Chapter 11

• Social influence can come from marketing or nonmarketing sources, including opinion leaders, and can be delivered personally or by mass or social media.
• Reference groups are types of social groups that can affect consumer behavior.
• Normative influence is a type of influence that marketers apply to affect consumer behavior.
• Tracking word of mouth is a crucial aspect of marketing.
• Marketing implications for word of mouth include targeting opinion leaders and using networking opportunities at conferences and public events.
• Preventing and responding to negative word of mouth is a crucial aspect of marketing.
• Handling rumors and scandals is a part of managing negative word of mouth.
• Informational influence is a type of influence that can be both pervasive and persuasive.
• Marketing sources of influence are those delivered from a marketing agent, such as advertising and personal selling.
• Nonmarketing sources of influence are those delivered from an entity outside a marketing organization, such as friends, family, and the media.
• Opinion leaders are individuals who act as information brokers between the mass media and the opinions.
• Gatekeepers are sources that control the flow of information.
• Market mavens are consumers on whom others rely for information about the marketplace.
• Tactics to influence opinion leaders include targeting, using them in marketing communications, and referring consumers.
• Aspirational reference groups are those that one admires and desires to be like.
• Associative reference groups are those to which one currently belongs.
• Brand communities are groups of consumers with a structured set of relationships involving a particular brand.
• Dissociative reference groups are those one does not want to emulate.
• Brand-choice congruence is the purchase of the same brand as members of a group.
• Compliance versus reactance is a concept in social psychology.
• Consumers conduct their social interactions according to the rights and responsibilities of their relationship with a group, the balance of reciprocal actions with a group, the relative status and authority, and the value placed on different objects and activities.
• Group attractiveness refers to the extent to which a group is desirable.
• Conformity is the tendency to behave in an expected way.
• Word of mouth is pervasive and persuasive, and is often disseminated via online and social media.
• The strength of normative influence depends on the characteristics of the product, the consumer, and the consumer’s group.
• Degree of identity is the extent to which a group is identified with a specific characteristic.
• Informational influence is the extent to which sources influence consumers by providing information, affecting how much time and effort consumers devote to information search and decision-making.
• Tie-strength is the extent to which a close, intimate relationship connects people.
• Descriptive dimensions of information include valence, which describes information as positive or negative, and modality, whether the information is verbal or nonverbal.
• Normative influence derives from norms, which are collective decisions about what constitutes appropriate behavior.
• Density is the extent to which a group is spread out over space.
• Degree of group contact is a characteristic of reference groups, with the primary reference group requiring physical face-to-face interaction and the secondary reference group having no direct contact.
• Formality is a characteristic of reference groups, with homophily being the similarity among members.