Re: Margaret Fong – The Power of Word-of-Mouth
In agreement with Margaret, word of mouth advertising now accounts for a big part of buyer decisions, especially after the introduction of the internet and social networks. However, it is important to keep in mind that the value in a product is perceived differently by different users.
In the highly competitive market that we have today, most products are of the same quality. For example, PC computers are very similar to each other. HP, Sony, Toshiba, and Samsung all produce PC’s that have the same hardware specifications, software integrations, and add-on services. What differentiates one brand of PC from another is mostly how the companies market their products. This is my opinion atleast.
A few years back, most of my classmates that owns a PC had a HP PC. It wasn’t any different from the Asus that I had but clearly people saw more value in HP. In part, this was due to HP’s heavy marketing campaign to position HP as the one-stop media centre for you home.
HP Ad - Shawn White
HP hired many high profile professionals to demonstrate how they are using their HP computer in their daily media storage including editing and viewing pictures, browsing through their favourite tunes, and editing memorable video clips. This raises the value consumers perceive in a HP computer without actually offering any extra features. Therefore, while establishing a good brand image is important for a good word-of-mouth advertisement, it is more important to design an effective marketing campaign that captures the focus of consumers.