38 Admap • January 2005 © World Advertising Research Center 2005

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THE ADVENT OF customer manage-ment tools and their effect oncontemporary marketing still

leaves many unanswered questions. Howcan marketers use detailed customer datato their best effect? Can marketing activi-ties be tailored to suit different types ofcustomers, down to an individual level?How can technology be used to leveragecustomer behaviour? These are just someof the questions we hear day in, day out.

Word-of-mouth endorsement and positive communication are a key resultof good customer management. A deeplyconnected customer will tell others abouttheir positive experiences, so customermanagement is there to facilitate thisprocess and provide continuity, by com-bining marketing techniques that createawareness, proactive peer-to-peer com-munication, endorsement, and even‘buzz’. However, customer advocacy, by our definition, is much more than simply word of mouth. Advocacy is thefusion of understanding customer needs,interpreting value perceptions, motiva-tions and consumer behaviours and then leveraging the customer’s emotionalrelationship with the supplier.

‘Advocacy Multiplier™’ has beendeveloped by NOP World to help under-

stand, identify and capitalise on customeradvocacy factors. For many businesses,there is an immediate need to developand implement not only advanced customer management techniques, butalso introduce ‘personal’ marketing, facil-itated by viral marketing approachesthrough the internet, email, mobilephones, ‘blogging’ and other new entriesinto the less traditional marketing mix.These techniques can be extremely powerful, as they create sets of activecommunication pathways whereby thirdparties ‘pass on the message’, multiplyingthe effect and strengthening the messageby reframing what had been merely amarketing message to one that consti-tutes a personal, direct endorsement.

Unlike other evaluative techniques,advocacy levels can be tracked throughthe measurement of the entire cus-tomer/supplier interface, segmented byvarying degrees of loyalty and also con-sidering emotional values and behaviour.

Who are the advocates?Rachel Baynes, the head of customerinsight at Abbey, defines advocacy as ‘an unprompted recommendation of aproduct, service or brand during a con-versation’. We would add that it is

supported and maintained by processesthat optimise the customer experience ateach ‘touchpoint’ and in each messagingopportunity.

NOP World ranks customer advocatesin four degrees: indifferent, fulfiled, com-mitted and active. Indifferent customershave little or no loyalty to a particularbrand or product and think other brandsin the marketplace can meet their needs.They tend to have at best a fairly benign,or passive, relationship with the supplierand are the group most likely to stopusing the brand altogether.

Fulfiled customers are happy with theproduct or service that they receive, but itis still almost a functional relationship,focusing on the tangible aspects of value.Going higher up the scale, committedcustomers are loyal, with regular patron-age behaviour, and even demonstrationof being cross-sold and up-sold, but theystill have a relatively passive relationshipwith a supplier in terms of going out andpromoting the brand. An example of acommitted customer is one who buys aSony television every few years, but doesnot have the type of emotional bond withSony that makes them want to talk toothers about the brand, unless prompted.

Active advocates are fully committed,with an emotional bond beyond the typi-cal relationship of customer and supplier.They are the customers with the highestlevel of involvement – active, vocal andproud. These are the ‘crème de la crème’ –the people who ‘live’ the brands that theyregularly use. Their lifestyle mirrors thatof the brand and they are active in talkingabout their experiences.

Owners of Harley-Davidson motorcycles who are members of the HarleyOwners Group (HOG) clubs around theworld are very visible advocates for thebrand. They not only buy the motorcycles, but they actively accessorise withHarley-Davidson equipment, wear a vastarray of Harley-Davidson clothing andenthusiastically participate in Harley-Davidson events. Starting with fewerthan 50 in 1983, HOG has grown to more

Tim Wragg and Michael Lowenstein, NOP World, examine the elusive potentialof detailed consumer information and how to achieve customer advocacy

The marketing valueof customer advocacy

%

80

70

60

50

40

30

20

10

0

Indifferent Fulfiled Committed Advocates

Source: NOP World Proprietary Supermarket Study Dec 2003/Jan 2004 Base: 903 respondents

Average Tesco Somerfield

Difference between the advocacy segments: share of spendFIGURE 1

Reproduced with permission of Admap, the world’s primary source of strategies for effective advertising,marketing and research. To subscribe visit www.admapmagazine.com © World Advertising Research Center

January 2005 • Admap 39

overlook or make excuses for imperfec-tions – recent examples of poor batterylife in iPods were labelled ‘quirks’ ratherthan failings by the active advocates.

According to our advocacy multiplierresearch, Mercedes-Benz enjoys the highest percentage of active customeradvocates of all global brands. These owners not only drive Mercedes, they regularly talk about their experience withothers, they live a lifestyle to match anyMercedes brochure. As a result Mercedeshas a group of incredibly loyal customerswho carry the brand to areas that mar-keters are normally unable to reach.

Getting the conditions rightCustomers make their decisions based onthe tangible and the intangible elementsof perceived value. The tangible elementsare the functionality, design and purposeof any product or service and also includethe costs to purchase and maintain.Before any product or service is madeavailable for purchase, these basic, tangi-ble elements need to be right. Creating apositive attitude toward the product orservice, ie customer satisfaction, is the

starting point for successful advocacy. Value is at the very heart of under-

standing how supplier and individualpurchase decisions are made and we viewthis as common to all customers. Deeplyheld, value-driven beliefs are the emo-tional drivers that set the table for loyalty,commitment and ultimately advocacy.‘Value for money’, a surrogate for cost and a tangible component of value, has a greater or lesser role in decision-making,depending on the individual customerand purchase situation. Intangible elements are the emotional drivers thatare core to customer advocacy. In con-sumer products and services, they arepredominant in customer decision-mak-ing; however, they are also significantfactors in business-to-business value perception, which many companies andresearch suppliers do not consider.

While the creation and sustaining ofloyalty behaviour are critical and essen-tial objectives for any business, oftencompanies try to address these with a ‘loyalty programme’, in order to increasefrequency, ‘recency’ and customer spend.However, loyalty behaviour, by defini-tion, is built upon a complex emotionalrelationship between two parties. Themodification of behaviour only resultsonce the ‘loyalty bond’ is experiencedover time, making it more difficult forcustomers to change alliance and easierfor them to align their behaviour to thebenefit of the business.

The blending of effective loyalty pro-grammes and loyalty behaviour is notachieved without forethought and effort.Had Tesco not had sufficient, in-depthdata on the level of involvement of its millions of Clubcard members, the chainwould never have been able successfullyto introduce Tesco Personal Finance, itssuite of banking and financial services;Tesco’s Baby Club (where 80% of cus-tomers’ register their babies before theyare born); its Kids’ Club (where permis-sion is required from parents to engage indialogue with their children) and its on-line service. Tesco has achieved

than 800,000 members, over half ofwhom attend at least one Harley-David-son event per year.

How important is advocacy to the company? Harley-Davidson does almostno advertising, depending upon its com-munity of advocates to purchase bothmotorcycles and logo gear and spread theword to others. Customer advocacyaffects virtually every area of companyactivity. As John Russell, managing direc-tor of Harley-Davidson Europe, has said:‘If it is important to the customer, if it is agood insight; if it is a good point of under-standing and connection to the customer– it makes its way into business processesand becomes part of what we do’ (1).

Another illustration of customer advo-cacy is the iPod phenomenon – you cannot stop iPod users from talking abouttheir experiences. As long as they are areliable and credible source of informa-tion (see the section on Influentials,below) their power to convince others iscolossal. Once this level of relationship isestablished, loyalty is a given – even attimes when products or services are lessthan perfect. Active advocates can often

© World Advertising Research Center 2005

A brand I trust

Reliable products

Cutting-edgetechnology

Makes me feelhappy and cheerful

Makes me feelpampered

High quality

Really cares about how satisfied I am

Indifferent Active brand advocates

Source: based on a sample of 1,206 drawn from Roper Reports Worldwide, 2004

Sony: making an active advocate FIGURE 2

40%

48%

41%

23%

16%

49%

16%

62%

65%

59%

37%

29%

62%

29%

Tim Wragg is global directorat the CustomerManagement Centre ofExcellence at NOP World.

Michael Lowenstein issenior vice president of USOperations at the CustomerManagement Centre ofExcellence at NOP World.

40 Admap • January 2005 © World Advertising Research Center 2005

remarkable results with these pro-grammes because it has createdemotional relevance for its Clubcardmembers; the ability to offer services thatconnect with customers on a highly personal, individualistic level.

The evidenceIt is vital that brands are true to theirbrand promise, minimising or eliminat-ing over-promise and under-delivery.They must clearly appeal to customer values and lifestyle in communicationsand experience creation and have a distinctive, positive, point of difference.While it is more challenging for globalbrands to engage emotionally with theircustomers, targeted research can beapplied to identify niches or segmentsthat may be the strongest start-points fornurturing advocacy.

Building brand and supplier advocacydoes not lie with customers alone. Internaladvocacy is as important as external. Thewhole organisation has to believe in thebrand and what it stands for, from thechairman through to the receptionist. Ifemployees do not share and communicatepassion, excitement and emotional attach-ment to a brand, how can they expectcustomers to exhibit this behaviour?

Boots the Chemist is an excellentexample of direct employee involve-ment in bringing value and advocacy tocustomers. When Boots’ loyalty schemewas about to launch, it started withemployees, who were actively encour-aged to use the programme personally.As a result, whenever customers had anyquestions, Boots’ staff were alreadyactive users and advocates for the pro-gramme and they were able to helpcustomers well beyond the normal callof duty as well as being highly enthusi-astic spokespersons for it.

InfluentialsTM: believe it or notOnce the conditions are right, the mes-sage needs to be delivered by a crediblesource. As Rachel Baynes of Abbey says,‘We are presented with so many mediamessages throughout the day that we canexperience overload, and the impact ofadvertising and editorial decreases.’ Del-uged with messages and informationfrom traditional media, consumers oftenturn to the most reliable alternatives:friends, colleagues and relatives.

This is an era where spam, pop-up ads,telemarketing and other forms of target-ed advertising and promotion, indeedmost forms of electronic and print

advertising, receive low trust scores incustomer research. Beyond permission email, brand websites and the like, customer trust is highest for word ofmouth. How high? More than 90% ofconsumers, as identified in a recentstudy (2), said they trust word of mouth,compared to less than half of that formost other forms of advertising andcommunication. While, since 1977, theaggregate value of advertising as a deci-sion-making influence has remainedabout the same, word of mouth has doubled in leveraging power to the pointwhere it is the dominant communica-tion device in our society. Through itsstudies, NOP World Roper Reports™ haslearned that over 90% of customers iden-tify word of mouth as the best, mostreliable source of ideas and informationabout products and services, about thesame percentage who find it the mosttrustworthy source.

The media has a number of ‘influen-tials’: in the UK, Jeremy Clarkson(motoring expert) can make or break a newcar, and likewise reviews by TV chat showhosts Richard and Judy can determine thesuccess of a book. Here, we are concerned

with the percentage of society that has asmuch credibility and power as the media.NOP World defines these as the ‘Influen-tials’ and has carried out research in thisarea for more than 40 years.

‘Influentials’ are the 10% of the popu-lation who lead trends, shape publicopinion and influence the buying powerof the other 90%. People look to Influen-tials for advice on how to vote, what towear, where to eat – on any aspect of lifewhere there is choice. The power of theinfluentials has yet to be fully explored bybusinesses, but their impact is not to beunderestimated. This is where trendsstart and public opinions and perceptionscan be swayed.

There is nothing stronger than word-of-mouth recommendation from a reliablesource. Have you ever asked a friend to recommend a bank? There are certain people you would ask, and some that youwould not. Why? Because there are only afew people that you would trust and thesepeople would be independent, unbiased(you would not ask a bank manager to recommend a bank), have real experi-ences and they are able to be critical whennecessary. Chances are a positive word-of-

Source: NOP World Roper Reports Worldwide, May 2004; based on in-depth personal interviews with 30,000+13–65 year olds across 30 countries (1,000 interviews per country)

Measured by percentage of customers classified as ‘Active brand advocates’

Active advocates: top ten ranking brands FIGURE 3

59%

53%

51%

50%

46%

43%

43%

42%

41%

38%

Mercedes

BMW

Toyota

Nokia

Sony

Estée Lauder

Lancôme

Clinique

Ford

Nike

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January 2005 • Admap 41© World Advertising Research Center 2005

mouth recommendation from an ‘Influ-ential’ would result in a sale.

How to measure advocacy?Something as important as advocacyneeds to be measured. For Victoria Hodson, British Airways’ head of marketresearch, it is the best measure of customer satisfaction. ‘We believe word-of-mouth is a powerful influence onpurchase behaviour and therefore a satis-fied customer puts their own credibilityat risk when they make a personal recom-mendation,’ she comments.

Identification is easy, with current cus-tomer management systems able at leastto work out who is spending. Mixed withresearch, businesses can pin-point anddistinguish between active advocates andmerely satisfied customers. Tracking surveys, customer comments and stafffeedback are also vital to monitor overallcustomer experience and find out what isbeing said about a brand behind closeddoors.

How can advocacy be used?While most businesses tend to focus theirattention (and budgets) on attractingprospective customers or increasing thespending by infrequent ones, understand-ing advocacy allows businesses to nurtureand multiply value among their existingcustomers. By ensuring that experienceexceeds expectation and by buildingappropriate mechanisms to develop emo-tional values of loyalty and trust, advocacycan increase brand value exponentially.

Understanding what motivates youractive customers can have other benefits.It can be used in R&D, for example, or inthe creation of partnerships and jointmarketing initiatives.

Achieving strong brand and supplieradvocacy is not easy, and is a long-termgoal. However, it can be the most power-ful tool in a brand’s armoury – movingcustomers up the ‘value chain’ withoutcompromising their independence, objec-tivity and personal integrity. It is alsoabout nurturing customers for mutualbenefit, not exploiting them. Withresearch showing that word of mouth is42% more effective than advertising, canbusinesses afford to ignore it? ■

1. From H.O.G. (Harley Owners’ group) website.

2. Forrester and Infoseek, 2004.

twragg@nopworld.commlowenstein@nopworld.com

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