A Study of the Influence of Source Characteristics and Product Importance on Consumer Word of Mouth Based on Personal Sources

In mature markets, the information search mechanism of the consumer for purchase decisions includes per sonal sources, where word of mouth communication (WOM) is an important influence on decisions, judged by the diffusion process. At that stage, the information available to the consumer is through both commercial media as well as personal sources. When they further transmit recommendations, it is likely to be based on personal sources also. Opinion leadership is well understood in terms of the effects of mass media, but there is much less known about the impact of personal sources on this phenomenon. Marketers try to stimulate the right kind of WOM through mass media and it is further known that higher product importance generally stimulates more word of mouth. These two aspects of recommendation based on personal sources, viz., how recommendations are effected by the source characteristics of credibility and reliance on the information in their own purchase decisions; and the effect of product importance on the same, were studied in this survey. The results indicate that both source characteristics have a significant effect on recommendations based on information from personal sources. Further, there was no significant difference in the recommendation ten dency across product importance types, where recommendations were based on personal sources.