eWOM: The rise of the opinion leaders

The growth and evolution of new media such as Web 2.0 technologies has led to the development of new forms of communication channels and platforms, transforming marketing communications from traditional face-to-face word-of-mouth to electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) (Cheung and Thadani 2012). Further, eWOM has attracted a great deal of attention among marketers and researchers (Trusov et al. 2009). Because of consumers increasingly engaging in eWOM communication to exchange information about goods, services, brands, or companies, eWOM becomes one of the most significant communication touch points to engage consumers in their pre- and post-purchase experience (King et al. 2014). It has been documented that eWOM has significant effects on consumer purchase decision-making process (Daugherty and Hoffman 2014; Mishra and Satish 2016; King et al. 2014; Batra and Keller 2016; Court et al. 2009), brand equity (Severi et al. 2014), new customer acquisition (Trusov et al. 2009), and sales (Chen et al. 2011; Chevalier and Mayzlin 2006; Moe and Trusov 2011; Babić Rosario et al. 2016). Marketers have taken advantage of eWOM and incorporated it into marketing communication strategies (Kozinets et al. 2010). Traditional marketing communication tools like television and magazine advertising can be costly and they are used in many marketing communications environments; therefore, they appear to be losing their effectiveness to consumers (Smilansky 2009). One of the main benefits of eWOM marketing is its potential to overcome consumer resistance to traditional marketing communication messages with significantly low costs and fast delivery of information and to influence consumers’ attitudes and behaviours towards brands or products (Chen et al. 2016; Trusov et al. 2009).