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In promotion and advertising, a testimonial or show consists of a person's written or spoken statement extolling the virtue of a product. The term "testimonial" most commonly applies to the sales-pitches attributed to ordinary citizens, whereas the word "endorsement" usually applies to pitches by celebrities. Testimonials can be part of communal marketing.
Advertisers have attempted to quantify and qualify the use of celebrities in their marketing campaigns by evaluating the awareness generated, appeal, and relevance to a brand's image and the celebrity's influence on consumer buying behavior.
Social media such as Twitter have become[ when? ] increasingly[ quantify ] popular mediums for celebrities to endorse brands and to attempt to influence purchasing behavior. According to a study by Zenith, social media ad spending was $29 billion in 2016 and is expected to rise to $50 billion in 2019. [1] Advertising and marketing companies sponsor celebrities to tweet and influence thousands (sometimes millions) of their followers to buy brand products. For example, Ryan Seacrest (an American broadcaster) gets paid to promote Ford products. [2] Companies that pay celebs to tweet for them subscribe to the Malcolm Gladwell theory of influence.[ clarification needed ][ citation needed ]
Celebrity endorsements have proven very successful in China, where increasing consumerism makes the purchase of an endorsed product into a status symbol. On August 1, 2007, laws were passed banning healthcare professionals and public figures such as movie stars or pop singers from appearing in advertisements for drugs or nutritional supplements. A spokesperson stated, "A celebrity appearing in drug advertising is more likely to mislead consumers, therefore, the state must consider controlling medical advertisements and strengthen the management of national celebrities appearing in medical advertisements."[ citation needed ]
Testimonials from customers who are not famous have been effectively used in marketing for as long as marketing has existed.[ citation needed ] A past or current customer will present a formal "word of mouth" testimonial that a business can use in marketing and to build trust with future customers. Testimonials are incredibly effective when believed to be true, but a challenge is having the audience believe that testimonials presented by a business are given by real people, not fabricated by the business itself. Even so, testimonials, reviews, and case studies are still considered by most marketing experts to be the most effective means of marketing and gaining brand trust by small- and medium-sized businesses.
Testimonials have reached an all-time high in importance as the internet is now a plethora of reviews (synonymous with testimonials). Websites such as Yelp!, Google Maps, TripAdvisor, and many more have become 'go to' places for individuals who are seeking other customers reviews/testimonials about a particular business. To put the growth of this industry into perspective, for example, Yelp.com's growth alone can be noted: Yelp.com has more than 71 million monthly unique visitors as of January 2012.
Instagram especially has increasingly been useful in distributing testimonials on products and places. It is done by making use of the tagging feature that directly links to the original brand or the particular location that the picture was taken. Moreover, the description of the pictures are also used to write either the review or sentences that complements the product or place. Users with a large number of followers are commonly targeted for endorsement deal requests that aims to create these testimonial posts, where in return, the user receives commission for 'advertising' the place or product. However, it can only be called an endorsement deal when the company or label contacts the user directly to create such testimonial post, and the user receives commission. This is becoming a trend in Indonesia, especially amongst users with at least one thousand followers, where some are now known for posting pictures with advertising purposes.
The downside to such explosive importance in this arena is the massive amount of fraud in the form of fake reviews or opinion spam, testimonials that are not authentic. Often, a business owner will open multiple email addresses and then corresponding Yelp! accounts and write a multitude of testimonials seemingly by many customers of said business. Similarly, the same owner may also write negative reviews of competitors. From a New York Times article about the same topic, "On another forum, Digital Point, a poster wrote, 'I will pay for positive feedback on TripAdvisor.' A Craigslist post proposed this: 'If you have an active Yelp account and would like to make very easy money please respond.' There are tens-of-thousands of ads out there all over the internet of people requesting you to write bogus reviews for their business and people offering to do the same.". However, there are legitimate and legal ways for business owners to build their portfolio of reviews such as mentioning to customers that they value honest feedback and then providing them with the appropriate instructions for where they can review the business. [3]
There have also been allegations that review sites themselves are prepared to manipulate reviews in return for companies buying advertising subscriptions, [4] [5] with a class action being filed against Yelp to this effect in February 2010. [6]
Research by Martin, Wentzel and Tomczak (2008) found that the effectiveness of testimonials depends on the degree to which consumers are influenced by normative pressure and the quality of the product features highlighted. Results showed that people influenced by peer pressure place a greater emphasis on the testimonial than on the attribute information. In contrast, people who ignore the opinions of others are more influenced by attribute information. [7]
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) found that in US businesses, an alarming number of testimonials were in fact fictitious and misleading. In December 2009, they introduced a new set of rules governing testimonials. [8] In essence, it is now illegal to use testimonials that "...mislead consumers and affect consumers' behavior or decisions about the product or service." However, despite new regulations, online consumers often view testimonials with a high degree of skepticism. Companies from the private sector have begun to offer testimonial verification services [9] to help consumers verify the authenticity of displayed testimonials.
Advertising is the practice and techniques employed to bring attention to a product or service. Advertising aims to put a product or service in the spotlight in hopes of drawing it attention from consumers. It is typically used to promote a specific good or service, but there are wide range of uses, the most common being the commercial advertisement.
Sales promotion is one of the elements of the promotional mix. The primary elements in the promotional mix are advertising, personal selling, direct marketing and publicity/public relations. Sales promotion uses both media and non-media marketing communications for a pre-determined, limited time to increase consumer demand, stimulate market demand or improve product availability. Examples include contests, coupons, freebies, loss leaders, point of purchase displays, premiums, prizes, product samples, and rebates.
Viral marketing is a business strategy that uses existing social networks to promote a product mainly on various social media platforms. Its name refers to how consumers spread information about a product with other people, much in the same way that a virus spreads from one person to another. It can be delivered by word of mouth, or enhanced by the network effects of the Internet and mobile networks.
Consumer behaviour is the study of individuals, groups, or organisations and all the activities associated with the purchase, use and disposal of goods and services. Consumer behaviour consists of how the consumer's emotions, attitudes, and preferences affect buying behaviour. Consumer behaviour emerged in the 1940–1950s as a distinct sub-discipline of marketing, but has become an interdisciplinary social science that blends elements from psychology, sociology, social anthropology, anthropology, ethnography, ethnology, marketing, and economics.
In marketing, promotion refers to any type of marketing communication used to inform target audiences of the relative merits of a product, service, brand or issue, most of the time persuasive in nature. It helps marketers to create a distinctive place in customers' mind, it can be either a cognitive or emotional route. The aim of promotion is to increase brand awareness, create interest, generate sales or create brand loyalty. It is one of the basic elements of the market mix, which includes the four Ps, i.e., product, price, place, and promotion.
In marketing, brand loyalty describes a consumer's positive feelings towards a brand and their dedication to purchasing the brand's products and/or services repeatedly regardless of deficiencies, a competitor's actions, or changes in the environment. It can also be demonstrated with other behaviors such as positive word-of-mouth advocacy. Corporate brand loyalty is where an individual buys products from the same manufacturer repeatedly and without wavering, rather than from other suppliers. Loyalty implies dedication and should not be confused with habit, its less-than-emotional engagement and commitment. Businesses whose financial and ethical values rest in large part on their brand loyalty are said to use the loyalty business model.
Celebrity branding or celebrity endorsement is a form of advertising campaign or marketing strategy which uses a celebrity's fame or social status to promote a product, brand or service, or to raise awareness about an issue. Marketers use celebrity endorsers in hopes that the positive image of the celebrity endorser will be passed on to the product's or brand's image. Non-profit organizations also use celebrities since a celebrity's frequent mass media coverage reaches a wider audience, thus making celebrities an effective ingredient in fundraising.
Influencer marketing is a form of social media marketing involving endorsements and product placement from influencers, people and organizations who have a purported expert level of knowledge or social influence in their field. Influencers are someone with the power to affect the buying habits or quantifiable actions of others by uploading some form of original—often sponsored—content to social media platforms like Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, TikTok or other online channels. Influencer marketing is when a brand enrolls influencers who have an established credibility and audience on social media platforms to discuss or mention the brand in a social media post. Influencer content may be framed as testimonial advertising.
Food marketing brings together the food producer and the consumer through a chain of marketing activities.
Digital marketing is the component of marketing that uses the Internet and online-based digital technologies such as desktop computers, mobile phones and other digital media and platforms to promote products and services. Its development during the 1990s and 2000s changed the way brands and businesses use technology for marketing. As digital platforms became increasingly incorporated into marketing plans and everyday life, and as people increasingly used digital devices instead of visiting physical shops, digital marketing campaigns have become prevalent, employing combinations of search engine optimization (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), content marketing, influencer marketing, content automation, campaign marketing, data-driven marketing, e-commerce marketing, social media marketing, social media optimization, e-mail direct marketing, display advertising, e-books, and optical disks and games have become commonplace. Digital marketing extends to non-Internet channels that provide digital media, such as television, mobile phones, callbacks, and on-hold mobile ring tones. The extension to non-Internet channels differentiates digital marketing from online marketing.
"Youth Marketing" is a term used in the marketing and advertising industry to describe activities to communicate with young people, typically in the age range of 11 to 35. More specifically, there is teen marketing, targeting people age 11 to 17, college marketing, targeting college-age consumers, typically ages 18 to 24, and young adult marketing, targeting ages 25 to 34.
A brand ambassador is a person engaged by an organization or company to represent its brand in a positive light, helping to increase brand awareness and sales. The brand ambassador is meant to embody the corporate identity in appearance, demeanor, values and ethics. The key element of brand ambassadors is their ability to use promotional strategies that will strengthen the customer-product-service relationship, influence a large audience to buy and consume more.
Social commerce is a subset of electronic commerce that involves social media and online media that supports social interaction, and user contributions to assist online buying and selling of products and services.
Content marketing is a form of marketing focused on creating, publishing, and distributing content for a targeted audience online. It is often used by businesses in order to achieve the following goals: attract attention and generate leads, expand their customer base, generate or increase online sales, increase brand awareness or credibility, and engage an online community of users. Content marketing attracts new customers by creating and sharing valuable free content. It helps companies create sustainable brand loyalty, provides valuable information to consumers, and creates a willingness to purchase products from the company in the future.
Social network advertising, also known as "social media targeting," is a group of terms that are used to describe forms of online advertising and digital marketing that focus on social networking services. One of the significant benefits of this type of advertising is that advertisers can take advantage of the users' demographic information, psychographics and other data points to target their ads appropriately.
Marketing buzz or simply buzz—a term used in viral marketing—is the interaction of consumers and users with a product or service which amplifies or alters the original marketing message. This emotion, energy, excitement, or anticipation about a product or service can be positive or negative. Buzz can be generated by intentional marketing activities by the brand owner or it can be the result of an independent event that enters public awareness through social or traditional media such as newspapers. Marketing buzz originally referred to oral communication but in the age of Web 2.0, social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube are now the dominant communication channels for marketing buzz.
An internet celebrity is an individual who has acquired or developed their fame and notability on the Internet. The growing popularity of social media provides a means for people to reach a large, global audience. Internet celebrities are found on popular online platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, Whatsapp, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, Myspace, OnlyFans, Telegram, Twitter, Twitch, Reddit, Discord, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Tumblr, and Threads.
Social media marketing is the use of social media platforms and websites to promote a product or service. Although the terms e-marketing and digital marketing are still dominant in academia, social media marketing is becoming more popular for both practitioners and researchers. Most social media platforms have built-in data analytics tools, enabling companies to track the progress, success, and engagement of ad campaigns. Companies address a range of stakeholders through social media marketing, including current and potential customers, current and potential employees, journalists, bloggers, and the general public. On a strategic level, social media marketing includes the management of a marketing campaign, governance, setting the scope and the establishment of a firm's desired social media "culture" and "tone."
Social advertising is advertising that relies on social information or networks in generating, targeting, and delivering marketing communications. Many current examples of social advertising use a particular Internet service to collect social information, establish and maintain relationships with consumers, and for delivering communications. For example, the advertising platforms provided by Google, Twitter, and Facebook involve targeting and presenting ads based on relationships articulated on those same services. Social advertising can be part of a broader social media marketing strategy designed to connect with consumers.
The wanghong economy [internet celebrity economy] refers to the Chinese digital economy based on influencer marketing through social media platforms. Wanghong is the Chinese term for internet celebrity. Chinese wanghong celebrities attract the attention of internet users, which can translate into profit through e-commerce and online advertising.
