What’s a Brand Advocate, Anyway? 21
Figure 1.9 Category Breakdown of Recommendations Source: Zuberance, Brand Advocate Research, January 2012.
CAN’T KEEP A SECRET Brand Advocates would make terrible CIA operatives. They just can’t keep a secret. And it’s not just one or two categories of products they recommend. Advocates recommend lots of different types of products. Figure 1.9 illustrates consumer responses to the question: What categories of products do you make the most recommendations?
ADVOCACY MOVES ONLINE Remember the old Faberg´e shampoo commercial featuring a 20something Heather Locklear? ‘‘I told a friend and she told a friend, and so on and so on . . . ’’ While offline is by far the most popular communications channel for Advocates, they also work online via personal networks and thirdparty shopping and review sites that recommend brands and products, a Zuberance study showed (see Figure 1.10).