As Cold Stone Creamery expands to Japan, the ice cream store projects a somewhat different image than it has in the United States. The chain wants to be ultra cool by generating a buzz among fashion-conscious “office ladies,” as the Japanese call young, single, female professionals. These women are very influential in Japan; their reactions to a new product can make or break it. To woo this group, Cold Stone sponsored a fashion show for young women (assuming the models can fit into the dresses after sampling a few of the chain’s caloric creations), and fashion magazines staged photo shoots at the stores.

Although consumers get information from personal sources, they do not usually ask just anyone for advice about purchases. If you decide to buy a new stereo, you will most likely seek advice from a friend who knows a lot about sound systems. This friend may own a sophisticated system or may subscribe to specialized magazines such as Stereo Review and spend free time browsing through electronics stores. However, you may have another friend who has a reputation for being stylish and who spends his free time reading Gentleman’s Quarterly and shopping at trendy boutiques. You might not bring up your stereo problem with him, but you may take him with you to shop for a new fall wardrobe.

Everyone knows people who are knowledgeable about products and whose advice others take seriously. Like one of the Japanese office ladies, this individual is an opinion leader; a person who is frequently able to influence others’ attitudes or behavior. Clearly, some people’s recommendations carry more weight than others. Opinion leaders are extremely valuable information sources because they prescreen, evaluate, and synthesize product information in an unbiased way. They tend to be socially active and highly interconnected in their communities. These individuals are often among the first to buy new products, so they absorb much of the risk. This experience reduces uncertainty for others who are not as courageous.

Early conceptions of the opinion leader role assumed that the opinion leader absorbs information from the mass media and, in turn, transmits data to opinion receivers. This view has turned out to be overly simplified; it confuses the functions of several different types of consumers. Indeed, we now know that opinion leaders also are likely to be opinion seekers. They are generally more involved in a product category and actively search for information. As a result, they are more likely to talk about products with others and to solicit others’ opinions. Contrary to the static view of opinion leadership, most product-related conversation does not take place in a “lecture” format in which one person does all the talking. (Even husbands get a word in now and then.) A lot of product-related conversation occurs in the context of a casual interaction rather than as formal instruction. One study, which found that opinion seeking is especially high for food products, revealed that two-thirds of opinion seekers also view themselves as opinion leaders.^[56]

Consumers who are expert in a product category may not necessarily share their trade secrets with others but, on the other hand, we all know people who love to talk about what they buy—whether or not we want to hear about it. A market maven loves to transmit marketplace information of all types. These shopaholics are not necessarily interested in certain products, and they may not necessarily be early purchasers; they’re simply into staying on top of what’s happening in the marketplace. Researchers use the following scale items, to which respondents indicate how much they agree or disagree, to identify market mavens:^[57]

Ironically, marketers often overlook yet another type of consumer in their quest to convince shoppers to buy. A surrogate consumer is a person whom we hire to provide input into our purchase decisions. Unlike the opinion leader or market maven, the surrogate is usually compensated for his advice. Interior decorators, stockbrokers, professional shoppers, and college consultants are surrogate consumers.

Regardless of whether they actually make the purchase on behalf of the consumer, surrogates’ recommendations can be enormously influential. The consumer, in essence, relinquishes control over several or all decision-making functions, such as information search, evaluation of alternatives, or actual purchase. For example, a client may commission an interior decorator to redo her house, and we may entrust a broker to make crucial buy/sell decisions on our behalf. Marketers tend to overlook surrogates when they try to convince consumers to buy their goods or services. This can be a big mistake, because they may mistarget their communications to end consumers instead of to the surrogates who actually sift through product information and decide among product alternatives on their behalf.