Quantum mechanics

World Wide Web

Linguistics

Philosophy

Communication

Pure mathematics

Word of mouth

Dynamics (music)

Event (particle physics)

Pedagogy

Dimension (graph theory)

Computer science

Business

Physics

Advertising

Psychology

Mathematics

Social media

Word (group theory)

Journal of Marketing Research

ABSTRACT Prior to their launch, many new products generate word of mouth (WOM) on social media. Such WOM typically increases toward the release date and contains sudden spikes. These spikes capture manifestations of peak consumer attention, and are therefore of clear managerial importance. Yet, they have not received research attention. This article is the first to provide a comprehensive, descriptive treatment of WOM spikes. The authors propose a conceptual framework to present spikes as a standalone WOM dimension, and explain their emergence. They employ a robust filtering procedure to detect spikes, and apply it in a dataset of 90,000 pre-release online WOM messages on 157 Hollywood movies. The results indicate that pre-release spikes are widely prevalent: While some of them are event-driven, emerging in response to firm-created communications (e.g., trailer release), they are far more likely to emerge spontaneously. Content analysis reveals that WOM in spikes is more positive in sentiment and is more ...

Talk Bursts: The Role of Spikes in Pre-release Word-of-Mouth Dynamics