Revisiting firm-created word of mouth: High-value versus low-value seed selection

• We replicate Godes and Mayzlin's (2009) sales effect of firm-created word of mouth.
• Low-value customers are preferred seeds if noncustomers are inaccessible.
• If accessible, high-value unaware noncustomers are preferred seeds.

A field test similar to Godes and Mayzlin's (2009) conceptually replicates the sales effect of word-of-mouth campaigns and empirically confirms Haenlein and Libai's (2013) findings that seeds with high value to the brand are preferred among noncustomers of the product because they show the largest effect on incremental sales. Seeds with low value to the brand, as in Godes and Mayzlin's study, may be preferred if marketers are limited to work with product customers only. Additionally, those peers that are unaware of the campaign product, but have bought the brand in the past are mainly responsible for incremental sales.