1. Role of Opinion Leaders in
Purchase Decisions

2. Consumer choice process is influenced by:
Friends
Family
Opinion Leaders

3. What is Opinion Leadership?
The process by which one person (Opinion Leader) informally influences
the action or attitudes of others who may be opinion seekers or merely
opinion recipients.
•How to use a specific product ?
•Which of several brands is best ?
• Which is the best place to shop ?

4. Impact of Opinion Leaders
 One influential persons word of mouth tends to affect the buying attitude of
two other people on an average*
 Incase of Online, this figures goes up to 8 people on an average.
 In a study of 7000 consumers in seven European countries, 60% were
influenced to use a new brand by family and friends.
* Study by Burson-Marsteller and Roper Starch Worldwide
“If you need to reach 2 million people then you just need to reach the
right 2000 in the right way and they will help you reach 2 million”

5. Impact is Product Specific
 Expensive, Risky & Infrequently Purchased Products
 Laptops
 Automobile
 Real Estate
 Financial Investments
 Health Care
 Products suggests Users Status or Taste
 Restaurants
 Travel Destinations / Hotels
 Lifestyle Products
 Golf accessories

6. How measure opinion leadership?
 self-designating method
 sociometric method – closed community and ask people what they think
about something
 key informant method – these are the central people
 objective method

7. Personality of Opinion Leaders
 They have a keener level of interest
 More knowledgeable about the product category
 Tend to be more innovative about their purchases than their followers
 Are non-conforming, more self-confident, more sociable and cosmopolitan
and socially higher on perceived risk.

8. Demographic Characteristics of Opinion Leaders
 Opinion leaders tend to be younger, often with more education, higher
income and higher occupational status
 Opinion leaders for movies tend to be young and single
 Opinion leaders for food purchase have been found to be predominantly
married
 In contrast, those for giving information and advise on medical services are
predominantly unmarried

9. What Motivates Opinion Leaders?
 Reason 1:
They may use conversation as a dissonance reducing process for products
for products they have bought.
 Reason 2:
They may want to influence a friend or neighbor
 Reason 3:
They want to be self-involved ,when they may want to confirm their own
judgments.

10. Flow of Communication
Mass media Opinion
Leaders Opinion receivers/
seekers
Information receivers
Multi Step Flow of Communication Theory

11. Example - Automobiles
Opinion Leader
CONSUMER
Car Magazines
Websites
Auto Shows

12. Case 1 - Movies
• Minimum publicity
• More “Word of Mouth” buzz
• Worked more on recommendations and reviews
• Influenced by friends, family and peer circles

13. Adoption Diffusion Model
First Day
First Show
2nd
& 3rd
Day
– Sat & Sun First Week Later Weeks
CD, DVD,
TV Premiers

14. Case 2 – MouthShut.com
 A platform for Opinion Leaders
 Platform for writing reviews and rating products from any category
 Platform to interact with people of the same interest groups and create
communities
 Get ratings and opinions on different aspects of products

15.  Add members to your trusted circle based on the reviews they write
 View overall ratings for movies, products, services etc.
 Members can also in turn rate reviews to avoid biasness and invalid reviews
 You can also rate products based on your experiences
Case 2 – MouthShut.com

16. Case 3 – Tata Magic and Winger
To change the way people in urban and rural India travel
Tata Magic offers urban and rural areas a
comfortable, safe, four-wheeler public
transportation mode
Tata Winger offers a perfect blend of the comfort of a
car with the spaciousness of a bus for intra-city and
long-distancetransportation needs -
Combine Tata Motors’ traditional engineering excellence with strong
customer orientation
Influencing – Private transport operators , Vegetable vendors etc

17. The free browser, called "Chrome," is being promoted
as a sleeker, faster and more secure alternative to
Microsoft's Internet Explorer, which has been the leading
vehicle for surfing the Web for the past decade
Case 4 – Chrome, Google
• Usage of cartoon characters as a strategy to create a loyal user base

18. THANK YOU!!!