The Conversational Geography of Word-of-Mouth Communication and Marketing Practices

Abstract

This study was a test of the utility of a diary-based methodology for revealing how word-of-mouth (WOM) marketing agents perceive their campaign and non-campaign-related WOM communication episodes. A modified version of the Iowa Communication Record, originally designed for presenting the “geography of everyday conversation,” was the base for the collection of 2,088 self-reports of the agents' WOM episodes. Data were subjected to a principal components factor analysis. The resulting factors—communication quality, value, impact, relational change, and conversational control—served to gauge differences attributable to the institutional nature of the WOM, sex of respondent and conversational partner, relationship type, and day of week.

Keywords:

• Conversational Geography
• Institutional Interaction
• Iowa Communication Record
• Word-of-Mouth Communication
• Word-of-Mouth Marketing

Notes

Note: Day of week was ns on all factors. For relationship type, those means sharing a common superscript (a–k) within a column are significantly different from each other (for example, for quality, acquaintances are significantly different than friends, but not significantly different from stranger or other).

∗p < .05.

†p < .01.

‡p < .001.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Walter J. Carl

Walter J. Carl (PhD, University of Iowa, 2001) is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Northeastern University, Boston, MA.

Carey M. Noland

Carey M. Noland (PhD, Ohio University, 2001) is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Northeastern University, Boston, MA.