Judith Chevalier and Dina Mayzlin Receive Award for Word of Mouth Study

Judith Chevalier, William S. Beinecke Professor of Finance and Economics, and Dina Mayzlin, associate professor of marketing, are the recipients of the 2011 William F. O’Dell Award for their study "The Effect of Word of Mouth on Sales: Online Book Reviews."

The 2011 O’Dell Award honors the Journal of Marketing Research (JMR) article published in 2006 "that has made the most significant long-term contribution to marketing theory, methodology, and/or practice." The award-winning article was published in the August 2006 issue of JMR.

In the study, Chevalier and Mayzlin examined the effect of consumer reviews on book sales on Amazon.com and the Barnes and Noble website and found that this community content does have an impact on what consumers buy. The paper has been downloaded 2,443 times at SSRN, and, according to the online citation index Web of Science, the paper has been cited 108 times by journals in areas that include marketing, IT, economics, and computer science.

The award will be presented at the American Marketing Association's 2011 Winter Marketing Educators' Conference on February 19 in Austin, Texas.