Explain the concepts of word-of-mouth influence, opinion leaders, and buzz marketing

What will be an ideal response?

Word-of-mouth influence can have a powerful impact on consumer buying behavior. The personal words and recommendations of trusted friends, associates, and other consumers tend to be more credible than those coming from commercial sources. Most word-of-mouth influence happens naturally: Consumers start chatting about a brand they use or feel strongly about one way or the other. Often, however, rather than leaving it to chance, marketers can help to create positive conversations about their brands. Marketers of brands subjected to strong group influence must figure out how to reach opinion leaders — people within a reference group who, because of special skills, knowledge, personality, or other characteristics, exert social influence on others. Marketers try to identify opinion leaders for their products and direct marketing efforts toward them. Buzz marketing involves enlisting or even creating opinion leaders to serve as "brand ambassadors" who spread the word about a company's products. For example, Mercedes-Benz wanted get more people talking about its all-new, soon-to-be-launched 2014 CLA model, priced at $29,900 and aimed at getting a new generation of younger consumers into the Mercedes brand. So it challenged five of Instagram's most influential photographers — everyday Gen Y consumers whose stunning imagery had earned them hundreds of thousands of fans -- to each spend five days behind the wheel of a CLA, documenting their journeys in photos shared via Instagram. The photographer who got the most "likes" got to keep the CLA. The short campaign really got people buzzing about the car, earning 87 million social media impressions and more than 2 million likes. Ninety percent of the social conversation was positive. And when Mercedes launched the CLA the following month, it broke sales records. Many companies now create brand ambassador programs in an attempt to turn influential but everyday customers into brand evangelists.