WOM and the Home Products Category
by John Moore, TalkTrack® Conversationalist, January 4, 2011Tags: Brands, Home Products, Keller Fay Group, research, Social media, TalkTrack®, WOM, word of mouth
Many of us spent lots of time the past two weeks in our homes with family and friends celebrating the holidays and the New Year. Others spent the past two weeks at home cocooned because of wintry weather. If wintry weather hasn’t forced you to spend more time in your home, it probably will. And when we spend time inside our homes, we end up talking to family and friends in person, by phone, or online. Which of course leads us to talking about word of mouth and home appliance brands.
Keller Fay recently culled their data on WOM about the home products category. Usually this marketing data is reserved for Keller Fay clients, but as the TalkTrack Conversationalist I’ve been given special access (and permission) to share some of the findings.
Compared to other product categories, home appliances do not enter many brand-related word of mouth conversations. (Let’s face it: it’s just not sexy to talk about washers/dryers and the latest advances in refrigerator appliance technology.)
According to Keller Fay’s ongoing TalkTrack® study, 30% of the American population (ages 18-69) will talk about home brands at least one time per day in conversations with others. This means American adults will mention home brands about 22 BILLION times throughout an entire year. (While the home product category may lack sexiness, it doesn’t lack talkability.)
The demographic split among Americans talking about the home category is as expected with women more likely to talk about the category than are men. Age-wise, 64% of word of mouth conversations about the home category take place between Americans ages 30 to 59.
When Americans talk about home products category brands, it’s usually far more positive than negative. Only 8% of these conversations are categorized as “negative,” 14% are “mixed,” and 67% are “positive.” Interestingly, the Kenmore brand receives more positive WOM than its competitors and has the best “Net Advocacy Score” of any brand in the home products category.
In measuring the polarity of positive to negative WOM conversations, Keller Fay has developed the “Net Advocacy Score.” This measurement shows the percentage of positive talk minus the percentage of negative and mixed talk, with neutral sentiment not calculated. The higher the Net Advocacy Score, the more positive sentiment people have about a brand. Conversely, a low Net Advocacy Score means more negative conversations are happening about a brand.
As the image shows, Maytag, General Electric, and Whirlpool all have Net Advocacy Scores that are 20 points lower than Kenmore’s rating. That’s significant and alarming for marketers at Maytag, General Electric, and Whirlpool because Keller Fay statistics have shown that more positive WOM about a brand equates to higher sales.
Next week, we’ll take a deeper dive into word of mouth about the home products category by sharing statistics and implications arising from the brand-related conversations influential Americans (i.e., Conversation Catalysts™) are having about the home products category.
Feed
