New data from BIGresearch reveals the top media for influencing electronic purchases.

The top media for influencing electronic purchases, regardless of race, is word of mouth.  More than TV, magazines or articles, word of mouth is number one across the board. This according to BIGresearch's Simultaneous Media study from December of 2005.

In the second and third spot for both Hispanics and African Americans was TV/Broadcast and Magazines, respectively. For Whites, TV/Broadcast and Magazines tied for second followed by Read Article in fourth. For electronic purchases, Internet Ad was the least influential for all groups except Hispanics, where it was second to last.

Implications
For electronic video gamers, the purchase of electronics is serious business and talking to someone "in the know" (word of mouth) is critical. This does not exempt cell phones, text messaging and picture phones, which are critical to word-of-mouth influence. In fact, these technologies are intensifiers.

But where does word of mouth come from? Perhaps this is a strange question. But, not so strange when you think of how people render decisions. Opinion or advice is always a product of other input. In this case the other media of influence, while not number one, can be viewed as a confluence and resource of word of mouth.

Therefore, media of secondary influence are not meaningless but can be an integral synergistic part of the media plan for influencing word of mouth.

Next week we will discuss which media consumption styles of African Americans, Hispanics and Whites use regarding purchase decisions on electronics and apparel.