Graph description

The bar chart compares statistics for two years, 2007 and 2020, for word-of-mouth brand advertising in the United States according to conversation models. The horizontal axis represents communication method groups, while the vertical axis depicts the data that these groups utilized, separated into two columns in pink for 2007 and blue for 2020. This chart is published on Engagement Labs, and the data are expressed as a percentage.

Word-of-mouth advertising is a popular kind of brand advertising since it is simple to implement, and it may also involve a daily conversation; therefore, the entire population of the United States relates to the above figures. As can be seen from the chart, face-to-face communication accounted for a high percentage of overall brand advertising conversation methods in 2007, accounting for 73.8 percent, followed by a telephone conversation at 16.7 percent. Especially, the percentage of word-of-mouth generated by video calls was 0 percent. Because a series of smartphones were released on the market in 2007, later phones evolved and incorporated a front camera, giving consumers additional opportunities to make a video call. And in 2020 this figure increased to 3.5 percent.

Although the face-to-face conversations decreased by around 8 percent, it is still the most popular kind of word-of-mouth brand advertising conversation in 2020. Between 2007 and 2020, most forms of conversation used to advertise brands exhibit significant fluctuations, with the instant message/ text message nearly doubling to 7.9 percent and a group of the online chat room, blog, Twitter, and social networking nearly tripling to 3 percent. However, the percentage of word-of-mouth generated by phone calls remained stable at about 17 percent.

The development and spread of the internet have contributed to major changes in human communication behavior over the last 10 years. As a result, people's attitudes about word-of-mouth advertising have changed. This explains why, between 2007 and 2020, word-of-mouth advertising communication methods such as text messages, video calls, and social media grew and grew. However, it cannot be denied that both face-to-face and telephone communication continues to be dominant. Because, from 2007 to 2020, we lived in a period with both digital natives and digital immigrants, and these two models of communication were the preferred and most familiar to both groups of people, particularly digital immigrants.

I believe that word-of-mouth brand advertising will remain popular in the future due to its accuracy and convenience. However, I anticipate that the face-to-face model will continue to decline, while video calls and social media will gain in popularity and become important forms of communication in word-of-mouth advertising. Because the epidemic scenario, at least for the time being, inhibits people's chance to communicate with one another in person. Furthermore, thanks to technological advancements, contacting individuals online has never been easier or more convenient.

To sum up, word-of-mouth advertising is a common type of brand advertising used by a large company like Apple Inc. Although there was a considerable difference in conversation models in 2007, the gap has narrowed by 2020.