“Firm-Created Word-of-Mouth Communication: Evidence from a Field Test,” by authors David Godes (Maryland) and Dina Mayzlin (USC), (Marketing Science 2009) is the winner of this years Long-Term Impact Award, presented by the INFORMS Society for Marketing Science. In this paper, the authors worked with a promotional agency (BzzAgent) and a restaurant chain (Rock Bottom) to test the impact of (offline) word of mouth on sales. They compared the impact on sales of a conversation started with an acquaintance by a loyal customer with that of a less-loyal customer and found the latter to be significantly larger. This runs counter, at least on the surface, to the common belief that loyal customers are more valuable. The result is consistent with the theory that loyal customers’ networks are already informed about the restaurant while those of less-loyal customers are less likely to be informed.

This is the second time Godes and Mayzlin have won the Long-Term Impact Award. Their paper, "Using Online Conversations to Study Word-of-Mouth Communication" won the award in 2011.