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What makes mavens tick? Exploring the motives of market mavens’ initiation of information diffusion

What makes mavens tick? Exploring the motives of market mavens’ initiation of information diffusion With growing competition and the increasing complexity of commercial information, interpersonal communication continues to be important to marketers. Market mavens, those consumers with general product knowledge that act as disseminators of product information, play a central role in influencing others’ purchase decisions. Previous research, which has focused on mavens’ demographics and media consumption, has neglected the motives that drive these consumer communicators. From a survey of 326 consumers, we explore how those respondents ranked high on the maven scale differ in terms of their motivations to engage in word‐of‐mouth behavior from those scoring lower on the maven scale. Our results indicate that market mavens, compared with moderate and non‐mavens, are motivated to a greater extent by a sense of obligation to share information, a desire to help others, and feelings of pleasure associated with informing others about products. The relationship between initial information diffusion, maven group, and the investigated motivations are also explored. Implications for marketers targeting mavens are offered. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Journal of Consumer Marketing Emerald Publishing

What makes mavens tick? Exploring the motives of market mavens’ initiation of information diffusion

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References (49)

Publisher
Emerald Publishing
Copyright
Copyright © Emerald Group Publishing Limited
ISSN
0736-3761
DOI
10.1108/07363760410525678
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

With growing competition and the increasing complexity of commercial information, interpersonal communication continues to be important to marketers. Market mavens, those consumers with general product knowledge that act as disseminators of product information, play a central role in influencing others’ purchase decisions. Previous research, which has focused on mavens’ demographics and media consumption, has neglected the motives that drive these consumer communicators. From a survey of 326 consumers, we explore how those respondents ranked high on the maven scale differ in terms of their motivations to engage in word‐of‐mouth behavior from those scoring lower on the maven scale. Our results indicate that market mavens, compared with moderate and non‐mavens, are motivated to a greater extent by a sense of obligation to share information, a desire to help others, and feelings of pleasure associated with informing others about products. The relationship between initial information diffusion, maven group, and the investigated motivations are also explored. Implications for marketers targeting mavens are offered.

Journal

Journal of Consumer Marketing – Emerald Publishing

Published: Mar 1, 2004

Keywords: Information exchange; Consumer behaviour; Interpersonal communications; Marketing information

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