The Impact of Buzz Marketing on Customer E-WOM Intention: An Empirical Study in Vietnam

Abstract

Customers' perceptions of information about a company's products or services have altered as a result of the development of ICT and social networks. This gives rise to a fact that buzz marketing, which is a marketing technique employed commonly in today's business and communication, has a significant impact on customers' electronic word of mouth intention (e-WOM). However, very few studies about this issue have been conducted so far, which reveal a gap in understanding buzz marketing from an academic perspective. Based on the results of a cross-sectional survey in Binh Duong city, this study investigates the efficiency and effect of buzz marketing on customers' e-WOM intention through mediating variables of message credibility. Data from 367 time-lagged individual samples were collected and analyzed by the structural equation modeling method (SEM). Results showed that creativity, clarity, and humor variables have a positive relationship with message credibility and then impact the intention to conduct e-WOM of social networks' users. Marketing campaigns employing the buzz technique should be launched with easy-to-understand and entertainable messages. Findings from this study also provide managers with a scientific understanding of buzz marketing and the effectiveness of this technique as well as reveal the potential for future studies to explore further in this area.

1. Introduction

Modern technologies have significantly changed the perception of marketers about how to approach effectively to their customers as well as to gain their loyalty (Nguyen et al., 2020). This has reshaped the ways firms select and employ marketing techniques before launching their promotional campaigns in the current context of business (Heo, 2020). Today, the development of ICT has formed a solid foundation enabling online advertising to become a dominant marketing method with the fastest growth, both in wholesale and retailing sectors (Levinson & Lautenslager, 2009). However, several issues arising from this boom have caused certain concerns that the message in a marketing campaign is conveyed exactly to the audience. With wide access to the Internet, we often experience many marketing programs from various undertakings that are simultaneously launched in one online channel or website (Abdul-Razzaq et al., 2009). This situation increases the level of noise effect to the communicated message while advertising and impact negatively on customers’ attitudes (Obermiller et al., 2005). As a result, customers’ perception of the brand will be decreased and thus marketers failed to achieve their goal (Giantary et al., 2021). Therefore, this circumstance gives rise to an opinion that direct marketing methods cannot satisfy the company’s requirements and creates room for the emerge of indirect marketing forms (Holdford, 2004).

For years, the concept of word of mouth (WOM) has dominantly attracted the attention of scholars in marketing research (Weiss et al., 2008). This can be justified by the importance of WOM as a key goal of most marketing campaigns since customers often rely on others’ references to make their own purchasing decision (Cheema & Kaikati, 2010). Other researches did confirm that while comparing with traditional advertising means in terms of convincing effect, ones engaging WOM offer greater effectiveness to customer’s purchasing behaviours (Herr et al., 1991; Godes & Mayzlin, 2004).

Despite the fact of WOM’s significance, it is worth mentioning that not all constructive or good feedback about a product will also be positively communicated via WOM (Soelasih & Sumani, 2021). This gives rise to a question that there should be a specific mechanism explaining such a situation and the development of ICT can be regarded as a potential one (Wirtz & Chew, 2002). As mentioned earlier, the Internet has considerably changed the way people communicate thus the nature and influence of the level of WOM should be redefined in today’s business context. Particularly, it is quite common that there are many online channels where customers can share their personal opinions about products or services (Xu, 2014). Particularly in B2C e-commerce where stores distribute their products through online platforms, customers who experience these retailed products or services can express and share their feeling or attitude right on the same platform or through social media. These online sharing opinions are regarded as e-WOM and conducted under forms of reviews, likes, comments, shares, hashtags, or other alike terminologies. These terms distinctively describe online communicating activities to distinguish with traditional means of communication in the process of distributing goods or services’ information to the audience.

Ahuja et al. (2007) defined buzz marketing as a multifaced communication process, in which messages will be distributed or delivered from buzz agents to buzz targets. This process is characterized by WOM conversations which can be performed online or offline. Moreover, the main purpose of buzz marketing is to maximize the viral effect of natural or seemingly natural conversations (Thomas, 2004). Holdford (2004) acknowledged buzz marketing is an indirect marketing method that has successfully been applied to promote the distribution of different products or services. In certain cases, messages generated from buzz marketing can offer a greater viral effect than traditional methods of public relations due to its features of credibility and flexibility. While researching customer’s decision-making process in the world of the Internet, Ghanbari and Ghanbari (2017) had suggested that buzz marketing could refer to the role of all mass media and social media such as Facebook, Twitter… and can play as ways and means to boost companies and organizations’ sale and revenue. Thus, it can be argued that buzz marketing has a certain role in firms’ businesses since most of these have employed social networks for achieving their marketing goals.

Despite those realized significances, literature reviews showed that studies relating to buzz marketing remain limited in the global arena. The most available ones are qualitative researches with some prominent examples conducted by Ahuja et al (2007), Holdford (2004), and Mohr (2007), while other researches have concentrated on guerrilla marketing on the other hand. In Vietnam, authors believe that buzz marketing attracts high attention of on-field marketers but there has been no academic study about this matter conducted so far. It remains a big question to resolve that how to form an effective buzz marketing campaign in which all audiences will have in their mind about the company’s communicated message (Hughes, 2005).

Against this backdrop, authors believe that research focusing on evaluating the important factors of a buzz marketing campaign as well as the extent to which these factors can impact on customer’s e-WOM intention should be conducted. With that in mind, this study aims to determine the efficiency of buzz marketing on customers’ e-WOM intention through mediating variables of message credibility. The structural equation modeling method (SEM) is used to analyze the data, which were collected from 367 individual samples from a time-lagged survey condSucted in Binh Duong City, Vietnam. Authors expect that this research will offer further scientific evidence to companies and businesses in maximizing the e-WOM effect in buzz marketing campaigns.

2. Literature Review and Hypotheses

2.1. e-WOM Intention

Ajzen and Fishbein (1980) defined behavioral intention as an individual’s intention to conduct a specific activity. According to these scholars, behavioral intention can be a predictor of one’s specific behavior happening in similar conditions, provided that the intention of such individuals can control their behavior. Noticeably, this individual’s behavior must be undertaken voluntarily.

Although e-WOM is a prevalent consumer practice that has critical impacts on the business bottom line, yet it remains an over-labeled and under-theorized concept (Rosario et al., 2020). Hence, the key objective of this research is to identify the impact of buzz marketing strategy in facilitating customer intention to exercise e-WOM on social networks. In this line, e-WOM intention in the proposed research model is a concept emphasizing: (1) ability to communicate intention (Zhang & Park, 2015) and (2) the possibility of conducting e-WOM intention, rather than model, content, or forms of e-WOM.

2.2. Factors of Buzz Marketing

By the time this research is conducted, a common definition of buzz marketing has yet been found among scholars. In authors’ point of view, buzz marketing on one hand characterizes some factors of marketing as stipulated by American Marketing Association, that ‘marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large. On the other hand, buzz marketing owns certain distinctions compared to other marketing techniques, which reveal potentials for the sale or distributing firm’s goods or services. According to Thomas (2004), buzz marketing enables initial marketing efforts to be viral through a third party’s direct or indirect impacts. Tangel et al. (2019) acknowledged buzz marketing refers to marketing strategies used to capture the attention of the customers and other influencers to maximize the marketing message to an extent were talking about the brand, product, or service becomes entertaining, fascinating, and newsworthy. This research further suggested that buzz marketing should be treated as advertising programs attracting not only high attention in media but also public discussions (Hughes, 2005).

As mentioned in this paper’s introduction, researches about buzz marketing as well as the impact of this method on customers’ behaviors remain limited. Thus, the authors focused on reviewing relevant published studies in terms of guerrilla marketing (Tam & Khuong, 2016) and deep interviewing Marketing practical experts to articulate 5 factors of buzz marketing, namely novelty, relevance/ meaningfulness, humor, clarity, and surprise.

2.2.1. Novelty

Novelty is a widely used concept to describe creativity in advertising (Ang et al., 2014). This shows the difference between a marketing program to others currently conducted by competitors (Andrews & Smith, 1996). Some scholars believe that this is the first criterion to judge if a marketing program is creative (Jackson & Messick, 1967). Ang et al. (2014) stated that novelty can have a positive impact on the efficiency of marketing programs, particularly on those which employ both novelty and relevance factors. As a result, marketers can cause a positive influence on customers’ attitudes and even on their behaviors.

2.2.2. Relevance/Meaningfulness

Not all novelties are considered creative and as indicated in previous studies, creativity in business includes 2 components, which are novelty and relevance (meaningfulness) (Andrews & Smith, 1996; Jackson & Messick, 1967). According to Heckler and Childers (1992), relevance or meaningfulness in marketing reflects how information is addressed while advertising and thus, the value of advertising message can be highlighted or devalued accordingly. Ang et al. (2014) also stated that a marketing program is considered creative when its novelty is engaged with relevance. Provided that targeted customers evaluate a marketing program creative, this program is expected to have certain impacts on the perception, intention, and behaviors of the customers (Till & Baack, 2005).

2.2.3. Humour

Humour is a person’s psychological status characterized by positive emotion as well as the likelihood of laughing (Gervais, 2005; Martin, 2007). Humour occurs when an immediate event happens and breaks our expectations out of perceived social standards (Veatch, 1996; Eisend et al., 2014). According to Eisend et al. (2014), humor marketing programs create customers’ positive attitudes toward the company brand and thus impact customer intention as well as behavior.

2.2.4. Clarity

When a marketing campaign is evaluated as creative, there is nothing to secure that customer fully understands the company’s message communicated. As a result, there will be no motivation for their behavioral intention. Therefore, clarity is suggested to be a considered factor in the researched model. Clarity is defined as an individual ability to comprehend the message of marketing communication (Tam & Khuong, 2016). Hafer et al. (1996) proved that marketing messages with complicated structures require higher customer efforts to perceive. This opinion convinces that the lack of clarity in the communicated message can cause a certain delay in customer behavioral intention and therefore, the role of clarity in buzz marketing should be concerned. On the other hand, if a message is clear about the information or instruction transmitted, such a message is likely to be more optimal when it is buzzed via social channels such as Twitter (Handini & Dunan, 2021).

2.2.5. Surprise

Previous studies define surprise as a basic reaction of the individual to irrational schema stimulation (stimulus-schema incongruity) (Meyer et al., 1991). In marketing, irrational schema stimulation can be viewed as different levels of advertising content to an expectation of credibility, attitude, or behaviors (Alden et al., 2000). Taylor et al. (1997) pointed out that if the message is differently perceived from what was expected, the customer is more excited with advertisements and their purchasing intention is also more apparent.

2.3. Mediating Variable: Credibility

Credibility in marketing is ‘the extent to which customer believes that brand’s information in marketing event is honest and reliable’ (MacKenzie & Lutz, 1989). Credibility has a positive impact on customers’ attitudes so it can facilitate purchasing intention and thus increase the sale and revenue (Tsang et al., 2004). Some authors also stated that unclear or difficult to understand information will be deemed noncredible and impact negatively on customers’ purchasing behaviors (Cronkhite & Liska, 1976). Authors believe that though customers can have a big impression in marketing campaigns characterized by creative, unique, or surprising factors, these will be meaningless when the marketing message fails to offer trust and credibility.

In essence, buzz marketing is a series of unique strategies creating people’s intention in the market of competitive communication. Therefore, the communicated message must be credible to customers before becoming a phenomenon that goes viral among netizens. With these arguments, this research acknowledged Tam and Khuong’s (2016) opinion that suggested credibility is a mediating variable between buzz marketing and e-WOM intention. This means that when customers are convinced by communicated message of the marketing campaign, they will tend to communicate this information to others via the Internet (Chun, 2011).

2.4. Hypotheses and Research Model

From the results collected from the literature review as well as the presented arguments, the authors suggest the researched model accordingly (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Proposed Researched Model

The hypotheses are proposed accordingly:

H1.1 – H1.5: (1) novelty, (2) Relevance, (3) Humour, (4) Clarity, and (5) Surprise has a positive relationship to credibility.

H2: Credibility is a mediating variable in the relationship between novelty, relevance, humor, clarity, surprise, and e-WOM intention.

3. Methodology

3.1. Sample Selection

The research was conducted on individuals who often experience social networks in Binh Duong city and samples were collected by convenient sampling method. After performing pilot researches to test the measuring scale, the authors continuously conducted 2 rounds of face-to-face interviews. Before interviewing, potential respondents were communicated by email about the objectives of the research and further, to confirm their participation.

The first survey was conducted with 379 valid templates collected. In this phase, the authors employed the recalling method to collect data from respondents and their responses were observed. Respondents saw a video about buzz marketing initiatives that were chosen based on the outcomes of in-depth discussions with five marketing experts and scholars. Then they were asked to give input on aspects that were not dependent variables.

The second interview was done one day later to collect information concerning e-WOM, and only valid templates from the first survey were used. The time-lag approach is used between two surveys to eliminate subjective bias by adhering to current principles and guidelines (Podsakoff et al., 2003; Conway & Lance, 2010). During the process of conducting surveys, authors were always available to explain any question to minimize misunderstanding as well as maintain respondents’ concentration. Finally, 367 observed templates (approximately 90% of participants responded) were collected and served as input data. Then, the data was analyzed by structural equation model (Kline, 2005) with SPSS-20 and AMOS-20.

3.2. Measurement

Likert’s scale was applied to measure all variables, starting from 1 - completely disagree to 5 - completely agree. These scales were adjusted based on referring to the previous researches of scholars: (1) novelty according to Andrews and Smith (1996), (2) relevance as proposed by Mercanti-Guérin (2008), (3) humor according to Zhang (1996), (4) clarity defined by Pelsmacker et al. (2002), and surprise as stated by Scherer (2005), credibility according to the Goldberg and Hartwick (1990). The Independent variable of e-WOM was simulated by a measurement scale proposed by Goyette et al. (2010). While designing the questionnaire, authors consulted and engaged opinions from linguistic experts as well as marketing scholars in Vietnam to eliminate any misunderstanding in terms of language, culture, and or stereotype. This is to secure the integrity of these applied measurement scales to provide the most correct results in this study.

4. Results and Discussion

4.1. Testing the Reliability and Analysis of EFA’s Factor

Cronbach’s alpha is considered to test the consistency and reliability of suggested measurement scales. After analyzing, Cronbach values of 6 measurement scales: NOVEL, RELEV, HUMOUR, CLAR, CREDI, and EWOM were above 0.7. Only the SURPRISE variable had a value of 0.693. According to Nunnally (1978), these values are reliable and can be used to perform further analyses (Table 1).

Table 1: Reliable Test

To assess the value of measurement scales and determine Pattern Matrix, EFA was conducted using the Principal Axis Factoring method and Promax rotation. Pattern Matrix revealed that the measurement scales of novelty and relevance were pooled into one new factor in the first EFA test for a collection of independent variables. Although this was unexpected by the authors, it is not surprising given that some researchers consider novelty and relevance to be components of creativity (Ang et al., 2014; Smith et al., 2007). As a result, a new variable called creativity was created using the measurement scales of novelty and relevance, and observed variables with coefficients less than 0.4 were also discarded. The EFA result of the KMO group of independent variables was 0.860 at the end. Table 2 shows the Pattern Matrix and Cronbach’s alpha results in detail.

Table 2: EFA of Independent Variables

4.2. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)

CFA was conducted to confirm the suitability of structuring measurement scales as well as the conformity of the researched model. CFA analysis was applied to all researched variables and the result of this caused the elimination of the observed variables such as SURPRISE01, SURPRISE02, SURPRISE03, and CLAR01. These variables were eliminated since their coefficient was below 0.4. CFA results confirmed the researched model is fit to conduct SEM (Figure 2 and Table 3).

Figure 2: CFA Results

Table 3: Model Fit Coefficient

The real fit indexes of the researched model adapt to common analysis needs are shown in Figures 3 and 4. All variable groups’ AVE indexes were greater than 0.5, and AVE > MSV, indicating that the distinctive level between groups of variables is suitable for SEM analysis in the next steps.

Figure 3: SEM Results

4.3. Structural Equations Model (SEM)

SEM technique was employed to test the proposed hypotheses of the researched model. The analysis result showed researched model’s fit indexes were matched with required standards (Figure 3).

With a P-value of 0.05, the authors identified three aspects of buzz marketing that affect credibility: inventiveness (= 0.411), humour (= 0.275), and clarity (= 0.308). This result established that H₁.1 and H₁.2, H₁.3, and H₁.4 are all valid. However, there was no evidence to back up the claim that surprise played a role. The measurement scale of the surprise variable was deleted before SEM due to dissatisfaction with the load coefficient. As a result, H₁.5 was ruled out.

While scrutinizing the intermediary role of credibility, authors used experiential methods based on a study by Kline (2005). Accordingly, when the model gets 2 direct impacts that are analyzable, we can expect the indirect impact to occur. In this situation, SEM showed that credibility is the moderating variable impacting e-WOM. Significantly, the coefficient of credibility got the highest value in all prefixes of e-WOM (β = 0.687). Therefore, through the moderating role of credibility, factors of buzz marketing namely creativity, humor, and clarity will shape the e-WOM intention of the customers. Finally, H₂ is acceptable.

4.4. Discussion

The result of buzz marketing shows similar results compared to other marketing methods. Particularly, the communicated message in buzz marketing needs to be creative, clear, and humorous to gain customers’ credibility. This is important to facilitate customer e-WOM intention, which may further help to distribute the information about goods or services of a firm to an audience effectively.

Table 4: SEM Results of the Final Model

Among those mentioned factors, creativity is a very important factor in all marketing campaigns with the most significant impact on the customer’s intention or behaviors. This result reveals a certain similarity to a published study of Mercanti-Guérin (2008), which confirmed that creativity characterizes the combination of novelty and relevance in marketing.

As mentioned in the literature review, a creative marketing campaign does not secure that customers will perceive the communicated message. Thus, the possibility of getting this message viral among customers is limited. This argument signifies the importance of relevant/ meaningful factors in communication. Results of this research showed that the higher level of clarity in communicated messages, the easier that consumers are convinced with buzz marketing campaigns. When customers are satisfied with a credible message in buzz marketing, obviously they will tend to conduct more e-WOM. The last factor enabling a buzz marketing campaign to be credible is humor. This shows that the entertainable element in a buzz marketing campaign is indispensable because people often share what offers them a sense of cheerfulness or happiness (Manimegalai & Senthil Kumar, 2021).

A prominent result attracting our focus in this study is the mediating role of the credibility variable. It convinces us that if a customer perceives a marketing message as creative and understandable, this customer will also be easier to grab and trust such a message. Moreover, people also tend to gain their trust in messages with humor facts are integrated. With these positive feelings, the customer is more expected to undertake e-WOM as well as other means of viral communication (Tsang et al., 2004). Therefore, the sale of distributed products or services in the retailing sector can gain significantly once positive e-WOM is conducted by consumers since such products are popular and easy to get in their daily life.

However, there is quite a sudden result that after researching, it requires more evidence to conclude the role of surprise. During reviewing the literature, authors have found that surprise is a core principle in guerrilla marking methods such as buzz marketing (Tam & Khuong, 2016). Moreover, this is also the main difference between guerrilla marketing and traditional marketing (Hutter & Hoffmann, 2011) so the finding of surprise factor in buzz marketing mentioned in this study was out of authors’ expectation. However, in the authors’ opinion, we do regard surprise as an essential element to all marketing campaigns and what has been found in this study needs to be researched more in the future.

It is worth mentioning that apart from some findings as demonstrated, authors realized some limitations remaining which require further consideration, namely:

(1) The result of the research is limited in terms of the locality because the data collected is only in Binh Duong City, Vietnam;

(2) Convenient sampling is a non-probability sampling method, so there are some natural limitations while conducted;

(3) Due to the limitation in terms of resources, this study employed the recalling method. This could be the reason for the surprise measurement scale’s discontinuation due to unhappiness with the loading coefficient. Respondents may know the buzz marketing in the video in advance, and thus their feedback and evaluation toward questions of surprise variable do not match the initial expectation.

(4) Moderating variable analyzing method used is the experiential method suggested by Kline (2005). This method remains some drawbacks and thus needs to have newer methods to check the indirect impact of moderating variables.

The fulfillment of those limitations in future researches believed to open new potential for the in-depth understanding of buzz marketing and e-WOM. In that light, marketing scholars or managers will have more scientific evidence about the effectiveness of such marketing techniques in the context of today’s business.

5. Conclusion

Buzz marketing is not a new marketing technique but since the lack of academic researches, this study can be regarded as one of the initial efforts in Vietnam toward such an interesting topic. With evidence collected, this research explored the understanding of characteristics of buzz marketing from the view of customers as well as how buzz marketing impacts the customer behavioral intention. The results of this study can help us, particularly marketing researchers and business managers, have more knowledge in applying buzz marketing into business campaigns to facilitate the sale of modern companies.

As identified in the findings of this research, managers should keep in mind a principle that a marketing campaign employs buzz marketing technique should be creative, clear, and humorous. These factors will then have impacts on e-WOM through the level of message credibility. Additionally, the creativity factor in the researched model also encourages managers to consider the differences between what they think about customers’ perception and the real sense of how customers get. This can benefit any marketing campaign aiming at novelty and uniqueness to attract the customers’ attention. In short, if a marketing campaign is evaluated as easy to understand and entertainable by customers, this will impact significantly their behaviors, such as conducting more e-WOM or making purchasing decisions. In a broad sense, if any marketing campaign/ advertising bears these characteristics, companies running such campaigns can easily achieve their goals in boosting sales and revenue.

Finally, this research satisfied its objectives as set in the beginning and did draw more attention toward the topic of buzz marketing. Buzz marketing is indeed an effective technique in marketing but in Vietnam, firms have been reluctant to apply due to the lack of scientific evidence. With this research, authors expect that buzz marketing will attract more attention in the future, particularly among small and medium enterprises or start-ups. It is because this requires fewer resources but can demonstrate high effectiveness in viral communication.

*Acknowledgements:

This research was conducted with the help of respondents who are social netizens in Binh Duong city and experts in the areas of marketing, languages, business management. Thanks to their feedback, we can complete this project with valuable insights. We also thank our colleagues and friends, who provided great opinions to inspire us to move forward with this research.