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WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT WORD OF MOUTH Numbers, The Downside of Digital Word of Mouth Please And the Pursuit of Media Quality How Social Sharing Is Disrupting Digital Advertising Models and Metrics GIAN M. FulgoNI INTRODUCTION from person to person. Word-of-mouth communi- comScore, Inc. When the mobile Internet was still in its early cation plays on the value of trust to persuade how [email protected] growth phase, around 2012, social-networking others think, feel, and act. We know this from his- usage shifted quickly in its direction. What fol- tory, long before “social media” entered the pub- ANDREW LIPSMAN lowed was an unprecedented boom in viral content lic lexicon. Remember the 1982 Fabergé Organics comScore, Inc. that shook the digital world. Shampoo spot that made Heather Locklear the face [email protected] Social media became so powerful a medium for of peer-to-peer advertising? “She liked her sham- spreading content and ideas that it was inevitable poo so much, she told two friends, who told two there eventually would be attempts to exploit it. friends, who told two more friends, ‘and so on and Within a very short time, the environment became so on and so on’” (Precourt, 2014, p. 124). riddled with various forms of “digital pollu- Marketers in the early 2000s became further tion”—from spam to fraud and “fake news”— the enamored with the potential of word of mouth prevalence of which has been accelerated and exac- when popular books—like Malcolm Gladwell’s erbated by the rise of programmatic advertising. (2000) The Tipping Point and Ed Keller and Jon The digital-media environment has evolved so Berry’s (2003) The Influentials—entered the pub- quickly that the metrics infrastructure has been chal- lic discourse. By the middle of the first decade, as lenged to keep pace. Digital word of mouth, in the the Internet began to mature as a communication form of the rapid sharing of content via social and medium with the emergence of social networks, the mobile channels, both has democratized content and need to reconsider the original model of how word has created a system of incentives that has commod- of mouth works became clear. With the average itized the ecosystem. The short-term chase for bigger person no longer limited to influencing only those audience metrics and greater impression volume has in his or her immediate circle of friends and family led to significant challenges for media economics. through person-to-person interactions, the Internet Metrics have been a part of the problem but also suddenly was enabling influence at scale. People promise to be part of the solution. The fundamental could make (or solicit) recommendations instantly metrics of media planning and campaign measure- to the hundreds of people in their networks. ment—impressions, reach, frequency, and demo- No longer did the truly powerful ideas or prod- graphics—need not go away. The difference now is ucts require a long and sustained grassroots effort that these metrics need a higher level of validation to gain critical mass and enter the public conscious- to ensure that the inventory being bought is clean, ness. The density of communication and velocity legitimate, and appearing in environments condu- with which ideas could spread on social networks cive to effective advertising. meant that if something resonated with the public, it could gain mass exposure very quickly. THE RISE OF DIGITAL WORD OF MOUTH Social sharing was thought of as a panacea for There is no more powerful way of communicating both users and marketers, with the promise that the information, including marketing messages, than most powerful ideas and marketing messages had DOI: 10.2501/JAR-2017-020 June 2017 JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING RESEARCH 127 WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT WORD OF MOUTH a path to maximum exposure. The Internet This growth was generated exclusively and world leaders have conversations on had an even greater potential to democra- by mobile audiences, which increased Twitter,” Williams wrote in one of his blog tize ideas and break through traditional 127 percent during that time period (com- posts. “If that’s happening, I frankly don’t distribution barriers. This meant brands Score, 2016a; See Figure 1). [care] if Instagram has more people look- had to get comfortable ceding some con- Publishers gained the added benefit ing at pretty pictures.”4 trol over their message, but also that they of audience scale, a positive develop- At Medium, Williams advocated use of could find new and creative ways to reach ment that typically would translate into a “total time reading” metric to capture and engage their customers. improved business prospects. Larger scale the overall engagement of his audience On a commercial level, Dollar Shave means an improved ability to reach tar- base rather than relying solely on metrics Club broke through with a highly effec- get audiences and be included in adver- of audience scale. But in January 2017, tive viral video advertisement that helped tisers’ media plans. Yet publishers often Williams announced that Medium was an unknown brand reach millions of men had difficulty effectively monetizing retooling its business in search of a new tired of paying too much for razors.1 At a their mobile inventory and could not take monetization model not dependent on more societal level, there was the poten- full advantage of this increased scale. advertisements.5 It seems that audience tial for spreading positive messages for Their predicament suggested that the scale remains essential for advertising- important causes, such as the Ice Bucket sometimes-singular pursuit of audience driven business models, but Williams also Challenge for building awareness of scale was shortsighted. makes a good argument that it may not be amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), other- Although top-line metrics of scale more sufficient. wise known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. (The easily could be achieved, metrics dem- Ice Bucket Challenge eventually led to the onstrating the depth of engagement and “Fake News” and Misaligned Incentives discovery of a gene tied to the disease.2) quality of the media environment often The problems of identifying the right met- Social media also helped engage more were overlooked. Dmitry Shishkin, digital rics further were compounded by corrup- citizens in the political process, by encour- development editor of BBC World Service tive practices in digital media. Indeed, the aging voting and providing improved Group, in 2015 said that with mobile “you viral content boom created a powerful way means of participation and grassroots might get random traffic spikes, but you for those seeking to take advantage of the organizing. won’t get engagement. We must figure out platform in potentially damaging ways. how to monetize minutes of engagement, Suddenly, the promise of digital word of Grappling with Metrics: not just eyeballs.”3 mouth at scale also was attracting various The Primacy of Audience Scale Another prominent publishing execu- forms of digital pollution that made the By the end of this century’s first decade— tive elaborated on this point. Evan Wil- environment less attractive and harder for as digital media time-shifted to mobile— liams, who cofounded Twitter and later marketers to navigate. users were spending more time in front of launched the blogging platform Medium, Case in point: Donald J. Trump’s sur- their screens than ever before. As social- questioned the industry’s overreliance prising march to victory in the 2016 U.S. media platforms referred significant traffic on “monthly active users” in response to presidential election. In the wake of this to a variety of publishers, digital audiences a headline about Instagram surpassing shocking result, which belied the many consistently climbed. The top 1,000 digital Twitter on that metric. Reducing every polls predicting a comfortable victory for media properties’ average U.S. monthly digital-publisher conversation to a single Hillary Clinton, many placed blame at the audience rose to 16.8 million in December metric of audience scale fails to acknowl- feet of various media channels (See “What 2016 from 12.3 million in December 2013, edge the many other factors that make an Survey Researchers Can Learn from the a gain of 37 percent in just three years. audience unique. “[Twitter is a] realtime 2016 U.S. Pre-Election Polls,” page 182). information network where everything 1 J. P. Pullen, “How a Dollar Shave Club’s Ad Went Viral,” in the world that happens occurs on Twit- 4 E. Williams, “A Mile Wide, an Inch Deep,” Janu- October 13, 20102. Retrieved March 24, 2017, from Entre- ter — important stuff breaks on Twitter ary 5, 2015. Retrieved March 24, 2017, from Medium: preneur.com: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/224282. https://medium.com/@ev/a-mile-wide-an-inch-deep 2 K. Rogers, “The ‘Ice Bucket Challenge’ Helped Scientists -48f36e48d4cb#.esbb9tb5a. Discover a New Gene Tied to A.L.S,” The New York Times, 3 J. Davies, “Publishers Share Their Biggest Headaches in 5 M. Gajanan, “Medium Announced Major Layoffs,” January July 27, 2016. Retrieved March 24, 2017, from https://www Monetizing Mobile,” October 6, 2015. Retrieved March 24, 4, 2017. Retrieved March 24, 2017, from Fortune.com: http:// .nytimes.com/2016/07/28/health/the-ice-bucket-challenge 2017, from Digiday.com: http://digiday.com/uk/publishers fortune.com/2017/01/04/medium-layoff-announcment -helped-scientists-discover-a-new-gene-tied-to-als.html. -monetizing-mobile-headaches/. -ev-williams/. 128 JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING RESEARCH June 2017 THE DownSIDE OF Digital WOrD OF MOuTH AnD THE PurSuIT OF MEDIA QuAlity THEARF.ORG inventory and media environment tends to Total Digital Desktop Mobile 20 take a back seat. 18 In this environment, the incentive 16.8 16 changes for content producers.