What Drives Immediate and Ongoing Word of Mouth?
Berger and Schwartz ask why certain products are talked about more than others, both immediately after consumers first experience them and in the months that follow. They analyse a unique data set of everyday conversations covering several hundred products, run a large field experiment across various cities, and add a controlled laboratory experiment with real conversations. More interesting products did generate more immediate word of mouth but, contrary to intuition, interest did not predict word of mouth over multiple months, or word of mouth overall. What sustained talk instead was accessibility and visibility. Products cued by the surrounding environment, and products that are publicly visible, received more word of mouth over time. Additional analyses examine which promotional giveaways and marketing campaigns were associated with increased word of mouth overall. The authors treat the findings as evidence about the psychological drivers of talk, and draw from them guidance on designing campaigns that keep a product in conversation rather than only starting one.
Berger and Schwartz ask why certain products are talked about more than others, both immediately after consumers first experience them and in the months that follow. They analyse a unique data set of everyday conversations covering several hundred products, run a large field experiment across various cities, and add a controlled laboratory experiment with real conversations. More interesting products did generate more immediate word of mouth but, contrary to intuition, interest did not predict word of mouth over multiple months, or word of mouth overall. What sustained talk instead was accessibility and visibility. Products cued by the surrounding environment, and products that are publicly visible, received more word of mouth over time. Additional analyses examine which promotional giveaways and marketing campaigns were associated with increased word of mouth overall. The authors treat the findings as evidence about the psychological drivers of talk, and draw from them guidance on designing campaigns that keep a product in conversation rather than only starting one.
Written from the abstract, OpenAlex.
What our sources record
Reproduced as it was written when this source was checked, figures and all.
Berger, J., & Schwartz, E. M. (2011). 'What drives immediate and ongoing word of mouth?' Journal of Marketing Research, 48(5), 869-880. Dataset of everyday conversations covering more than 300 products, a large field experiment across several cities, and a controlled laboratory experiment with real conversations. More interesting products received more immediate word of mouth but, contrary to intuition, not more ongoing word of mouth over multiple months or overall; products cued more by the environment or more publicly visible received more word of mouth both immediately and over time. Verified at the published record 2026-10-01. doi:10.1509/jmkr.48.5.869
Where we use it
- The Boring Product People Talk About, Why We Engage
- Why Sad Posts Go Viral Less Often, Why We Engage
Reliability of this reference
The link below was matched against the publisher's record on title, first author and year, and all three agree.
The source
https://doi.org/10.1509/jmkr.48.5.869
DOI: 10.1509/jmkr.48.5.869