Strong ties versus weak ties in word-of-mouth marketing

It is widely accepted in word-of-mouth (WOM) research that weak ties have a greater macro-level impact than strong ties on the spread of WOM and that marketers should thus intentionally stimulate WOM between weak ties to optimize a given WOM campaign. Here, we challenge this idea based on the fact that, in practice, marketers often incorporate a WOM campaign into other forms of marketing activities, typically advertising. Using an agent-based...