This study aims to explore elusive ways in which marketing communications create value for customers and firms. A two-step comparative meta-analysis of prior studies on inorganic (advertising) and organic (word of mouth [WoM]) communication was conducted to provide their aggregate impact on different types of consumer and firm outcomes.
This study identified 157 unique research articles with 175 independent studies/samples with a cumulative sample size of 143,883 to conduct a meta-analysis.
This study examines the overall efficacy of advertising and WoM on five consumer-related and three firm-related outcomes. Furthermore, this study discusses the moderating effect of contextual factors (industry type, business context and location) on the different main effects to reveal interesting contextual insights.
This study offers theoretical contributions, provides clear managerial guidance and compiles a set of future research directions.
This study provides clear direction for managers as they try to choose between and create a mix of organic and inorganic modes of communication.
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this meta-analysis is the first in the field to systematically unravel the comparative effects of inorganic and organic communication.
