Week 3 Individual: Stages of the research Project
RES/351

Word of Mouth is considered a powerful marketing device. The impact of consumers discussing products and services with other potential clients can be both beneficial or negative depending upon the view of the customer. Word of mouth referrals have long been considered a vital aspect of marketing but in the new digital age this referral system is drawn into question. One of the major criticisms of the word of Mouth today is that it is less influential due to globalization. The internet provides a new voice for consumers but is this voice as powerful as traditional word of mouth? This new field of research is slowly being explored. Due to the age of the internet, there are limited studies in this area. One of the most prominent studies was performed by Microsoft and Keller Fay Group. The study “Talk Track” was intended to measure the impact of the word of mouth both traditional and nontraditional forms. The research collected 24,724 interviews from participants ages 18-54 (Microsoft; Keller Fay Group, 2011). The study was self-reported with the participants using diaries to keep track of conversations concerning brands. Participants also completed online surveys that further detailed the word of mouth conversations. The independent variable in this experiment was the word of mouth, and the dependent variable was impact of the word of mouth on consumer brand values. The sample sizes of participants were:
Adult Respondents 18-54 (Total Adults, n=24,724;
MSN Audience, n=3,443;
Yahoo! Audience, n=12,066;
Facebook Audience, n=12,633;
AOL Audience, n=3,228;
Google Audience, n=13,067) (Microsoft; Keller Fay Group, 2011)

The results of this research showed that the traditional word of mouth was a greater catalyst for buyer decision making. Despite the fact that participants were provided online