The type of campaign that companies choose to adopt depends on the degree to which
marketers can find and target influentials. Marketers capable of undertaking one-to-one
marketing—such as mobile-phone operators—are uniquely positioned to execute controlled
and effective intentional word-of-mouth campaigns. Mobile carriers have granular
customer data that can precisely locate influentials who know the category, talk to many
people, and provide them with trusted opinions. That means messages can be directed at
specific individuals who are most likely to spread positive word of mouth through their
social networks. As a message spreads, this approach generates an exponential word-ofmouth
impact, similar to the ripple effect when a pebble is dropped in a pond.