious consideration for purchase; almost every consumer is in the possession of such a set.
Consumers are rarely loyal to only one brand but instead have a set of brands that they would consider buying and another-possibly smaller-set of brands that they actually buy on a regular basis. (Keller, 1998, p88-91)
Other authors observe the same significant role of brand awareness in the consumer choice process. (Macdonald and Sharp (2000, p5) found that brand awareness is a dominant choice tactic among awareness group subjects. When choosing from a number of brands with significant awareness differentials, subjects showed a tremendous preference for the high awareness brand, regardless of quality and price differentials.
2.3.1.2 Levels of brand awareness
As been said, before a customer is able to make a choice and before brand attitude occurs, the customer first has to be aware of the brand. Keller (1998, p88-91) and Peter and Olsen (2002, p433) distinguish two levels of awareness: brand recall and brand recognition.
The level of awareness, necessary for purchase, depends on how, when and where the consumer makes his purchase decisions for that product category or form. A lot of brand decisions and choices are made in a store. In this case consumers do not have to be able to recall the brand name, they only need to be able to quickly recognize the brand on the shelf.
In other situations, a higher level of brand awareness is necessary to influence brand choice.
If the purchase decision is made at home or in another environment where few brand-related cues are available, the brand name must be recalled from memory to enter the consideration set. This requires links in memory to the appropriate product category and is more difficult to establish. Unless consumers are able to recall the brand name (activate it from memory) the brand is not likely to be considered or purchased.
Brand awareness can be characterized by depth and breadth. The depth concerns the likelihood that a brand element will come to mind and the ease with which it does so. The breadth of brand awareness concerns the range of purchase and usage situations where the brand element comes to mind. So an important issue is not only if consumers can recall the brand but also it is important that he recalls the brand at the right time and places.
2.3.2 Promotion and communication
Keller (1998, p92) says in general about this that the more a consumer experiences the brand (seeing, hearing et cetera), the more likely it is that the brand becomes strongly registered in memory. Anything that causes consumers to experience a brand name, symbol, logo, character et cetera can potentially increase familiarity and awareness of that brand element.
Peter and Olsen (2002, p433) distinguish different marketing channels and claim that advertising probably has the greatest influence on brand awareness; besides this they say that publicity, personal selling and sales promotion can also increase awareness. They describe five types of communication effects that promotion can have on consumers. One of these things is awareness, on which is focussed in this research.
Ehrenberg and Goodhart (1977) describe the purchase model thereupon. Their model starts with awareness so it follows up Peter and Olsen (2002).
In general Peter and Olsen (2002) and Ehrenberg and Goodhart (1977) show in their models that promotion and communication will increase brand awareness. Brand awareness thereupon, will provide more trials, which will have a positive correlation with repeat purchase.
In this research this is translated in brand awareness which leads to more first usage and thereupon, users that return to Scirus after their first usage, ‘repeating users’.
In this research, the process described by Ehrenberg and Goodhart (1977) is assumed, so the relation ship between brand awareness, trial (first usage) and repeat purchase (repeat users) will not be regarded more in-depth. For the research it is interesting to determine how promotion and communication (marketing) influence brand awareness in order find out how Scirus can obtain more brand awareness in the student market.
Figure 2.1 Repeat purchase model (Ehrenberg and Goodhart, 1977)
2.3.3 Word-of-mouth communication
According to the Bass model (Mahajan et al., 1990) two kinds of communication dominate a buyers decision: advertising and word-of-mouth. And also George Silverman recognizes the influence of word-of-mouth communication.
Silverman (2001) thinks there are more steps involved in the marketing process. He claims a lot of promotion and communication goes along with informal contact before customers will take action. George Silverman is a ‘hands-on’ expert. He has about thirty years of work experience and is an expert in word-of-mouth campaigns. This practical vision will be complemented and compared with several articles and researches on word-of-mouth.
Silverman (2001) claims that after hearing the marketing message of a company, the members of the target group start talking about the specific product; word-of-mouth communication is in between the marketing input and the purchase of the customer. The customer’s private opinion about the product influences his or her own behaviour. And what they tell about the product influences the behaviour of family, friends and colleagues.
Other authors agree that word-of-mouth communication occurs before a product is being used, whereby the potential user plays an active role. When customers talk about product and brands, they do so after consulting other people who are expected to know more on the product or service. A lot of people consult informal sources first, before they will take action.
(Kuehl and Ford, 1977; Swart and Stephens, 1983; Stewart, Hickson, Ratneshwar, Pechmann and Altemeier, 1985)
Awareness
Trial
Repeat purchase
From several researches flows that consumers consult friends, family and acquaintances in one out of three cases regarding the purchase of a product. (Hart, Heskett and Sasser, 1990;
Ennew, Banjeree, Ashish and Derek, 2000) And Walker (1995) claims that more than 40% of the Americans actively seek consult family and friends when shopping for services.
Reingen and Karnan (1986) claim that studies on word-of-mouth and opinion leadership should be concentrating more on relational data than on individual data. Relational data refers to the developing properties of connections between individuals, such as information flow linkages and friendship ties. Reingen and Karnan suggest a network analysis as an alternative method for the conventional type of research on referral behaviour.
The social network theory provides an insight in the reasons people communicate in general.
A social network can be regarded as the whole of relationships between groups, people, organisations etc. Leenders (1995) talks about ‘actors’ and the ties between them. According to Leenders ties can be financial flows, friendship choice or kinship for instance, the structure of a network refers to the pattern of ties amongst the actors.
2.3.4 Product quality
Product quality has been described as a global judgment, or attitude, relating to the superiority of a product. (…) Product quality is both personal to individuals and collective among many users. (Hernon and Altman, 1998, p8)
The satisfaction levels from a number encounters that an individual experiences, with a particular organisation form an impression of product quality for that person. Kevin Elliot, who cites a number of marketing experts, satisfaction is “the emotional reaction to a specific transaction or service encounter”. (Hernon and Altman, 1998, p8)
Each individual who interacts with a product forms an opinion about the quality; the collective experiences of many persons create an organization’s reputation for quality. When the collective opinions of many customers become known and seem to agree, those opinions create a reputation for the product and for the quality of its performance. (Hernon and Altman, 1998)
Every customer will regard product quality in another way, this depends on the satisfaction levels a customer experiences with a product. The more a product will be used, the more individual experiences arise. These individual experiences can then become collective experiences and widely spread through the process of word-of-mouth.
Keller (1998, p578) says in his book “The best advertising is done by satisfied customers.”
The level of satisfaction, when using a product or service leads to positive or negative word- of-mouth communication. (Engel, Kegerreis and Blackwell, 1969; Bloch and Richnis, 1986;
Swan and Oliver, 1989; Andrus, Ott and Donnelly, 1990; Reichheld and Sasser, 1990;
Anderson, 1998)
In cases where the level of satisfaction becomes higher, the consumer will be more positive and will be more likely to recommend the product to others. (Holmes and Lett, 1977;
Schlesinger and Heskett, 1991) And according to Charlett et al. (1995) consumers that had a positive experience regarding a service of product will communicate this to an average number of six people.
Rogers (1995) confirms the influence of word-of-mouth on the considerations of potential consumers. And also Engel, Kegerreis and Blackwell (1969) see the high diffusion rate of word-of-mouth communication. To illustrate this, an empirical study found that 90 per cent of the people that used a new service provider told something about their experience to at least one person and 40 per cent had told two or more people within a few days following their trial.
2.4 Conceptual model
2.5 Boundary conditions
- The duration of this research is 6 months
- The research will be conducted within Elsevier, Scirus department - This research is focussed on the marketing department of Scirus - This research is restricted to the student market
Degree formal communication
Degree informal communication
Degree user satisfaction Degree of
Usage
Degree brand awareness
Degree of first usage
Repeating users
Degree Of usage
Figure 2.2 Conceptual Model
2.6 Research questions
In this paragraph a breakdown of the central research question can be found.
What is the influence of the different types of communication on brand awareness for Scirus?
- What is the relationship between formal communication and brand awareness?
- What is the relationship between informal communication and brand awareness?
What is the relationship between product quality and brand awareness?
- What is the influence of user satisfaction on brand awareness?
- What is the relationship between user satisfaction and informal communication?
What are the most effective channels for this market?
- How do students normally hear about scientific resources?
- How did they get to know their favourite search engine for scientific information?
- What role is played by informal communication?
How does informal communication travel in this market?
- Who is originating the word-of-mouth communication?
- What is the content of the word-of-mouth communication?
o How do students rate their favourite search engine on certain criteria?
- What are the channels through which it travels?
How can Scirus keep its existing customers and at the same time acquire new student users?
- How should the market instruments be used to market the products in the most effective way to reach the student market?
Chapter 3 Theoretical Framework
In this chapter the role of brand awareness for Scirus is described. Followed by the influence of formal and informal communication on awareness and the influence of user satisfaction on awareness. Furthermore, the word-of-mouth process will be analysed more in-depth and identified how this process can be influenced. In the end of this chapter the hypotheses will be presented, based upon the theoretical framework.
3.1 Brand awareness
Through creating brand awareness, Scirus hopes that when the category need (the need for scientific information) arises, the product (Scirus) thereupon will be activated from memory out of the consideration set of choice alternatives. To know which level of brand level fits Scirus, finding out more on the information habits of college students could be interesting.
More information on this can be found in the OCLC White Paper (2002)10. In this study an endorsement of Scirus’ strategic value can be found; students in this study are confident about their ability to locale information for their study assignments and their first choice web resource for most of their assignments are search engines. Except when the professor directs them to specific websites, the students in this research make their own decisions about which web resources to use.
This study finds furthermore that college and university students look to campus libraries and library websites for their information needs and value access to accurate, up-to-date information with easily identifiable authors. College students access the web at home, the campus or public library and in classrooms. Four out of five students use the library for web access but only one-in-five prefer that access point. Over 90% access the web via their home computer, and the majority (78%) prefer that form of access. Also in an article from Flanagin et al. (2003, p271)the same phenomenon is pointed out: “Several studies showed that as online information proliferate, college students are making fewer visits to the campus library to retrieve information, and that their use of the World Wide Web as an information resource is increasing overall.”
From the OCLC research comes furthermore that when a college student needs help using the Web, the majority ask their friends first (61%), more than one-third (36%) ask their professors and one-in-five (21%) ask librarians for help with using the web. Because most students prefer to access information at home, they are more likely to rely on their friends first.
From the two levels of awareness, brand recall concerns Scirus; when a student needs scientific information for a study assignment he prefers remote access from home according to OCLC. When this is the case, the student has to be able to recall Scirus. Besides this he has to be able to find Scirus after asking and searching for a resource for scientific information.
3.1.1 The communication channels and brand awareness
In this paragraph the influence the different communication channels on brand awareness will be illustrated. Keller (1998) and Peter and Olsen (2002) both write about the traditional marketing strategies and their effect.
A new light in this case brings that also advertisements are having a tougher time getting through according to several researches. The average person nowadays is exposed to a lot of sales communications a day, television, radio, billboards, advertisements in magazines et cetera.
In a study conducted by an American marketing-services consultancy Yankelovich (2004)11 was found that 59% of the consumers feels most marketing and advertising has very little relevance to them. Besides this 65% feels constantly bombarded with too much marketing and advertising.
In the Economist (2004)12 is stated that the advertising industry is going through ‘the most disorienting periods in its history’. In the article this phenomenon is explained by a combination of several reasons, such as growing diversity of media and the arrival of new technologies, especially the Internet. Besides this they mention that consumers are better informed, and because of this some traditional methods of advertising and marketing do not longer work any more because consumers are becoming more critical about advertising.
Euro RSCG Worldwide (2001)13 did the Wired and Wireless study in 19 markets worldwide.
Only 13 percent of the respondents said they obtain most of their information on technology products from advertising. The Internet was doing better with 20 percent of the respondents that heard about technical information from websites. Word-of-mouth turned out to be the number one source with 34 percent.
11 Yankelovich study, 601 respondents, age 16+, fielded from February 20-29, 2004
12 http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=2787854, found June 2004
13 Wired & Wireless study, 1830 adult respondents, 19 markets worldwide, June 2001
Furthermore advertising and point of sale were also investigated in this research.
Respondents were asked where they first saw or heard about a technology product that got them very excited, 4 percent named a print advertisement and another 4 percent said TV ad, 1 percent chose billboard and 0 percent selected a radio ad. The magazines did the best job with 15 percent but again all these channels were overruled by personal connections.
Rogers (1995) and Mahajan et al. (1990) found that word-of-mouth is the main factor in driving the speed of innovation diffusion. Rogers claims furthermore that advertising may be important in the initial stages of information distribution, the most important mechanism for driving innovation diffusion after product takeoff is word-of-mouth communication.
Sheth (1971) stated that word-of-mouth communication is nine times more effective than ads in the printed media. While Ennew et al. (2000) concluded that word-of-mouth is seven times more effective than the printed media. And also from a study conducted by Jacoby and Chestnut (1978) flows that word-of-mouth is seven times more effective than print media and four times more effective than personal selling in convincing a customer to switch brands.
(Katz and Lazarsfeld, 1955)14
The Student Monitor’s 2001, Lifestyle & Media Report comes up with the same conclusion;
word-of-mouth is the number one way students learn about products and services, television is second best and after this in-store samples, radio advertising and samples by mail. And also when Euro RSCG partnered with Business Week in a study, they found that a majority of the more than 300 top executives in the survey rely mostly on colleagues, professional associates and family members.15
In an internal research, the Scirus Brand Tracker (2004)16 a comparison between the different marketing channels was made for search engines, through asking where 2717 scientific authors heard about Google vs. Scirus for the first time. Again word-of-mouth is important for Google, 41% knows Google through colleagues or friends. The Internet is second best again with 17% of the respondents mentioning this source. In contrast to what has been stated before is the majority knowing Scirus from direct marketing (44%) and 21% knows the engine from the Internet and only 10% from colleagues and friends.
Although word-of-mouth seems to be the most relied on source of information nowadays, Internet is still a very important runner-up and interesting to look at, which can also be concluded from the Scirus Brand tracker 2004.
3.1.2 User satisfaction and brand awareness
Every customer will regard product quality in another way, this depends on the satisfaction levels a customer experiences with a product. These individual experiences can become collective experiences and widely spread through the process of word-of-mouth. Furthermore a lot of researches deal with the positive relationship between satisfied customer and word-of- mouth; often is stated that buzz marketing methods start with a satisfied customer.
As stated before: “The best advertising is done by satisfied customers.” Keller (1998, p578) A lot of academics and practitioners confirm the significant influence of satisfied customers and word-of-mouth. Dichter (1966) says advertising should be oriented more toward present than potential customers and use them to spread the word by word-of-mouth.
Charlett, Garland and Marr (1995) found that consumers that had a positive experience with a product or service will share this experience with six others. The effectiveness of the word-of- mouth communication will diminish when negative information accompanies the message and when a recipient already has an opinion on the product or service. (Herr, Kardes and Kim, 1991; Gelb and Johnson, 1995) When a person has had a negative experience, this will be shared with an average number of eleven people. (Hart, Heskett and Sasser, 1990) and Anderson (1998) found dissatisfied people talk to more than ten others.
From several researches comes enough evidence to say that dissatisfied customers communicate more with others than satisfied individuals (TARP, 1986; Anderson, 1998) and that the recipients of this type of communication place more weight on negative information.
(Wright, 1974; Herr, Kardes and Kim, 1991)
So it seems that Scirus should keep its existing users satisfied to receive the benefits of new client referrals. The literature confirms that user satisfaction not only encourages repeat use but also is essential in driving traffic to the site in the first place. Besides this it seems that dissatisfaction and negative word-of-mouth even have a stronger effect on the number of rejecters. The effect of negative word-of-mouth can be substantial even when the number of dissatisfied customers is relatively small. Scirus needs to strive to understand exactly what satisfies its users and take this into account with the product development.
The conclusion to draw on the marketing strategy is that it should be based on the positive impact the current customer could have on the next potential customer. So it is claimed that it is important to create a positive experience for the current customer and this will enlist this customer as a personal agent of the product/service. As soon as the product performs below the expectations of the customer, it will have a great influence on the amount of negative word-of-mouth. This will have a greater influence on traffic to the site in a negative way compared to a satisfied user and the accompanying positive word-of-mouth.
3.2 Word-of-Mouth Communication
Several authors say word-of-mouth communication is considered as one of the most influential types of communication for products and services. (Dichter 1966; Engel, Kegerreis and Blackwell 1969; Sheth 1971; Weinberger and Dillon 1980; Brown and Reingen 1987;
Wilson and Peterson 1989, Filser 1996; Rosen 2000)
Silverman (2001, p22) even calls it the most powerful force in the marketplace. “Word-of- Mouth is thousand of times as powerful as conventional marketing”. And claims that all marketing communication is followed by word-of-mouth before a consumer will turn to action/trial or purchase.
From several researches follows that consumers frequently rely on word-of-mouth when considering the purchase of a new product of service. (Arndt 1967; Brown and Reingen 1987;
Reingen and Kernan 1986; Richnis 1983) And also Dichter (1966) recognises word-of-mouth as one of the most influential types of communication.
Moore (2003) says that viral marketing in the Internet age turns every user into 'an involuntary salesperson', simply by using the product. Dye (2000) agrees upon this and adds that people are transforming from passive to active participants because of the increasing accessibility of information. Having to choose from several information sources puts the consumer in an active role and those consumers will generate and spread the buzz she claims.
In an article on Google is also claimed that for search engines this can be a highly effective channel: “Google has built a powerful brand while eschewing television ads. The company has instead mostly relied on word-of-mouth marketing.” (Morrisey, 2003)17
Word-of-mouth communication is considered as one of the most powerful types of communication for products and services. From several researches comes that opinions and recommendations of “others” such as friends or experts highly influence consumer attitudes.
This phenomenon is also important for the Scirus market, which can be illustrated with the results of the Scirus Brand Tracker 2004; when asked where the respondents (scientific authors) first heard of Google, 41% mentioned word-of-mouth (colleagues/friends) as their most relied on source.
3.2.1 The power of word-of-mouth
The power of word-of-mouth can be explained with three reasons according to Derbaix and Vanhamme (2003). First, word-of-mouth is really communication; the message flow mostly is two-way. Second, it provides a description of what the experience would be, which reduces the risk for the potential consumers.And third, this informal information is more credible than commercial information. Also Herr, Kardes and Kim (1991) say about this that this unpaid information is viewed with less scepticism than the paid promotions of marketing departments.
The influence of word-of-mouth can further be illustrated by taking in account the small world theory. (Newman, 2000) Stanley Milgram and other researchers claim that the world is small, the structure of social networks – who knows whom – is constructed is such a way, that all people all over the world are closely connected to each other. This phenomenon is often referred to as the famous ‘six degrees of separation’ and demonstrated to be relevant to a variety of social systems in which information passes, among them word-of-mouth on a new product. (Watts, 1999; Balakrishnan, Shaikh and Rangaswami, 2002)
Thereupon comes the reach of the Internet; everybody with access to Internet can communicate with each other around the world in no time nowadays. Silverman (2001) claims that because of the accessibility to information on a large scale, access to Internet for example, word-of-mouth is getting more and more important. He says nowadays people do not have the time, resources and tolerance of uncertainty to look at new products, unless those products are potentially vital to their lives. A company can have a great product but it first has to get the attention and active interest of the target, otherwise the product will be largely ignored. In his opinion people most often buy product that will substantially save time or reduce effort. It is word-of-mouth that can get through the information overload because this is already filtered so it will safe time (and money).
Because of the speed and reach of the Internet, the consumer becomes more sophisticated and overloaded with information, which contributes to the power of word-of-mouth. Besides this, the consumer is capable to communicate with almost everyone around the world when using the World Wide Web, often referred to as ‘Word-of-Mouse’. So the influence of the Internet is twofold on the power of word-of-mouth.
3.2.2 The underlying process
In order to analyse the word-of-mouth process, the underlying process of personal communication should be regarded more thoroughly. In this paragraph the decision-making of individuals will be described, depending on their interaction with other individuals. Important in this case is the variety of contacts people have.
Individuals tend to organize both formally and informally into groups based on their common activities and interest, the way information spreads is affected by the sort of their interaction network. The information any individual is interested in, depends strongly on their characteristics. Individuals with similar characteristics tend to associate with one another, defined as homophily. (Wu, Huberman and Adamic, 2004)
Societies are networks of people linked by friendships, familial relationships and professional ties. (Barabasi and Bonabeau, 2003) The spread of information in these social systems may be described as ‘an adaptive complex system’; a system that consists of a large number of individual entities which interact with each other (in what sometimes an indiscernible manner) ultimately generating large-scale, collective visible behaviour. (Goldenberg et al., 2001, p212- 213)
The social network analysis is about measuring the relationships and flows between people, groups, organizations, computers or other information/knowledge processing entities. This method is used to understand the social networks and their participants and to evaluate the location of actors in the network. This helps to determine the importance, or prominence, of an actor in a network. (Reingen and Kernan, 1986; Leenders, 1995)
Most analyses are based on a micro-level; the interactions of the individuals in a given population and the mutual influences. In case of word-of-mouth, these interactions are diverse types of interpersonal interactions. (Goldenberg et al., 2001) The theory of ‘the strength of weak ties’ (Granovetter, 1973) offers an explanation how these micro-level interactions affect macro-level phenomena.
Several researchers claim that some of the most important interactions with others are not within the direct personal network. (Granovetter, 1973; Brown and Reingen, 1987) Individuals are also influenced by contacts with others with whom they have weak or even random relationships. These influencers are defined as ‘weak ties’, the more intimate and frequent interactions with the more personal network are defined as ‘strong ties’.
In contrast to what the term ‘weak tie’ seems to imply, it can have a surprising strength, which is argued by Granovetter (1973). He showed that weak ties can have a stronger effect than strong ties. Reasons for this are an individual’s network usually has many more weak ties than strong ties and therefore receives more information from weak ties. Second, weak ties are more likely to give an individual information he or she does not already have - a consideration set opportunities that did not exist in the set of a specific network.
Brown and Reingen (1987) also found that although strong ties are more likely to be activated and perceived as influential in consumer’s decisions, weak ties are more likely to facilitate word-of-mouth referrals. Goldenberg et al. (2001, p213) mention a research conducted by Duhan et al. (1997), which confirms this distinction in influence of the different type of ties.
However they do note that factors such as consumers’ previous knowledge or perceived task difficulty have an impact on the reception of different sources. And Goldenberg et al. (2001, p213) draw attention to another research, conducted by Bansal and Voyer (2000), in which was found, in case of strong ties, the word-of-mouth information will have a significant influence on the receiver’s purchase decision. Rogers (1995) suggests that even given the stronger information flow within strong ties, weak ties play a crucial role in the spread of information by word-of-mouth on the collective level, especially about innovations.
Several researchers claim furthermore that many networks are dominated by a relatively small number of nodes that are connected to a tremendous number of other nodes. The most important nodes are called hubs, which may be linked to hundreds, thousands or even millions of others. In this sense, the network appears to have no scale. (Barabasi and Bonabeau, 2003)
Networks containing hubs are called ‘scale free networks’ and behave in a certain predictable way. These networks are resistant to ‘accidental failures’ and ‘vulnerable to coordinated attacks’. The World Wide Web and the virtual network of Web pages, connected to one another through hyperlinks, is an example of such a network. Investigators also claim that some social networks are scale free. (Barabasi and Bonabeau, 2003, p67)
Viral marketing campaigns often specifically try to target hubs to speed up the adoption of a product. The literature on the scale-free networks provides the ‘scientific framework’ and
‘mathematical tools’ to investigate that phenomenon more thoroughly. Barabasi and Bonabeau (2003, p65) claim that a network could offer new ways for marketers to propagate consumer buzz about their products.
How information flows in social networks is relevant to issues as diffusion and adoption of innovations; how information spreads determines the speed of the actions and plans of individuals. Word-of-mouth and advertising effect may differ among different market segments. (De Mooij, 2004, p266) Rogers (1995, p5) defines ‘diffusion of innovations’ as ‘the process by which an innovation is communicated through certain channels over time among the members of a social system’.
Rogers (1995) identifies five categories of consumers according to the degree of adoption of new products. They are called innovators, early adaptors, early majority, late majority and laggards. The innovators represent 2.5% of (American) society; they are described as adventurous individuals who are willing to take the risk. Early adaptors (13.5%) are the ones to take up new ideas that are taken up by the innovators who serve as role model. Early majority (34%) are risk avoiders, late majority (34%) are sceptical and cautious of new ideas, and laggards (16%) are very traditional. Moreover, he states that earlier adopters have higher levels of opinion leadership (Rogers, 1995).
The rate of adoption is the relative speed with which members of a social system adopt an innovation. The diffusion theory notes that several factors tend to increase the likelihood of innovation adoption, for example, the relative advantage of the innovation, high trial ability and observe ability, and the innovation’s compatibility with existing values, beliefs and current needs. Davis (1989) talks about the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM); TAM has been widely used for predicting the acceptance, adoption and use of information technologies.
Davis claims that the adoption of information technology is a function of individuals’
perceptions that the technology is easy to use and is useful for them.
Derived from the diffusion theory and TAM it is suggested that characteristics of different user groups might suggest differences in usage behaviour across these groups. Characteristics of these user groups are for example the innovation’s compatibility with the values of students, perceptions of the technology’s usefulness et cetera. Flanagin et al. (2003) show in their research that students appear to be more trusting Web-information than no students. Which may be due to their experience with the Internet, having used this more than no students, students may feel that they can trust information found on the Web. On the other hand it may be because students are simply less critical of the information they acquire, particularly when they acquired information as means of a school assignment. (creating a reference list for example) Flanagin et al. conclude that a problem is reflected in the gap between students’
belief in the credibility of the Internet and their low frequency of verifying Web-based information.
Although students are familiar to using the Internet, most students are not experienced scientific researchers. Hsieh-Yee (2001) says that novice searchers tend to prefer strategies that require less cognitive overload. Regarding students’ experience with Internet, this seems a logical tool to use instead of more complicated and ‘new’ databases. When users gain more experience with the Web and searching, their needs will expand. (Hsieh-Yee, 2001) The lack of experience could be another reason for the low criticism towards web-based information.
3.2.3 Influencing the process
A lot of managers regard word-of-mouth as a spontaneous phenomenon, which cannot be influenced. Most managers think managing the process is the best they can do and do not even think of directing the word-of-mouth process. Silverman claims the process can be influenced and several authors have the same opinion. (Silverman, 2001)
Dye (2000) claims the informal communication process can be directed by the right messages and incentives. She says it evolves according to some basic principles instead. Companies can predict the spread of buzz by analysing how different groups of customers interact and influence one another. Furthermore she states that a product or service is ‘ready for the buzz’
when it is unique in some way; look, functionality, ease of use, efficiency or price. Second, buzz products are usually highly visible. This visibility can also be created; creating forums can be a way of doing this.
Salzman et al. (2003) agree upon this and say the power of marketing is not about pushing information to a big crowd but it lies in effectively pulling the sleeves of the influential persons in a group. They prescribe to take advantage of the communication streams by ensuring that the information is translated from the ‘elite’ influencers (Alphas) to the trend spreaders (the Bees) and from them to the general public.
Regarding the literature on ‘scale free networks’ it is also important to be aware of the differences in nodes and identify the potential hubs in this network. (Barabasi and Bonabeau, 2003) Finding out if there is a hub present in the student network and who (or what) can be considered as the hub in this network is important before an effective word-of-mouth campaign can be initiated.
Goldenberg et al. (2001) claim that managers who try to influence the word-of-mouth process should analyse the two kinds of social interactions in their target network, weak and strong ties, which both contribute to word-of-mouth referrals. After analysing these ties, can be identified which type communication is appropriate for this network.
When Silverman (2001) observes the interactions of word-of-mouth communication, he distinguishes the expert-to-expert, expert-to-peer and peer-to-peer communication.
‘Peer’ can be defined as the students. Peer-to-Peer communication is the communication between students and their local influencers. Which can be seen as a ‘strong tie’, these local influencers will take part in the more intimate and frequent interactions. These ties will differ from each other in strength, depending on the person. Moreover it is interesting to find out who the experts are according to the students. These probably can be typified as ‘weak ties’.
After this the influence of the experts can be evaluated.
