WHEN it came to promoting its new video-game console, the Wii,
in America, Nintendo recruited a handful of carefully chosen suburban mothers
in the hope that they would spread the word among their friends that the Wii
was a gaming console the whole family could enjoy together. Nintendo thus
became the latest company to use “word-of-mouth” marketing. Nestlé, Sony and
Philips have all launched similar campaigns in recent months to promote
everything from bottled water to electric toothbrushes. As the power of
traditional advertising declines, what was once an experimental marketing
approach is becoming more popular.
After all, no form of advertising carries as much weight as an
endorsement from a friend. “Amway and Tupperware know you can blend the social
and economic to business advantage,” says Walter Carl, a marketing guru at
Northeastern University. The difference now, he says, is that the internet can
magnify the effect of such endorsements.
The difficulty for marketers is creating the right kind of buzz
and learning to control it. Negative views spread just as quickly as positive
ones, so if a product has flaws, people will soon find out. And Peter Kim of
Forrester, a consultancy, points out that when Microsoft sent laptops loaded
with its new Windows Vista software to influential bloggers in an effort to get
them to write about it, the resulting online discussion ignored Vista and
focused instead on the morality of accepting gifts and the ethics of
word-of-mouth marketing. Bad buzz, in short.
BzzAgent, a controversial company based in Boston that is one of
the leading exponents of word-of-mouth marketing, operates a network of
volunteer “agents” who receive free samples of products in the post. They talk
to their friends about them and send back their thoughts. In return, they
receive rewards through a points program—an arrangement they are supposed to
make clear. This allows a firm to create buzz around a product and to see what
kind of word-of-mouth response it generates, which can be useful for subsequent
product development and marketing. Last week BzzAgent launched its service in
Britain. Dave Balter, BzzAgent's founder, thinks word-of-mouth marketing will
become a multi-billion dollar industry. No doubt he tells that to everyone he
meets.
Questions
1. What is the
experimental approach being discussed in the first paragraph?
a. Word of mouth
Marketing b. Selling of video-game consoles, bottled
water and electric toothbrushes
c. Traditional Advertising d.
None of these
2. What is the tone
of the passage?
a.Neutral
b. Biased
c. Celebratory
d. Critical
3. What can we infer
from Walter Carl's statement?
a. Amway and
Tupperware are products where word of mouth marketing could be used.
b. Amway and
Tupperware are consumers who appreciated word of mouth marketing.
c. Amway and
Tupperware are companies who use word of mouth marketing.
d. None of these
4. What is the effect
of internet on Word-of-mouth marketing?
a. It is impeded
by the internet. B. It is
encouraged by the internet.
c. Internet magnifies
the moral issues of this marketing technique.
D.Internet has made it
obsolete.
5. According to the
passage, in what order did different companies use word of mouth marketing?
a. Nintendo
before Sony, Nestle and Philips. b.
Nintendo after Sony, Nestle and Philips.
c. Nintendo, Sony,
Nestle and Philips: all at the same time.
d. None of these
6. According to Peter
Kim, what happened to Microsoft's marketing campaign for Vista?
a. It succeeded
b. It succeeded with some hiccups
c.It failed d.None of these
7. Where does
BzzAgent operate?
a. USA and India
b.USA
and UK c.USA only d. None of these
8. What is the author
most likely to agree to in the following?
a. There is not
enough evidence to state that word-of-mouth marketing is useful.
b. There is
enough evidence to state that word-of-mouth marketing is useful.
c. Evidence
shows that word of mouth marketing is a failed technique.
d. Word of mouth
marketing is unethical.
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