An update of a classic self-help book gives David Crosbie pause for thought

“You know, there is a book called ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’. Maybe you should read it?” This is what my mother used to say to me when I was being a particularly recalcitrant teenager. I was therefore doubly interested to read recently that the original book, written by Dale Carnegie and first published in 1936, has been updated for the digital age, covering social media and the internet.

I say doubly so because I see striking parallels between this tale and the work of another pioneer of the Twentieth Century, our very own Elmo Roper, whose Influentials® model, first developed in 1945, is just as relevant as ever before, and has been updated by GfK Roper Consulting for the 21^st Century.

While Carnegie’s book offered advice to those who wanted to make a better impression on those around them, Roper’s Influentials® model identifies those consumers in a society whom others are more likely to turn to for advice on which products and services to buy. In other words, the consumers marketers must target in an age where word-of-mouth recommendation is key.

As I say, the model has evolved over the years, and while Influencing used to take place primarily at home, in the workplace or in social situations, it is now increasingly likely to take place online, with over a quarter of global consumers having posted a recommendation, complaint or both online according to 2011 Roper Reports® Worldwide data.

Whilst technology undoubtedly allows all consumers to share their opinions further and wider than ever before, it’s important to recognise that there is still a distinction to be drawn between those who are more influential than others. I am sure I’m not alone in looking at a number of reviews of a particular hotel on Trip Advisor (for example) ranging from one to five stars, and wondering just whose opinion I can trust most. The answer, as it has been for over sixty years now, is to turn to the Influentials®. To find out who they are, contact us for more information.

Our Influentials expert Jon Berry considers the implications of a new initiative by Pepsi

No more wishing you could buy the world a soda. With Pepsi’s announcement of the first “social vending machine,” it will be possible when you buy a soda to punch in a purchase for friends, family, colleagues, and even people you don’t know.

A touch-screen interface built into the new machine lets consumers tap in friends’ names, mobile numbers, and a personal message with a code redeemable for a free drink at any similarly equipped machine.

They can also record a short video to send the recipient. If the news is more evidence that social networking is the soul of the new machine, it’s also proof of an idea that we at GfK Roper are keenly interested in: The GfK Roper TrendKey trend of “We’re All Influencers Now.”

As technology creates new ever-more channels for consumers to connect, consumer influencing is poised to grow. Already consumers globally are actively engaged in word-of-mouth – probably more so than marketers realize. According to GfK Roper Reports® Worldwide, our global survey, 54% of consumers globally have recommended a product or service to someone beyond their nuclear family in the past year. And it’s not just developed markets: the Czech Republic, Poland, Turkey, and Mexico are among the countries most likely to recommend.

As with all new inventions, there are questions to be answered about the new Pepsi machine. Will it be easy to operate? Or will it be like the office copier/scanner/fax that, if you happen to be out of the office on training day, is completely lost to you? At what point will it connect to Facebook, Twitter, and other social networking sites? This would surely increase brand reach. And can it be pulled off in a way that doesn’t slow down the line.

Still, there’s something fun about taking the solitary experience of standing in front of a vending machine, and turning it into a social occasion. And who doesn’t like to get a gift? Or give one?

Consumers also will be able to commit “Random Acts of Refreshment,” says Pepsi, people buying sodas for strangers, such as “a symbol of encouragement to someone in a city experiencing challenging weather,” or “a congratulatory beverage” to a student at a university that’s just won a sporting event.

As the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) blog notes, this is just the beginning. What else at point of sale could be turned into a social experience? There must be something in the checkout line. Are there other machines in our day-to-day life that could get social-networking spins? The office coffee machine? Microwave? Newspaper boxes at the train station?

Elmo Roper, creator of The Influentials

The Blink author’s latest pronouncements should be viewed in the context of broader consumer trends, argues David Crosbie

We at GfK Roper Consulting are particularly proud that it was our illustrious predecessors who created the concept of the Influentials – the one in ten citizens who tell the other nine how to vote, where to eat and what to buy.

The concept of Influentials was first coined by Elmo Roper in the 1940s, in a segmentation created for Standard Oil. Starting in the US in 1973, and then later globally, we have identified and profiled those well-informed and trusted individuals who are sought out for and disperse advice on a whole host of topics, and who are so valuable to marketers. As traditional forms of advertising are trusted less and less, and as technology develops, we have also monitored the steady growth of ‘word of mouse’, as it supplements traditional word of mouth.

It’s in this context that I was particularly interested to read Malcolm Gladwell’s controversial article on social networks in the New Yorker magazine last month, and to monitor the fierce debate it ignited on the Twittersphere and elsewhere. Of course Gladwell is something of an Influential himself, with books such as The Tipping Point and Blink selling millions of copies and influencing countless marketing strategies.  In his article, Gladwell warns that the motivational power of social networks is being over-estimated, explaining that a Facebook friend (or other virtual relationship) should not be equated to a real friendship, as some have tried to, because the ties are much weaker in nature. His argument related particularly to social activism, but it certainly caused me to reconsider the relative worth of ‘real’ and ‘virtual’ ties.

Our GfK Roper Reports Worldwide data show how virtual relationships are the fastest growing form of interaction globally, with 20% of consumers in our 2010 study saying they had been in touch with someone they only knew online in the past month. We also know that online sources are increasingly trusted as a source of information on which products or services to buy. As the growth in popularity of product review sites has shown, strong personal ties are not quite as necessary when it comes to deciding what to buy or where to eat, though the views of a friend will still count for more than those of a stranger.

As we see it, not only do the myriad social networking sites make it easier for traditional Influentials to carry out their business of spreading the word about products and services they like or dislike and responding to requests from acquaintances for advice, but they also encourage others who may have never previously considered doing so to review a hotel on TripAdvisor, say, or to consider the opinions of fellow consumers via a product review site.

As Gladwell argues, Twitter and Facebook may not be as suited to organising revolutions as more conventional forms of social activism, but in the world of retail they undoubtedly strengthen the hand of the global consumer, and as such their power should not be dismissed lightly by marketers in any sector.

Online researching has changed the way we shop

By Anna Clark

Be it organising my friend’s hen (bachelorette) weekend, or choosing a new mobile phone, I always seem to have something I’m researching.

These days, with so much information at our fingertips I usually spend lots of time researching to find ‘the best deal’ or ‘the best product’, but I sometimes find myself getting so involved with the minutiae that I get to the point of just wanting whichever one ‘will do’.

The issue for me nowadays is that there is almost too much information available, and it can be contradictory.  When attempting to choose a new phone recently, I read official reviews, looked at websites that compare the network coverage, and asked my friends who I deemed experts…and came up with conflicting opinions.  Perhaps the learning here is that what is good for one person, isn’t right for another.  This presents a challenge for online review sites: wouldn’t it be better if you knew that the person writing the review was ‘like you’, or if you knew they didn’t have an ulterior motive?

Inevitably, if you look for long enough, there’s always a horror story.  And somehow even if there is only one negative review among a whole host of positive ones, that has a stronger impact than the multiple good reviews.  Just one negative review can cause anxieties to creep in, and can take the edge off the excitement about your new purchase, or your next dinner venue. 

At risk of sounding like a luddite, in choosing a restaurant for the hen do, I ended up going out and looking at the restaurants in the area, chose the one I liked the look of, and then went out of my way to avoid reading reviews because I didn’t want to be put off!

We know from our Roper Reports Worldwide 2010 data that 55% of consumers globally spend quite a lot of time researching brands before making a major purchase, and while at times I feel all this information makes the decision process harder, it’s clear that in general, the availability of information nowadays has changed the way consumers buy.

So what about the future of reviews and researching purchases?  Often reviews can seem out of date by the time you read them, so are real-time reviews the way we’re heading?  And will tools become more sophisticated, pre-empting your search and sending you the latest reviews direct when you start looking at a product, or only giving you reviews from people who are similar to you?

Either way, this availability of information and reviews is set to continue growing, making it an issue companies must take into account.  With tools enabling consumers to make their views heard, keeping them happy is more important than ever, and companies need to ensure they deal with any complaints swiftly, and effectively, to prevent that one bad experience being the one people hear about. 

Clarks Sunbeat Sandal (tan)

By Diane Crispell

Were you ever talking to someone when all of a sudden you thought – maybe even said out loud – “Gee, I sound like a commercial”? It happens to me reasonably frequently, most recently when I was extolling the virtues of my favorite sandals.

By Jon Berry

It’s never been harder to make money in the stock market. Millions of Americans need career help. The world is being tested environmentally, emotionally, and spiritually. It’s time to talk about food. 

Consumer power is here to stay in 2010

By David Crosbie

Perhaps it’s a telling indictment of my general apathy and lack of moral fibre, but I was not one of the half million Britons who helped to strike a blow for creative diversity by buying a copy of an expletive-ridden 1990s rock song in the run up to Christmas.

Allow me to explain. As you may be aware, the race for the coveted ‘Christmas Number One’ in the UK music singles chart was enlivened this year by an online campaign run through Facebook. For the past four years, the Christmas Number One slot has been taken by the winner of the popular TV talent contest X Factor, which is similar in format to American Idol and shares a judge in the form of Simon Cowell.

Jon and Tracy Morter, a regular couple from just outside London, decided that they had seen enough of this dominance and therefore started a campaign on Facebook encouraging people to buy the 1992 track ‘Killing in the Name’ by Rage Against the Machine instead of X Factor winner Joe McElderry’s cover of Miley Cirus’ ‘The Climb’. Their selection of this track may have had something to do with the recurring lyric, “I won’t do what you tell me” as well as the liberal sprinkling of offensive language. The campaign, begun on 13 December, was successful – particularly after Cowell branded it as “stupid” and “cynical” – and ‘Killing in the Name’ gained the top slot on 20 December.

Besides the schadenfreude to be gained from seeing a powerful media mogul being taken down a peg or two, this incident was just the latest and most striking example of consumers around the world using the power of online social networking to influence events. During 2009, this power was exercised in more serious circumstances by Iranian citizens, who kept the outside world informed via Twitter when traditional media were suppressed during a period of instability.

Another example from the UK was the reaction to a column by journalist Jan Moir in the right wing Daily Mail newspaper. In commenting on the death of singer Stephen Gately, who announced his homosexuality a few years previously, Moir made comments which were perceived to be homophobic. A campaign orchestrated via Twitter led to the UK’s Press Complaints Commission being inundated with over 25,000 complaints – a record number by some margin – in a very short space of time. One interesting aspect of this incident is that it gave rise to a new (if perhaps short-lived) verb, to be janmoired, which has been defined by media commentator Roy Greenslade as being, “condemned by a collective of tweeters demanding censorship.”

All of these examples underline the speed and ability of online campaigns to make a big difference very quickly. They relate to the Consumers in Control trend – the tendency of consumers to harness the power of the internet and word of mouth to inform their purchase decisions and brand choices – which GfK Roper Consulting has been tracking for a number of years. What these latest examples suggest is that the ability of individual consumers to influence many others is set only to grow during the new decade. While this force has been harnessed in many positive ways in the past few years through viral marketing campaigns, it is more important than ever to be careful not to incur the “rage” of an increasingly empowered and demanding global consumer. Particularly given that, according to annual global consumer study, Roper Reports® Worldwide, fully 64% of global consumers say they complain when products or services are not of expected quality. Happy New Year!

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