Word of mouth has become the most dominant form of advertising to which today's college students pay attention. That's the key finding in a survey of American college students conducted by WOMMA member Alloy Marketing + Media and Harris Interactive.
According to the study, 91% of today's college students pay the most attention to WOM-based ads while 70% say word of mouth has the largest influence on their purchasing decisions. 48% reported that product sampling was the most influential technique when making purchasing decisions.
Source: Alloy Media + Marketing & Harris Interactive, "360 Youth College Explorer Study".
Read the press release
In Q1 2005, 30 percent of the online population visited a blog. It was most likely to be focused on politics and hosted at one of five hosting services. Those are some of the key findings in a major report from WOMMA member comScore Networks on the size and composition of the blogosphere. Other key findings include:
* Blogspot.com was the most popular blog host (followed by
LiveJournal, TypePad, Xanga, and AOL Journals).
* Community blogs that connect younger audiences are the
most "sticky" (highest average time spent at a blog).
* Political blogs were the most popular topic, followed by
hipster/lifestyle, tech, and blogs written by women.
comScore's Graham Mudd first discussed some of the report's findings at WOMMA's Measuring Word of Mouth Conference last month. Both Graham's presentation and the new report are available for download at our site.
Source: comScore Networks, "Behaviors of the Blogosphere:Activities of Weblog Audiencesodern Purchase Process".
Download the paper and presentation
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