Word-of-Mouth Marketing: China's authentic advocates

Asit Gupta

Word-of-mouth marketing is more powerful in China compared with other markets for three main reasons: a history of information control by government; a huge amount of new products, some of which are in categories that Chinese consumers have never tried before; and a culture of fitting in.

Word-of-Mouth Marketing: China's authentic advocates

Asit GuptaAdvocacy

Consumer attitudes and the media landscape in China present unique challenges. An authentic approach to word-of-mouth marketing using advocates can be a potential game changer, delivering growth at a fraction of traditional media spend.

Globally, word-of-mouth recommendations of friends and family have been consistently rated as the number-one driver of purchase. According to Nielsen's 2011 Global Trust in Advertising study, 92% of people trust WOM recommendations from friends and family, while the same figure for TV is almost half at 47%, and for online video it is 36%.

However, WOM of friends...

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