ABSTRACT
By definition, opinion leadership is everyday and casual. If this is true for opinion leadership in general, it holds particularly for the arena of marketing, since, for most women, marketing for household goods is virtually a continuous routine. Gregariousness, then, is a characteristic of the marketing leader. The relationship between gregariousness and marketing leadership holds true for women of each life-cycle type. Taken together, life-cycle and gregariousness tell the marketing leadership story. Status position played no role in the determination of marketing leader concentrations. Instead, marketing leaders appeared in consistent proportions on each status level. Nevertheless, social status positions constituted fairly clear-cut boundaries for the flow of influence. Both advisee and opinion leader tended to share the same status position. In analyzing the flow of influence within the household, it is important to separate “requests” from “influences.”
