ABSTRACT

This chapter considers marketing within a social context by focusing on the powerful role of personal influence in consumption and the implications of increasing consumer connectedness for marketing strategy. The girls are invited to check in to the agency's website weekly where they are introduced to new products and ideas, and are asked to complete surveys, polls, and personality quizzes. Consumer-action groups often strive to bring pressure on members of the business community, politicians, or other influential persons to affect change relative to a consumer-related issue or problem. The emergence of the computer and the Internet has brought into the forefront a new type of reference group that encompasses any collectivity of individuals online, whether it be a social network, an Internet forum, a social software web application, or a group of blogs. The worldwide embrace of social networks has been rapid and impressive, and recent analyses of Internet usage activity attest to their soaring popularity.