La Máquina del Boca a Boca

The brand manager of a fictional Spanish direct-to-consumer maker of cleaning tablets and a reusable bottle, with 60,000 subscribers, loses its paid-media budget and has half a year to make customers bring in new customers. Only 7 percent of customers recommend the brand today, and each recommended customer costs more than the 45 euros of paid media.

Stage 1: what gives people something to talk about (features, a provocative video or practical value and social currency), what reminds them and who sees the product. Stage 2: the referral programme, the story and the emotion. Stage 3: how to win over a hesitant segment loyal to the supermarket brand: the approach, the trial and the evidence.

Stage 4: a customer's public complaint, the advocates and next year's budget. The model is deterministic: each option has fixed effects on three indices (talk value, prompts and visibility, trust), the programme cost and the conversion of the people reached; the share of the talk value that becomes recommendations is set by prompts and trust, and pushing too hard lowers trust.

The share rate, new customers, net sentiment, the cost per customer against paid media and a net result follow. The score combines the quality of each decision with four outcomes and is capped when a decision breaks the law (commercial SMS to contacts who never consented, fake reviews). Inspired by published research on word of mouth, virality, referral programmes and psychological reactance.

Spanish (primary, peninsular register) and English.

An advanced simulation for participants used to working with the main frameworks and trade-offs of the subject, designed for executive education and experienced professionals.