December 2006
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More than 400 of the industry's savviest word of mouth marketers and enthusiasts attended WOMMA's second Word of Mouth Marketing Summit last week in Washington, D.C. -- making it our most successful event to date. Thanks to our many attendees, members, speakers, sponsors, and partners for making this such an exciting, dynamic, and rewarding event. We hope you learned as much as we did!
If you missed the Summit, don't fret: All conference audio -- including brand new how-to sessions and case studies from more than 70 speakers -- is available on our website.
Order conference audio
Television shows, newspaper articles, and radio programs all are syndicated. And now, thanks to a new partnership between Reuters news service and social media firm Pluck, so are blogs. Reuters began using Pluck's BlogBurst syndication service last month to syndicate news and commentary from nearly 3,000 blogs, ranging in subject matter from philosophy and politics to travel and fashion. The goal, according to Reuters, is to introduce mainstream media to alternative sources of information. And because bloggers are paid when their work is syndicated, newsmakers can count on consumers to begin sharing more and better information with their peers via blogs.
Learn more (BizReport)
Learn more (MediaPost)
Car and Driver magazine has launched a new word of mouth program to connect its readers with its advertisers. Called "The First Drivers Club," the program is designed to recruit consumers to participate in "buzz activities" for the magazine in exchange for access to new cars and products, which they will be asked to review and discuss with their peers. Car and Driver, which has been experiencing a decline in circulation, is partnering with WOMMA member companies Renegade Marketing Group and BzzAgent to manage the program, which it hopes will connect advertisers with readers, readers with each other, and, ultimately, the magazine with new ad revenue.
Learn more (BrandWeek)
Learn more (Media Buyer Planner)
The Alliance to Save Energy has launched a word of mouth campaign and social networking website that it hopes will encourage consumers to be more energy efficient. The "Six Degrees of Energy Efficiency Challenge" kicked off last month with a home makeover in Washington, D.C., the purpose of which was to help a local family save energy with simple home improvements. The event was supported by the simultaneous launch of SixDegreeChallenge.org, an educational website created by WOMMA member company Fleishman-Hillard that asks consumers to commit to saving energy by taking a quiz, making a pledge, and "challenging" six of their friends to do the same. Upon challenging their friends, users can literally see their social network, which is represented visually on screen to help consumers see and measure their word of mouth impact.
Learn more
Citizens for Wii, all I can say is, WowWii.
Amy Cotteleer's give away raffle of a Nintendo Wii demonstrated the effectiveness of concepts that have been discussed at several WOMMA sessions: sampling increases memorability and if you can't give everyone a sample, do a raffle (David Clark of Talk Marketing). Also, as she noted, agencies should be extensions of the brand and goodwill is an asset that competition cannot undermine or destroy.
As Sony struggles with the PS3 introduction and fake blogs developed by their agency, Zipatoni, we can only hope that they consider the WOMMA code of ethics and agencies quoting Andre Malraux and discussing best practices next time.
But really, the Wii story is fascinating. The Wii introduction is noteworthy for its well thought out strategy in light of a come from behind market position in sharp contrast with the PS2 equity that Sony started out with and now seems to be squandering. Amy discussed the Wii strategy ( targeting outside of traditional gamers...soccer moms) and ambassador program (party invitations for Ambassadors to send to their friends, Wii and games provided).best question: Where do you find the Ambassadors? Not in the usual places.
For more detail try the Nintendo Forums. For an interview with one of the Ambassadors, go here; pictures are here. More? Here and here.
According to the latest numbers from BrandIntel, the Wii is the most discussed game console...it seems to be working.
Sam Decker of Bazaarvoice discussed some of the principles to get word of mouth momentum going within an organization. He said that at times it can feel like no one else gets it and you wonder how to get other people and groups involved.
Sam spoke at the Forrester Consumer Forum in October along with Andy Sernovitz and although camera-less during his WOMMA session, I had this picture of Sam, Andy and Gordon Gould.
Sam uses the visual of a woodpecker and a peacock to explain his recommended strategy for getting organizational buy-in. Woodpecking is the day to day and Peacocking is doing something that everyone has to pay attention to.
His short list for building momentum:
- Name Some Stuff: The long tail is taken but keep thinking.
- Share love and pain: how do you get people to be accountable for driving the momentum of the word of mouth campaign.
- What's in it for me? WIIF Speak the language of your audience. Take a book that an executive has read and use the recognizable words from from it...long tail, paradox of choice.
- Resolve the Edge Concerns. Address concerns head on.
- Use Multiple Sources of Confirmation. Interesting third party statistics.
- Characterize the Upside: ..Accentuate the feature; use visuals.
- Demonstrate Cross Organizational Impact.
- Choose influential allies inside the organization.
- Tell Interesting, amazing sound bites in one on one discussions.
Tags: Wii, Wii Ambassadors, WOMMA Summit 2006, WOMMA, Sam Decker, Marianne Richmond, Andy Sernovitz, Amy Cotteleer, marketing, Nintendo, Zipatoni, Sony, PS3, BrandIntel
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Word of mouth is the most important source of information....we have heard this a few times in the past few days. But there is where the consensus can converge because we have heard many different opinions of how to use this fact as marketers and advertisers....Jon Berry co-authored along with Ed Keller, one of the classic books in word of mouth: The Influencials.
Jon began today by outlining profiles for the influencer:
The influencer has the ability to create impact and is connected to more groups and people than average.
T influencer is enthusiastic about sharing and interested in learning.
The influencer is a good listener.
The most important characteristic Jon says in creating influence is being a good listener. He said American's value this ahead of offering helpful recommendations and personal experience.
Someone asked the question as to whether or not there is a difference in gender in the value placed upon being a good listener. Great question. Jon said he would look into the data. Many in the audience seemed to have gender based differences of opinions.
A side data point: Spouses play a larger than average role in Catalyst's financial WOM. Listening would be important.
Applications of influence marketing was another topic. Seed them to spread the word, give them things to share with others, coupons, samples; give them special access, ask them to host events, create ads and to give opinions. Influencers have good ideas and will voice complaints.
The Bush campaign made great use of influentials in the 2004 race.
Conversation catalysts impact: the conversations of 15% of teh population.
43% of catalysts WOM take place at home; but 57% take place elsewhere: work. Important point: Make the message portable.
Integrate your marketing.
54% of catalysts conversations refer to marketing or media ..BUT NO ONE CHANNEL DOMINATES:
Leaders are internet and TV (me: COULD YOU DO WEIGHT OF INTEGRATION BY BRAND...THE IT DEPENDS ANSWER.
THINK 2 way: catalysts don't dominate the conversation; they make it a converstaion...set up a place where people can talk.
Know your category dynamics....Dr.MOM is a real force in health WOM, tech WOM has a credibility issue.
WOMMA, WOMMA Summit 2006, Jon Berry, KellerFay, Influentials
Full disclosure, I am a huge
John Moore fan.....this presentation only confirmed this.
John began by explaining the meaning of his lab coat and his company,
Brand Autopsy....of course it was a live demonstration of branding.
"The Brand Autopsy Marketing Practice helps businesses to a live happier, healthier, and more remarkable life by serving as their Primary Care Marketing Physician, conducting Marketing Physicals, and or providing Second Opinions."
John's book,
Tribal Knowledge, was the topic for this lunchtime session. He went through some of the 47 Tribal Lessons that are discussed in detail in his book.
Tribal Truth #1 is: Building the business creates the brand ....a strong brand was a by-product for
Starbucks; this approach is "outside in"; they spent their money and time creating an environment and a product that became a brand. When you are busy working on your business, you will create a strong brand.
He used Burger King as an example of the opposite approach: .making up a story and telling the story and its a disconnect with the brand.
Tribal Truth #3...Making the common, uncommon; Coffee is a cup of hot liquid; it is a commodity. Prior to Starbucks the common coffee experiences was in a diner. Starbucks made the common uncommon.
John asked, What are you doing to make the common, uncommon? Other examples of this are the Mini-Cooper. It made the compact car uncommon. Whole Foods, made grocery stores into a place to explore vs. a chore. Method...brought design to hand soap
Tribal Truth #4 Remarkable things get remarked about...this is the bottom line of word of mouth.
Scott Bedbury lead Starbucks from brand creation to a Brand.
Tribal Truth #45: Brands have two sets of customers: employees and customers. Your customers rely on your employees; He suggests that you ask them their opinions and earn the opinions.
Starbuck has marketing programs aimed at employees.
For instance, recognizing sampling programs need passion, Starbucks developed Bingo cards and made an engaging game out of brand sampling.
The overall concept? The passion that goes into a business can inspire the passions of those who work for the business. The passions is passed on to the customer experience.
Tribal Truth #35: Make the company something to believe in.
Takeaway? Choose 3-5 areas that your company will never compromise on
Starbucks, from commodity to remarkability.
John states that earned opinions trumps bought impressions and turns attention into intention...it is an especially important point in a world where it is getting more difficult to buy impressions.
Tribal Truth #47...Be mission driven to change the world...make the common uncommon, be remarkable.
How do you do that? Check email, go to meetings, change the world.
Takeaway: If you business went out of business tomorrow would anyone care?
If you can answer with conviction that yes it would matter and people would care, then go back to doing what you are doing.
For further studies, John has a post on his blog, Brand Autopsy, with an interview with Howard Schultz that John says "is one of the most honest and informative pieces" he has ever read.
John Moore, Brand Autopsy, Tribal Knowledge, branding, WOMMA, WOMMA Summit 2006, Marianne Richmond, Minicooper, Starbucks, While Foods, Method, marketing
In this last session of the day (one of the last three, I should say) Leslie Forde from Communispace, Bill Hanekamp from The Well Advertising, and Mike Walsh from Leverage Software spoke about how to create vibrant and thriving consumer communities, as well as how to use them.
Mike began by explaining that he was interested in speaking about company-created consumer communities -- as opposed to how companies can leverage the preexisting online communities that abound. According to Mike, the benefits for a company when building a consumer community are:
* Listen better, innovate faster
* WOM marketing and buzz -- drive referrals and visibility
* Know your evangelists and partner with them
* Cut marketing content and customer services costs
* Reduce attrition/retain customers
* Build brand loyalty
Customer communities exist for a variety of reasons, including: self expression, commerce, information sharing, relationship building, belonging, and fun. And one of the things that Leverage Software has found is that many times a customer community that is created to support one of those distinct functions ends up being "taken over" by the customers and used for other reasons, as well.
According to Mike, when creating a customer community, a company needs to:
* Determine goals
* Identify participants -- Customers, partners, prospects, staff, industry experts
* Define rules of engagement -- Anonymity, honesty, ethics, language, responsibilities
* Provide value
* Enable fun
Mike also explained that social networking communities go beyond forum discussions, allowing communications to be shared either with one or with many participants. They are more broad, better able to evolve, and make it easier for communications to saturate the environment.
Leslie began by explaining her community-facilitation experience -- in which she has managed customer communities for Communispace. The most important thing, she said, is finding the right set of people to be the co-creators for your brand. The participants in the communities that Communispace manages -- which are private and password protected, as opposed to public -- have been asked to do things such as:
* Empty their purse and take a picture, upload it so we can see what brands are there
* Take a picture of your pantry before you go grocery shopping... then after shopping.
The consumers that are active within their communities are anxious to help and advise the brand -- and are also eager ti engage with each other. They ask each other brand and product related questions, offer tips to their fellow community members, and pose questions that the brands would be wise to pay attention to.
Top 5 Community Myths (according to Leslie):
* Invite everybody and anybody
* Big numbers are needed to have impact
* Blogs = Community
* Throw money at them
* Don't tell them anything important
What is the business value of engaging customers in communities? According to Leslie, they are:
* Insightss
* More loyal customers
* Increase marketing effectiveness
* Advancing your career
* Richer customer relationship capital
Bill described a specific case study for People to People, and specifically how the social networking site that The Well Advertising built for them impacted their business. The Well Advertising worked with People to People's Student Ambassador program -- which targets high level high school students to participate in their foreign exchange program.
The students in the program travel abroad, and come back with a 98% satisfaction rate. The problem was that people simply didn't know about it. The organization had no online presence, and was nearly totally anonymous. Because students had to be nominated -- by teachers and community leaders, etc. -- the program's invisibility began to affect their recruitment rates.
People to People approached The Well Advertising to help them create a more powerful online presence -- a way for the company to increase its reach without breaking the bank. The Well, Bill explained, came up with a microsite strategy where students could come together online to post and blog about their experiences with the Student Ambassador program.
So, why a social networking site?
* Peer to peer advocacy is the most effective
* Aligned with online trends including niche sites (students don't have to quit MySpace to start participating on the People to People microsite)
* People to People was the perfect candidate to benefit from a microsite
According to Bill, crafting a site that the students would actually use included:
* Establishing best practices -- the site, according to students, "couldn't suck" and had to have slickness similar to more widely used commercial social network sites
* Feature richness: personal profile, picture uploads, upload songs, create groups, etc.
* Incorporating freeware and mashups to keep the costs conservative (The Well Advertising completed the project for 20% of their allotted budget)
* Outsourcing the hosting
* Promoting the hell out of it (but with a light push, just by saying that "it's available")
Small companies may not have large budgets, but they can definitely have a large impact on the marketplace. PrintingforLess.com's Nick Runyan and TechSmith's Betsy Weber were clear on this point in an afternoon session dedicated to word of mouth for small business.
Why should small businesses board the word of mouth train? Simple, according to Nick: It's free advertising; good customer service costs nothing but gets big returns. Additionally, he said, word of mouth helps you:
*Feel good. It makes you feel "warm and fuzzy" when your customers tell their friends -- and you -- how much they love you.
*Stand out. WOM is an equalizer. It helps small businesses appear special compared to the big guns, who are perceived as more impersonal and less friendly.
*Move forward. Word of mouth -- whether positive or negative -- can help you improve your business and increase your bottom line.
Nick continued his presentation with examples of how his company makes customers feel special: Phone calls, free coffee mugs, and an easy-to-use but affordable service model.
Betsy ended the panel by giving the audience her "Top 10" tips for effective word of mouth marketing:
1. Listen. "You've got two ears and one mouth," she reminded attendees. Make your customers feel heard.
2. Get out. Meet your real customers, she advised. They feel special when they get to interact with your company.
3. Open your doors. If you can't get out of the office to meet your customers, invite them inside. Betsy makes her cell phone, email address, and instant message screen name available to customers so they can contact her easily with questions and comments.
4. A pair to share. If you give your customers free stuff, they'll pass it along to their friends every time.
5. Involve. Engage consumers, and engage yourself in their world.
6. Use the buddy system. Partner with other companies to help generate word of mouth for one another.
7. Build some goodwill. It doesn't take a lot to build a positive brand image.
8. Something for nothing. Nobody expects to get something without strings attached. Impress customers with kindness.
9. Take your mother's advice. Betsy sends customers hand-written thank-you notes when they spread positive word of mouth for her. Good manners, she said, go a very long way.
10. Bonnie Raitt was right. Give them something to talk about. 'Nuff said.
The session ended with a lively Q&A period of which audience member Stuart Sheldon of Coke became a big part. He answered small business questions from a big brand perspective to balance and counter Nick and Betsy's advice. Small or large, all three agreed:
*Word of mouth must be a long-term endeavor.
*Negative word of mouth can be extremely helpful.
*When it comes to experimenting with word of mouth, sometimes it's better to just do it and see if it works before you ask for permission.
For Rex Briggs, who is CEO of Marketing Evolution, word of mouth marketing is useless without numbers. He drove that philosophy home to an audience of marketers this afternoon in a session about his book, "What Sticks."
For most companies, according to Rex, word of mouth measurement is something done after the fact: "Hey, look at this cool thing we just did and how well it performed!" Instead, he said, companies should begin to put standards of measurement in place before launching a word of mouth campaign; they need to outline premeditated measures of success in order to evaluate the outcomes of their efforts.
Marketing success, of course, is more complicated than sales, Rex admitted, and faces several limitations, including:
1. Motivations
2. Message
3. Media mix
4. Maximization
Problems in each of these areas can hinder a campaign's success.
So, what types of measurable campaigns are successful? Rex offered several examples. Chief among them, however, was Philips Norelco's Shave Everywhere campaign, designed and executed by his company. In this edgy word of mouth effort, the client set premeditated goals -- to generate awareness and involvement with the brand in order to achieve its sales goals -- that it could track via visits to a product microsite. The campaign was viral, too, and pass-along was a huge and necessary metric. In the end, the campaign generated 300% of its sales goal -- powerful data for future WOM endeavors, no doubt.
The second half of Rex's presentation focused on user-generated content, which Rex said presents brands with several new, evolving questions, including: Are brands new media filters? Rex seems to think so, and pointed to several case studies -- including one involving Volvo and MSN -- in which brands are starting to make their own news rather than wait for traditional media to put them in print.
The lesson, according to Rex: Tell your own stories -- and don't forget to measure their impact!
For Greg Stielstra, marketing is a lot like fire. In a lunchtime workshop, Stielstra -- author of "PyroMarketing: The Four-Step Strategy to Ignite Customer Evangelists and Keep Them for Life" -- explained his high-temp metaphor.
He started with an anecdote from Jack London's famous novel, "The Call of the Wild" and asked audience members to imagine a man struggling to start a fire in the dead of winter in order to stay alive. "You are the man," Greg said. "You are in a freezing wilderness and you must build a fire to survive." That fire, he said, is sales, and marketers must find a new way to start it. The keys are in selling more with less, increasing response rates, leveraging customer evangelists, and building marketing equity with consumers.
Here's how to do it, according to Greg:
1. Gather the driest timber. Instead of targeting a mass of consumers, target niche markets who are eager to consume your message.
2. Touch it with the match. Reach out to consumers directly. Act more often than you speak. Don't just say you're funny, for example; tell a joke.
3. Fan the flames. Help your customers tell their friends about you by giving them the tools to do so.
4. Save the coals. Keep a customer database so that you can continue to reach out to your evangelists with new products and campaigns.
YouTube, you heard of it? This video thing is pretty big, at least the packed room at WOMMA thinks it is. All joking aside, the WOMMA audience was interested in hearing all about using video in WOM. On the panel:
Owen Mack, Co-Founder, coBRANDit
Steve Curran, Creative Director, Pod Digital Design
Tom Ajello, VP, Creative, Agency.com
First up was Owen. He showed a quick montage of viral videos including some of the highlights, i.e. Dove Beauty, Will it Blend, etc.
Viral video is usually a one-hit wonder, what Owen focusses on is using web video to connect to a specific audience. Rather than reaching 1.8 million people that might not be interested in your product, how about reaching a smaller audience that is connected with your brand.
There is more emphasis on stories and storytellers, that's what can build long-term relationships. Many of the successful online video campaigns are built upon good content. No surprise there.
Many of the major CGM campaigns around video are usually contest based. Once again many of this is short term.
Another major need is community video tools.
Steve Curran from Pod Digital talked more about the messaging side of things rather than video. Branded games, web toys and viral video are all new opportunities for marketing. Steve provided an overview of the pros/cons of the various elements. I'll locate a copy of his deck since it was what he read from.
The last panelist was Tom Ajello with Agency.com. Tom asked the audience who was aware of the Subway video, about half the audience. Tom wanted to know this since it would drive some of the concepts he would be talking about.
Tom says that video and viral video is just a catalyst. Much like any catalyst, it must lead to something. The video must lead to something more meaningful. Any type of video or viral campaign needs to be part of a much larger picture
A catalyst will lead to conversation, and that conversation will build upon itself and this will point back to the catalyst. That catalyst has to be relevant to your brand otherwise the conversation means nothing.
You need to flexible and fast.
Another myth: You catalyst needs to be made in a basement to be successful - rubbish. Good quality video can elicit just a good a response as something amateur.
As is a tradition at WOMMA events the lunchtime activities centered around personal sessions with some noted authors. The first session I attended was Debbie Weil, author of The Corporate Blogging Book.
Debbie just presented a few concepts and myths surrounding blogging. First of the myths, "Real people don't blog." This is something her husband said to her. We know this isn't true, but it is a popular perception among non bloggers.
In the room there are a mix of bloggers and those who are considering it. Not everyone has blogging DNA though, we're not all wired to share and connect. This is something we have to consider.
Blogging as a corporate communications strategy is not easy. It's easy to set-up, but it's the day-to-day operations that are hard. You should try things out though.
Currently 40 of the Fortune 500 firms are blogging, about 8%, the number has doubled in the past year.
Confront the fears of of blogging:
- Legal Risks
- Criticism
- Losing Control
- Time Consuming
- Employee Blogging
- Get Over It
Recently GM used their blog to discuss a negative Thomas Freidman column and a response that never was printed in the New York Times. In this sense blogs can be used for media bypass, companies can create their own media channels.
Should you create a blog for your company?
Yes, because....
- If you don't, it's a missed opportunity
- If you don't blog, others will blog about you
- You won't be found online
- At the very least, you must monitor the blogosphere
Take the blogging readiness test:
1. What problem does blogging solve?
2. What's the business case for blogging?
3. How do you know if blogging is right for your organization?
A huge part of blogging is good writing, it's a different type of writing though. The more you write the easier it becomes and if you take a break it gets more difficult to get back in the mix.
Question from the audience: Should a corporate blog be hosted on you own site or an external service? Debbie suggests using a hosted service such as TypePad. TypePad allows you to customize your blog template to make it look like your traditional web site if you want.
Comment from the audience: Update your blog as often as you want people to come back.
Blogs help build community which is something that isn't normally associated with large corporations.
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The second author session I attended was lead by none other than Andy Sernovitz from WOMMA. Andy recently wrote a book titled, Word of Mouth Marketing - How Smart Companies Get People Talking.
This is not the normal speech that Andy gives at WOMMA, usually he's talking about the industry and not a book. Knowing that the audience is a bit more savvy on Word of Mouth Marketing he dialed up his presentation a bit. His book is geared towards people that are just learning about WOMM.
Andy has been fortunate to be involved in WOMMA and the WOMM industry, it has allowed him to see hundreds of great firms and great ideas.
People love to talk. It seems so natural, everybody loves to talk about their favorite things, and of course their non-so-favorite things. Corporations are always trying to get people talking about their stuff.
WOM is:
1. Giving people a reason to talk about YOUR stuff.
2. Making it easier for that conversation to take place.
WOM has moved from anecdotal to actionable. People used to just hope for WOM, now they realize it can be cultivated and measured.
How do you get people to talk about something? What makes it special? Think of Krispie Kreme, they have 'hot' donuts. That makes them unique, if you take a donut and put it in a box and sell it in grocery story it's not special. Nobody talks about food they buy in gas stations.
Advertising is the price of being boring.
It's C to C marketing. All those things you do to get people talking to each other. C to C is doing something so remarkable that people talk about it.
There is one new reality, consumers are in control. This is something we all know since it's something we talk about at conferences like this, but for many it's still news. Reviewing is now a participatory activity, almost 30% of the population is now reviewing something online.
Years ago if you wanted to reach 80% of your audience you would buy ads on the big three TV networks. Today if somebody wants to reach 80% of your audience they can post a product review on Amazon.
You are not what you marketing says you are, it's not what your mission statement is, it's your user experience. People's interaction with your organization No amount of advertising fixes a broken car. A $100 million ad campaign doesn't compensate for a bad call center experience with somebody from Bangalore.
United launched TED with new logo and new uniforms, but ultimately it's the same lousy service that was United. No amount of window-dressing fixed the underlying issues.
Everything lives forever in Google. It's the new permanent record.
There are three reasons that people talk about you:
- You (make great stuff, provide great experiences)
- Them (make them feel special, important)
- Us (make them part of the group, recognition)
The four rules of WOMM:
1. Be Interesting
2. Make People Happy
3. Earn Trust and Respect
4. Make it Easy
The five steps of WOMM
1. Talkers: find the people who will talk
2. Topics: Give people a reason to talk
3. Tools: Help the message spread
4. Taking Part: Join the conversation
5. Tracking: Measure and listen
Marketing departments have output jacks while customer service departments have input jacks. Getting those two environments wired together is difficult.
Earn the respect and recommendation of your customers and they will do rest.
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George Silverman, author of, "The Secrets of Word of Mouth Marketing" presented on the pressing matter of how Summit attendees can go back to the office and create their own word of mouth campaigns.
After opening with a "must-see" rope trick (which he's been meaning to do ever since he ran out of time at the very first WOMMA conference), as a way of demonstrating that things that don't seem possible might, in fact, be possible, George went on to offer some simplification to all of the overwhelming information that the attendees have been inundated with.
"WOM is way more powerful than we think it is," he stressed. Conventional advertising garners approximately 1000 exposures per day, all of which are acted on upon approximately once per day. When someone comes to you with a customized recommendation ("YOU have to see this move/read this book/buy this stuff.") it is acted upon once in every five exposures -- which is an extreme exponential difference.
So how do you take advantage of it?
First you have to figure out what you're trying to do. Most marketers, according to George, are trying to get people:
* To buy
* By into
* Do/not do something.
First off, marketers should evaluate the customer decision process and make it simple, easy and fun -- which will allow them to win customers over faster than the competition can. Or, in George's words, insert "funification" into the decision process. Making the decision process more like a playground than an obstacle course is key to keeping consumers in a state of mind where they are most receptive, George said, and the best way to do that is to engage them via word of mouth marketing, where they're talking with friends and family in comfortable environments.
Buzz is noise, buzz is annoying, and buzz is the antithesis of good marketing, George insisted. It doesn't matter if you break through the clutter if all you're doing is annoying people. You need to have a message.
Jackie Huba, author of the recently released "Citizen Marketers" (making its debut today), as well as "Creating Customer Evangelists" and the Church of the Customer Blog, chatted while Summit attendees munched their lunches.
According to Jackie, it was back around 2004 that "amateur culture" first gave off the first murmurs of becoming a phenomenon. It is where these amateur endeavors meet advertising that citizen marketers emerge.
Part of what made this epidemic possible is the democratization of technology -- blogs, YouTube, iPods, etc. put technology in the hands of so many novices, and so many voices are entering a forum where they can be heard. Also, more people are becoming amateur broadcasters -- recording and distributing podcasts online where they are being listened to all around the world.
Most influential media:
1. Word of mouth
2. Television
3. Coupons
4. Newspaper inserts
5. Read article
The Four F's
* Firecrackers -- Create a piece of content, post it to the web, and within days it becomes viral, giving consumers the power to create a PR nightmare, or to boost your brand with equal vigor.
* Filter -- Adopt a brand that they're really close to, and track it for others, or "brand journalists."
* Fanatics -- Really evangelists for the product/company/service they love and want to connect with other people who share their enthusiasm.
* Facilitators -- Do the most complex work, managing online community centered on a brand or product or service, the "mayor" of the communities they run.
Jackie also expressed a strange, counterintuitive rule, which is that only 1% of community participants are actually contributing content. Another 10% are commenting on the content that the 1% is creating. And while this 1% seems very small, it should be remembered that this is a very powerful 1%, Jackie asserted. They're reaching 100% of the people who view the site, and that has impact.
So what gets this 1% talking?
* They see it as a hobby, and -- being a little more tech savvy than the rest of us -- are able to do it easily.
* They love to connect with other people who love the brand or product as much as they do.
* They are very passionate about the brands/products/services.
Randy Melcher from eCRUSH, Chad Stoller from Organic, and Gordon Gould from This Next presented on how best to put social networkers to work for you. How do you find them, how do you communicate with them, how do you build a forum for them, and how do you connect?
Chad reported on the fact that MySpace is "getting older," with over half of the visitors falling into the 35 and older demographic -- which is up 40% from last year. Social networks are growing up, and the people that use them are become more deft, savvy, and demanding.
From an advertising perspective, social networks are changing the direction of spatial communications. Consumers are no longer going to spaces (malls, television, etc.) where they can see ads; advertisers are going to social networks to get involved and gain:
* Audience engagement
* Opportunity to prove product relevance
Advertisers, according to Chad, are understandably afraid of the social networks, but it's important to focus on the fact that this is not a forum for direct response, but an opportunity for brand building and brand loyalty. The metrics in social network are soft, the missteps can be disastrous, and it's understandable that advertisers are afraid. That's why it's important to get educated on how to do it right. Having a map will make the road less scary.
"Social networking is not dissimilar to a role-playing game," Chat said. Brands have an opportunity to choose their roles (casual, informative, formal, etc.) and play them out within the forums.
Chad then discussed a case study Organic did for the X-Men movie that enabled MySpace users to add X-Men to their friends list. The "friend" came with a widget that gave the users the functionality to grow their "top 8" to hold a "top 16" -- something MySpace users really wanted. Thus, according to Chad, people that had little initial interest in the X-Men movie were going to their MySpace page to get the "top 16" functionality, and were being exposed to the movie in that way.
Randy explained social networking from a youth perspective. As he put it, marketers already know that teens are extremely active in social networks -- for social interaction and entertainment -- and marketers have a good idea what they like (personalization, communication, etc.), as well as where they're going.
eCRUSH is an entertainment site for people who know each other to send anonymous "crush" notes to each other. You can log on, enter your email, and enter your crush's email. An email (still anonymous) is sent to the "crush," telling them that someone is crushing on them. This email (and wild curiosity -- who could it be!!) drives the recipient back to the site, where they are asked to enter the email of THEIR crush. If the crush emails match up, the identities will be revealed (cue the cheesy music). If not, the un-crushed sender will be able to nurse their unrequited love without having to be openly rejected.
This concept -- of giving users incentives as way to get them to spread the message -- extends to eCRUSH's other efforts, which Randy also briefly explained.
This Next, Gordon explained, is a product review site -- where consumers can come to read what other consumers are saying about the products they are looking to buy.
Not only are consumers able to read the specific product reviews that the site's users leave, viewers are able to read the blogs of and information about the reviewers -- to gauge whether or not the reviewers tastes and preferences align with their own.
This social network, which was built entirely with the intention of having a social networking community where people can come to find product reviews (as opposed to filtering through a MySpace thread or blogposts to find information related to a product purchase), is what Gordon classified as a niche, value-add community, the likes of which can be created for any number of categories.
Pinny Gniwisch, Founder/EVP Marketing, Ice.com and Anil Dash, VP, Moveable Type Professional Network, Six Apart, led a breakout session to a packed room on how to create/use blogs for WOM. Lots of interest in this topic.
Pinny started the session with a humorous look back at the Internet past, from the early adopters to boo.com to the rise of blogs. Pinny highlighted the November Forbes article - Attach of the Blogs. Immediately after that article he created a blog. Of course there is a blog overload, but if you post consistently and honestly you will build an audience.
Flog: Pinny provided a quick review of the fake Wal-Mart blog scandal. You need to be honest with your audience.
At Diamond.com they created a blog called Sparkle Like the Stars. The blog discusses what jewelry the stars are wearing and shows comparable products they offer. Traffic has been great, around 6-7K uniques per day. Another blog they've created is JustAskLeslie.com which answers questions about jewelry.
You need to keep your blog fresh, post at least three times per week. Many of our fans follow us via RSS. The blog has also generated a number of press.
Next up was Anil, he decided to skip the slides and just spoke from the podium. Anil did a brief overview of how SixApart used blogs to build their business. Anil started his blog back in 1999, and thought he was late to the game, but then these other 50 million people show up and you realize you're ahead of the curve.
Until a year ago they had never purchased an advertisement. They built business by using the tools they create. They experimented on a number of different things, and screwed up a lot.
The power of self-expression is a powerful thing. There is sense of empowerment with self-publishing tools.
Anybody that says bloggers are (insert adjective), i.e. evil, have no life, etc...don't know what they're talking about. There are so many people blogging that it's impossible to segment or classify them.
More and more people are creating public blogs and personal blogs. Ultimately it's just a tool. There are a number of business cases that blogs can apply to. There are people building journalistic blogs and of course you might want to reach out to them, but the majority of blogs are personal. How do you reach out to them?
Working with General Motors it was amazing to see how a big company could work so quickly. Yes they are a large company and they have lots of red tape, so if you think you have problems launching a blog, it's not that hard. If the US Government can do it, so can you.
All that content you send out via e-mail newsletters disappears....it's gone once it's sent. Why not take that same content and put in on a blog? You now have the opportunity to build relationships and commentary around that content.
Think about a blog as a content repository. Often you have people creating content in your office now, why not publish it via a blog.
There are some many times that Anil will be writing an e-mail or some other content and he'll think, "Why not publish this to the blog?"
In Boeing's case, why create a blog for a plane? There is nobody reading this blog that will ever buy this plane. But what they found was the content that normally would be buried in press kits was now available online. Aviation enthusiasts and travelers visited the blog and saw the new interior of the Boeing 787 - Dreamliner. Carriers actually saw demand from passengers who wanted to fly in the plane. Carriers began to increase orders.
Technorati Tags: womma
Big brands have money. Lots of it. But in a session devoted to brand marketing today, the lesson was that they don't need money to generate effective word of mouth -- and neither do you. The session -- which attracted a crowd so large that it spilled into the hallway -- featured presentations from Coke's Stuart Sheldon, Microsoft's Brian Marr, and Dell's Bob Pearson.
Brian opened the session with a case study about Microsoft's new Windows Vista operating system, which he said faces several marketing challenges, including a brand identity that is not necessarily "culturally" influential even as it is extremely "technologically" influential.
Brian offered several marketing case studies from the Windows Vista launch -- including a Windows-branded microsite at www.clearification.com and an internal but unregulated corporate blog -- as proof of not only the power of word of mouth, but of the challenges that brand marketers face in selling it internally to their corporate team. To make word of mouth work for them, he recommended that brands:
1. Set clear expectations with their leadership about what, exactly, word of mouth is.
2. Be clear on who they want to target.
3. Be ready for an honest two-way conversation with consumers.
4. Be joined at the hip with their peers in PR and branding.
5. Be clear about metrics and measurements.
Up next was Bob from Dell, who focused on the future of media and marketing and pointed out that evolving consumer demographics online will continue to change online conversations. Just 1 billion of the world's 7 million customers are currently online; as the other 6 million plug in, the online marketing landscape is sure to change considerably.
Bob urged that brands only have one choice: Will they participate in conversations with consumers today, or tomorrow? Never is not a choice. Dell, he said, has chosen to participate today, and it's done so with its Direct2Dell blog, which the company has tried to make as egalitarian as possible. Its purpose is three-fold:
1. To provide consumers with news
2. To be an advocate for customers
3. To be a dart board for criticism, which creates learning opportunities for the brand
For Dell, blogs offer an opportunity for real-time information sharing and for real-time conversations, which it supports with metrics that matter, including:
*Frequency
*Response
*Daily visitors
*Links and subscribers (which measure blogs' effectiveness as news distributors)
The future for WOM at Dell? Video blogs, which give the brand an opportunity to make its brand more "fun."
Stuart from Coke ended this information-packed session with a six-month update about word of mouth at Coca-Cola, where he said WOM is slowly but surely catching on. He offered three reasons for brands to pursue word of mouth:
1. Consumersw value it twice as much as traditional media
2. Companies with positive word of mouth grow twice as quickly as those without it
3. WOM is the No. 1 contact across various objectives and consumer targets
brands have different objectives: who, what you want to communicate
Stuart suggested that as it moves forward with its WOM efforts, Coke has three objectives:
1. Learn with/from other people and partners
2. Be seen as champion of quality user-generated content
3. Have fun!
Together, Microsoft, Dell, and Coke offered several lessons for brands in the word of mouth industry:
*Learn more as you do more: Track word of mouth as you do it, engage in select conversations, make ethics a priority, and don't be afraid to test word of mouth pilot programs.
*Share what you learn: Do so via internal evangelists and bloggers, and don't forget to share your findings with the folks in corporate.
They also asked three big questions of brands:
1. Is digital word of mouth the only word of mouth worth doing?
2. How can brands price and purchase word of mouth marketing?
3. Where do brands put and fund word of mouth within their often very large organizational matrices?
David Binkowski from Hass MS&L and Michael Masnick from Techdirt presented on how companies can use the rules of the blogosphere to navigate this rocky and sometimes dangerous terrain.
Michael's presentation, Blogger Relations 2.0: Love, Hate & Rethinking Blogger Relations, took the prospective of "the blogger" to begin, stirring up the controversy around the love/hate relationship he said companies have with Techdirt. According to Michael, PR and marketing folks tend to love the audience that Techdirt communicates with. Techdirt, he said, hates the spam (incessant press releases) that the "loving" PR people send his way.
Michael highlighted a blog post that he wrote in response to the spam proliferation, entitled "Attention All PR People: Stop Sending Us Press Releases," which led to the reciprocal hate from the PR companies he was talking to -- and some irritated pushback. But, he said, the companies he was most "hating" are still sending spam, because THEY DON'T READ THE POSTS. Which is why Techdirts (and bloggers) "hate" them -- because they view the communication as a one way street.
BLOGGER ENGAGEMENT IS NOT SPAM, Michael said, emphatically. Press releases are press relations, and bloggers also don't see themselves as the press (and should not be treated as such) Admittedly, there is some crossover (bloggers who are journalists and journalists who blog), but the majority of bloggers are not press, and the differences between bloggers and the press need to be kept top of mind.
Communicating with bloggers is a two way street, and according to Michael, there are some really straightforward ways to encourage the kind of two way communication that bloggers will actually respond to.
* Have a blog
* Read blogs (!)
* Comment about the blogs you are commenting on -- not just about your product or the product you want to pitch
* Join the conversation
* Understand that bloggers are not mouthpieces. They have opinions and bias -- unlike the press, and will voice them both for and against you.
* Understand that this is not their job (generally); they're doing it because they love it and are passionate about it.
* They have a lot of knowledge and insight about the topics they write about.
David presented on (and I'm quoting here) Blogger Relations: How Not to Be an Asshat. David also drew some really hard lines between media relations and blogger relations. Media relations, according to David, are a very one way form of communications. When you read a newspaper, you don't have a direct line of response to the writer. A blog, however, allows this kind of interaction.
When marketers communicate with bloggers, they need to assess whether they are a necessary part of the conversation that's happening or if they are interrupting. Are they monitoring or responding? A marketer bursting in to a conversation and bullying and monopolizing will not have a very positive effect on what's being said. An example of when marketers should jump in and participate is when commenting on things that are not factual to make certain that urban legends (such as the dog that supposedly died from licking a floor cleaned with Swiffer) that could potentially criminalize your product are snuffed out.
David also encouraged finding other venues (a company blog, forum, etc.) where your opinions and editorializations can be posted and heard. So long as the format is available and public, it provides an unobtrusive soapbox for brands and marketers.
Contacting bloggers:
* "READ THE DAMN BLOG FIRST"
* Find out their preferred method of contact (phone, email, form, comments)
* Don't spam them (ever ... seriously ... don't do that)
* Keep the initial contact short -- this is not the time to try to get your brand message across
Ten Simple Guidelines for Blogger Relations:
1. Be truthful and don't relay false information (and don't try to get other people to do it for you).
2. Say who you are and who you work for,
3. Respect the rules of the venue. You're on the bloggers' turf, mind your manners.
4. Don't ask bloggers to lie for you ... ever ...
5. Use extreme caution (and extreme common sense) when communicating with minors (13- to 17-year-olds) or on blogs intended to be read by minors.
6. Don't manipulate advertising or affiliate programs to impact blogger income
7. Don't spam or use bots or automated systems.
8. Don't compensate bloggers without full and honest disclosure -- that's a conflict of interest and will tarnish their credibility, and yours.
9. If you're going to send trial products to bloggers, understand that they don't have to comment on them -- and know that they are free to send them back to you.
10. If they write about the products you send them, proactively ask them to disclose the products' source.
OK, let's get passionate....or perhaps just learn from passionate fans. A panel consisting of: Kathleen Hessert, President, Sports Media Challenge, Daphne Kwon, CEO, Expo TV and Jake McKee, Lead Samurai, Big in Japan talked about the lessons they've learned from passionate fans.
Kathleen was the first to speak and focussed on sports. Kathleen's firm focuses on athletes and sports franchises, i.e NASCAR, Shaquille O'Neal, Peyton Manning, etc. Their audience are fans, so they study fans quite a bit. Fans are passionate about the things they're interested in, so they're ripe for WOM.
There are a number of fan loyalty levels: Sport, Conference, Team, Athlete. For example some people are Brady Quinn fans, others might just be a fan of Notre Dame. These loyalty levels create a number of opportunities for teams/athletes to interact with their fans.
Fans trust fellow fans before marketers. As such, they're measuring the cross-links among sports blogs to track what they're interested in. Of course fans love to talk about their teams and the rivalries between teams.
Some sports get the fact that fans are the customers, others don't. Fans generate media for sports. However fans are easily swayed by influencers.
Next up was Daphne from ExpoTV. Expo is a relatively new company, their core focus is to help companies build better UGC videos. One of their products is Videopinions. Videopinions allows users to easily create video-based reviews of products. They've built up a library of over 20,000 segments.
One of the big issues is making sure the consumers don't feel exploited, after all they are building content around their work. How do you make the consumers feel validated? People that submit the videos feel a sense of empowerment since they're sharing
A new distribution program for them is Video on Demand (VOD). They selected 40 of their Videopnions and compiled them into a Holiday Shopping Guide that aired on VOD.
The last presenter was Jake from Big in Japan. Jake wanted to spent most of his time discussing some topics that he finds himself constantly addressing. Jake used to work at LEGO and he showed a photo of a LEGO event and asked, "Can anybody tell who works for LEGO and who does not." The audience couldn't. The photo was a great example of a company working closely with the fans.
First point: Everybody goes home happy. How do you define happy though? Consumers and companies both have their definition of 'happy' but they can be balanced.
Second point: Control through participation, not directive. With community, when you participate you do have some level of control since you are interacting with your customers/fans.
Recently LEGO sent their CEO to a small fan event. Some questioned the ROI of sending a highly paid executive to talk to 200 fans. However, those 200 fans are a representation of the thousands of fans out there that can't attend. Those 200 will quickly spread the message via blogs, message boards, etc. Often it's the sense of individual communication, not necessarily individual communication itself.
Third point: They're not weird because they like you. Too often companies begin to question the passion of their fans...why?
Fourth point: Ego: Lose yours, play to theirs. When you step back and really think about them, they will see that and appreciate that.
Firth point: Join the cause. Find out what their issues are and help them.
Sixth point: Start what you can finish. Fans don't think in terms of projects or budget cycles so you need to adapt your programs to extend beyond traditional business thinking.
Technorati Tags: womma
Paul Rand: Ogilvy PR
How to keep the buzz going...and if you can't, what did the buzz do for you?
The Hush Puppies Tipping Point story...an example of dead buzz.
Building sustainable communications....USAA story. They provide ongoing, relationship building information to their customers
What is the value and what are the limitations of buzz?
Buzz is good for the sprint....the new product launch; but what you want for long term is sustainable WOM and customer evangelism.
Continuous improvement is what is needed for sustainability.
Maker's Mark Ambassador's program is an example of sustainable word of mouth; Paul is a member, having signed up a few years ago. Yes, that made me want to do a search. A personal recommendation is strong word of mouth.
The Costco story....another great story; they contrast sharply with Sam's Club. The way Costco prices their products and the way they treat their customers and employees both endear them to their customers and drive positive word of mouth. Having had issues on membership cards at both stores, I can personally make a recommendation: Shop at Costco, not Sam's Club.
If you have a problem at Costco, they will bend over backwards to fix it. If you have a problem with your Costco American Express card, Costco will fix it; Sam's Club and their GE membership/credit card believes that their policies, not their customers are always right.
What you need for sustainable WOM...
- Ownable market position...need to be able to articulate it.
- Sharable Story
- Continuous Innovation
- Dialoque...one way does not work
- Commitment.
John Bell 360 Digital Influence...Ogilvy: Sustaining WOM
Digital Influence Strategy...How do you develop an influence strategy?
- Conduct an influencer audit...who are the influencers you need to care about?
- Create a conversation map
- Develop a search visibility plan
- Conduct a multimedia study,
They can each lead to wom both online and off...each has its own attributes, each has merit.
Buzz won't sustain, active discussion will, co-creation will sustain and it will deepen.
Buzz versus active discussions...buzz gives you quick spike, raises awareness; it can be entertaining but it is not always relevant to brand.
An active discussion, sustained over time should be the goal... buzz can raise awareness quickly...buzz spikes just as quickly.
Active discussions with an organic community can become an enduring part of that community.
Co-creation sites..Lego, Samuel Adams, Electrolux, J&J, Nike, Netflix (leaderboard)
J&J...ton of mom bloggers out there; can't find them so they created a mom blogger directory; they sought them out....
Co creation....can be promoted, WOM driven by deeper self awareness
Buzz....we define buss as something remarkable...Dove evolution.
Tags: Dove Evolution, Netflix, J&J, Samuel Adams, Electrolux, Ogilvy, Paul Rand, John Bell, Lego, buzz, marketing, WOMMA
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Rick Murray from Edelman and Scott Wilder from Intuit delved into the elusive and shaky ground of how companies can jump into the word of mouth conversation most effectively, and without breaking the rules.
Scott outlined Intuit's approach to online participation. First off, they complete an internal word of mouth audit to establish who the trend leaders are within their own organization. These are the people who already know a thing or two about WOM, and Intuit puts that knowledge to their use. Also, Scott admitted, they keep an eye out on what everyone else is doing and "steal shamelessly." If it's working for someone else, it just might work for them, and they are at least willing to give it a try.
One of the key things that Intuit has discovered is the value of "guidelines and guardrails." Employees want to participate. They want to help their customers. And instead of hushing them up, companies can benefit from showing them how to participate the right way. Making participation opt-in is a way to allow employees to proceed at their own level of desire and comfort, and offering intensive training empowers them to do the right thing for themselves and for the company when they do venture into the WOM conversation.
Scott also expressed that Intuit goes to great lengths to get their employees to share their best practices internally -- allowing the more hesitant internal participants to get tips and pointers from the early adopters.
Once a company has stepped into the conversation, Scott said, it is crucial that they respond to negative feed back quickly and authentically.
Rick reinforced Scott's contention that good, thorough, pre-emptive training is imperative. Because the industry experiences 20-30% churn rates, he said, it is dangerous to assume that people already know what they're expected or permitted to do.
He also seconded Scott's claim that speed is imperative. Referencing the recent Wal-Mart flog, Rick commented that the five days it took Edelman to respond to the demand for accountability is the thing that cost them the most credibility.
Rick gave an update of Edelman's progress in meeting the WOMMA's sanctions, stating that the company has done a 100% global retraining of the entire staff (all of which is logged and time and date stamped for verification). The audit is 98% finished with no further infractions discovered, they have instituted a 24/7 ethics hotline which is global and handled via email.
"It is very painful to go through public annihilation," Rick said. And stressed that the lesson learned was, simple, "Don't do this. Ever."
The "world" has changed very quickly, he said, and asserted that, while no one was being malicious, more needs to be done to discern and disseminate the rules as quickly and deftly as the landscape shifts.
During the Q&A, Scott offered some simple tips for a small company starting its own participation initiative:
* Understand what forum your consumers are comfortable with.
* Keep it simple, especially at first, and take one step at a time.
* When deciding to hire a vendor or do it yourself, first do an internal audit to see what capabilities you have in house. If you can't do it yourself, don't try.
In this session, which was lively enough to overcome everyone's post-lunch drowsiness, Jet Wharton from McElroy, Amy Glasgow from MS&L, and Paul Leinberger from ComBlu spoke about the ways their respective companies have found to put influencers to work spreading the word.
Jet spoke about the SPI (Social Persuaders & Influencers) Report -- and, no, it is not an accident that the acronym sounds suspiciously like "spy" -- which is a program designed to manage mature (or "established," if you like that word better) influencer programs.
According to Jet, the primary concerns for companies in finding their pool of influencers are:
* The size of their social networks: The more "hyper-connected" a person is, the better influencer they will make.
* Their persuasive power: People who are credible sources of information make the best influencers.
* Their inclination towards information dissemination: People who tend to use their social networks for commercial speech naturally are better influencers.
To get influencers in the first place -- and to get them to know about your company or product or service -- you have to "speed date your influencers," Jet stressed. You need to establish relationships with them that are clearly mutually beneficial and be a good partner, and part of being a good partner is engaging with and listening to your influencers.
And doing so has so many benefits to you. According to Jet, effective influencers can help in:
*Sampling
* Research
* Brand evaluation
* Product testing and development
* Evaluation and feedback
* And more
Jet outlined a case study in which influencers were used to promote the release of the movie Clerks II. Consumers were told that the first 10,000 people to add "Clerks II" as a friend on their MySpace page would get their name in the movie's credits. Not only was this technique extremely "contagious," but the trigger was extremely straightforward. People were anxious to be part of the product, and more than 85,000 total added Clerks II to their MySpace friends lists.
Amanda Glasgow spoke about MS&L's recent research report with the Keller Fay Group, which identified the 15% of the population that spreads an entire third of the brand impressions -- about 1.5 billion total brand impressions per day.
According to Amanda, the rise of word of mouth as a marketing technique is directly linked to the demise of consumer trust for business, politics, and the press. Because the reputations of those entities are proven to have been tarnished, consumers as a whole are turning away from them and are looking to their friends and family for the information they need.
Amanda outlined three separate case studies in which, once the right kind of influencers were identified and tapped.
* For the launch of Heineken Premium Light, the company had to contend with the general thinking that light beers aren't good. They decided that the best way to get people to change their thinking on that point -- and to actually try Heineken Light -- was to identify a group of "tastemakers" who would try the beer, tell their friends it was good, and get people over the hump of their predisposition to think light beer inferior.
* To get Cartier in to the hands of the young and trendy, it was decided to use both celebrity endorsement (MS&L's "aspirational" influencers) and a "cause" to get the product on the radar of their key demographic. Hence, the "LOVE" line of bracelets was hatched.
* To get Mr. Clean "from the kitchen to the driveway," auto enthusiasts (mechanics, detailers, car salesmen, etc.) were tapped to try to the product as a way of getting the expert stamp of approval that would generate positive word of mouth and convince people that this product was capable of doing the job.
Paul Leinberger explained how ComBlu is breaking influencers into segments.
* Conversation Catalysts
* Category Catalysts
* Consumer Catalysts
He also stressed the importance of involving every category of consumers in every influencer program that a company initiates.
The important thing, Paul said, is to find ways to involve influencers -- to get them genuinely engaged -- but to do it without irritating them. He also underscored the importance of inserting feedback into the loop that goes from consumer-generated media and brand-generated media.
Positive, genuine word of mouth can't be faked. It can, however, be accelerated. Peter Klaus of Fleishman-Hillard, Tom Eiland of Conkling, Fiskum & McCormick, and David Neupert of M80 dedicated an afternoon session to a few of the tools that marketers can use to help them do just that.
Peter started and introduced the room to blogs, which he said are giving event marketers in particular a new way to generate consumer excitement as well as revenue. He gave two examples from his work at FH -- conferences for Fortune magazine and the American Marketing Association -- and described how companies can treat bloggers as press in order to generate online publicity around their products, services, and events.
For both conferences, FH was able to boost registrations significantly in a short amount of time by engaging interested bloggers, who blogged about the events before, during, and after them. FH then tracked the blogs and presented links to its clients in the form of an online book of clips, which functioned as ROI. The key: Establishing ongoing relationships with bloggers who will be excited about the things your company is doing, and will translate that excitement into free press.
Tom veered away from the subject of blogs, but stayed online in his discussion of bulletin board focus groups (BBFGs), which he said offer marketers a means to generate and monitor conversations that are flexible, diverse, and ongoing. He offered a case study from his company's work with Oregon Public Broadcasting, which wanted to engage influencers -- which it calls "trusted communicators" -- but only had two weeks in which to do it.
BBFGs proved an ideal solution for a client that wanted big returns quickly. The company was expecting to engage 15 out of 750 consumers in a three-day conversation, for no more than a few minutes at a time; it ended up recruiting 82 people, who spent an average of two hours each at a time on the bulletin boards.
The BBFGs delivered several more surprises:
*The average age of participants was 57
*Participants were both men and women
*Participants were 1/3 rural
*15% of participants, most of which were Baby Boomers, were podcasters
The lesson, according to Tom, is that bulletin boards are a great way to engage consumers who have something to say, and that marketers shouldn't make any assumptions about the folks they're trying to connect with.
Dave Neupert wrapped the session up with an overview of several word of mouth tools, including emails, viral media players, custom viral tools, viral video servicing, and grassroots teams, all of which he has successfully used to generate word of mouth for clients.
1. Email: Dave suggested newsletters, tell-a-friend buttons, and instant message outreach as effective WOM tools.
2. Viral Media Players: Dave suggested companies embrace media-rich microsites to enable 1to1 marketing efforts.
3. Custom Viral Tools: Dave offered eCards and custom-produced "webisodes" as examples of custom viral campaigns.
4. Viral Video Servicing: Dave said marketers have a unique opportunity to produce, distribute, and track viral videos for clients.
5. Grassroots Teams: Dave suggested creating online communities of advocates and evangelists to amplify one's organic word of mouth.
The session closed with a Q&A period in which Peter suggested Technorati and Google alerts as useful tools for tracking blogs and all three panelists discussed amplifying word of mouth with incentives -- including free ones such as "social capital" and "bragging rights," which David and Peter agreed are among the most powerful.
Creating a message is one thing, but spreading that message is something else entirely. In a post-lunch session about infectious marketing, David Rabjohns of MotiveQuest, Jim Calhoun of PopularMedia, and Joel Book of ExactTarget discussed how to make your word of mouth messages go truly viral.
Storytelling is the answer, according to David. Stories have always sold things, he said, but storytellers no longer control the stories they distribute. Today, consumers are looking for stories from each other. As such, the question for modern brands is: Instead of creating new stories, how do we attach ourselves to existing ones?
David suggested that companies engage in "online anthropology" in order to find out what consumers are talking about, and then develop a storyline that appropriately connects their products to those conversations. Examples he offered included word of mouth campaigns for Citibank -- which created its "Simplicity" credit card to tell a story about honesty -- and New Balance -- which decided to compete with Nike by launching a grassroots campaign to connect itself to a story about sportsmanship. Both campaigns used similar strategies:
1. Find stories
2. Pursue a relevant one
3. Give control of the story to consumers
4. Let great products be the center of the story
5. Distribute the story via evangelists instead of media
Jim followed David with a discussion of "viral psychology" and stressed that people share things only when they're entertained. "Make it fun to send and fun to receive," he said. Of course, fun is only half of the formula. He said when marketers want something, they must learn to ask for it. "Ask people to tell their friends about you," he suggested. The result, more often than not: They will. Other keys to viral success:
1. Use standard viral tools -- run of the mill tell-a-friend features, for instance -- that are easy to use.
2. Pay attention to timing. In other words, find the right time -- such as immediately after an exciting purchase -- to give people a message to share.
3. Don't ask people to "tell a friend;" instead, ask them to tell five of their most relevant friends.
4. Think of yourself as a recipient: "Clear trumps clever every time," Jim said.
Last on the panel was Joel, who discussed how to drive sales and referrals via email. He offered Southeast Capital Partners -- a real estate development company -- as a case study. SCP was building a condo tower in a neighborhood full of condo towers and decided to compete with a microsite dedicated to prospective buyers. The company created a contest to name the tower and invited potential buyers to register for the contest; when they did, SCP collected relevant data to send them personalized emails. The campaign featured several incentives, including the chance to win a year of free living in the tower.
The result: Registration triggered emails, which were spread virally via a tell-a-friend feature. In the end, 63% of registered buyers told a friend. The tower went from a database of zero potential buyers to one of 3,000, and 50% of the condos sold belonged to contest registrants. The lesson: Word of mouth doesn't just drive conversations; it drives profits.
Q&A focused on what to do when consumer conversations go negative. Panelists' advice:
1. Build relationship equity to buy time in times of crisis.
2. Participate in the dialog; don't just listen, but speak.
3. Respond to negative word of mouth promptly and efficiently.
Paul Rand: Ketchum PR
How to keep the buzz going...and if you can't, what did the buzz do for you?
The Hush Puppies Tipping Point story...an example of dead buzz.
Building sustainable communications....USAA story. They provide ongoing, relationship building information to their customers
What is the value and what are the limitations of buzz?
Buzz is good for the sprint....the new product launch; but what you want for long term is sustainable WOM and customer evangelism.
Continuous improvement is what is needed for sustainability.
Maker's Mark Ambassador's program is an example of sustainable word of mouth; Paul is a member, having signed up a few years ago. Yes, that made me want to do a search. A personal recommendation is strong word of mouth.
The Costco story....another great story; they contrast sharply with Sam's Club. The way Costco prices their products and the way they treat their customers and employees both endear them to their customers and drive positive word of mouth. Having had issues on membership cards at both stores, I can personally make a recommendation: Shop at Costco, not Sam's Club.
If you have a problem at Costco, they will bend over backwards to fix it. If you have a problem with your Costco American Express card, Costco will fix it; Sam's Club and their GE membership/credit card believes that their policies, not their customers are always right.
What you need for sustainable WOM...
- Ownable market position...need to be able to articulate it.
- Sharable Story
- Continuous Innovation
- Dialoque...one way does not work
- Commitment.
John Bell 360 Digital Influence...Ogilvy: Sustaining WOM
Digital Influence Strategy...How do you develop an influence strategy?
- Conduct an influencer audit...who are the influencers you need to care about?
- Create a conversation map
- Develop a search visibility plan
- Conduct a multimedia study,
They can each lead to wom both online and off...each has its own attributes, each has merit.
Buzz won't sustain, active discussion will, co-creation will sustain and it will deepen.
Buzz versus active discussions...buzz gives you quick spike, raises awareness; it can be entertaining but it is not always relevant to brand.
An active discussion, sustained over time should be the goal... buzz can raise awareness quickly...buzz spikes just as quickly.
Active discussions with an organic community can become an enduring part of that community.
Co-creation sites..Lego, Samuel Adams, Electrolux, J&J, Nike, Netflix (leaderboard)
J&J...ton of mom bloggers out there; can't find them so they created a mom blogger directory; they sought them out....
Co creation....can be promoted, WOM driven by deeper self awareness
Buzz....we define buss as something remarkable...Dove evolution.
Tags: Dove Evolution, Netflix, J&J, Samuel Adams, Electrolux, Ogilvy, Paul Rand, John Bell, Lego, buzz, marketing, WOMMA
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eMarketing: Debra Aho Williamson
Yes, social networking is a buzzword....but, it is important and getting more important.
Who is advertising? 80 out of the top 100 marketers are advertising on social networks...
Examples: Fanta game on AIM Page
Honda Elements on MySpace...Wallpaper is a big deal for MySpace users, they have it....wall paper contest gives utility.
Bebo...Friday Night Lights...Support your local team, enter a scholarship contest. post video about your own school; very interactive.
Borat advertising on MySpace...yes, it is advertising.
Facebook's new AD MODEL...news about your friends, ad in middle.
Ad Spending: $445mm Worldwide
Marketers allocate 8% of media budgets for next year for social marketing.
2007: Prediction that it will be the year of the international social network .International is a key expansion area.
.What's Next?
- Verticals...LinkedIn
- Social commerce: AMA 51% learn about products on social networks
- Search: adds real revenue..and better results. Tie in with Google will change the MySpace issue of bad search. Should add lots of revenue to market.
Better ad measurement is imperative...right now MySpace is poor.
Your brand+ questional content=dealth of social networking?
How should you respond?
- Cede control
- Do scenario planning.
- Go slowly, buy safe content areas.
Promote user engagement...this is key to being in the space.
Facebook: marketing against user profiles is risky, pick your tags carefully; Do you want to compromise your customer's trust.
CC Chapman VP New Marketing, Crayon: Marketing in Second Life
Second Life is one big social market.
2 types of SL users
Escapists: Don't like their first life.
Early Adopters: Bloggers, podcasters, embracers of new media
SL stats....60MM users.
Its young and going through growing pains.
There are limitations that you must keep in mind.
Just like real life, there are cultures to consider.
Build it and they will come? What is the goal? If they come will they come back, don't be afraid to be unique.
SL by itself is not the way the way to approach a campaign. Must integrate and support your SL initiatives with other forms of new marketing
SL is a very tight knit community. work with the community, pay attention to the commentary but be strategic when interacting with it.
SL has its own press..anything you do will get talked about so why not make it positive experience. Let the press know what you are doing. Invite them to your party.
Know the difference between doing it right and doing it wrong...
Tags: Social Networks, WOMMA, MySpace, Second Life, CC Chapman, Crayon, Facebook, YouTube, eMarketing, Debra Williamson
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Ethics are always a big issue when it comes to WOM. One of the final breakout sessions of the day addressed just that topic. A panel including: Gary Spangler from DuPont, Idil Cakim from Burson-Marsteller and WOMMA CEO Andy Sernovitz talked about the disclosure and brand protection.
Andy stated that ethics is the WOMMA thing, it's moving the industry forward before giving an overview of the WOMMA Ethical Guidelines. Following the WOMMA guidelines is safe harbor for companies.
There are four key parts of the
1. WOMMA Ethics Code
2. Ethics Adoption Toolkit: Create Your Ethics Policy
3. Ethics Assessment Tool: 20 Questions to Prevent Unethical WOM
4. Ethical Blogger Contact Guidelines: 10 Principles for Ethical Contact
Much of what WOMMA is doing is new territory. What WOMMA is trying to avoid are the issues that impact e-mail. Many people view e-mail from companies as SPAM. The entire industry is now lumped in with some negative groups. Andy doesn't want that to happen with WOM. We need to separate good WOM from stealth operations.
The core principle of the WOMMA Ethics Code is disclosure and honesty. There is the Honesty ROI:
Honesty of Relationship: You say who you're speaking for
Honesty of Opinion: You say what you believe
Honesty of Identity: You never obscure your identity
All this is build upon disclosure.
Moving forward they are attempting to build more practical tools, in a sense take ethics from a theory to action. Make it easy to do the right thing.
The Ethics Adoption Toolkit helps organizations create a corporate ethics policy. DuPont was the first corporation to build an ethics policy when it comes to WOM. Much of what WOMMA is developing is based upon the work of DuPont. When a corporation enacts a policy it makes sure the people know what's right and what's wrong.
The Ethics Assessment Tool helps identify and stop unethical WOM before it starts. Organizations should ask these questions of their internal programs and of their vendors. The primary purpose is prevention.
The Ethical Blogger Contact Guidelines is meant as a training tool to educate your organization about blogging. It's not meant to regulate bloggers, just making sure you're acting appropriately.
Ethics are easy, just be honest. Disclosure is easy and beneficial. Always think about the spouse test.
Next up was Gary Spangler from DuPont. The toolkit is a collection of sample letters, contracts, documents to help companies adopt a the WOMMA Ethics Code. The toolkit gives organizations off-the-shelf tools to communicate to internal audiences.
The code helps protect companies' reputation by providing guidelines and principles based upon WOMMA's guidelines. All of DuPont's vendors must agree to abide by WOMMA's guidelines in all their practices.
Big business is suspicious to the public, we must be more obvious and make a strong commitment to the ethical guidelines. Brands must be more public with their policies. The internet has helped facilitate much of this change, but there are also big companies doing bad things that also force change.
The reason we need WOMMA is not for WOM it's for agencies and corporations. Rather than each organization creating their own policies and guidelines that we might not all agree with, why not have an association lead that charge?
We don't want the government stepping in with something like CAN-SPAM
The last panelist was Idil Cakim. Idil wanted to approach things from more of an analytical perspective. Their research into influencers shows that a large percentage (72%) will double check sources. Mom-fluencers will often check up to five sources before recommending a product/brand. If there is something unethical going on it will be discovered.
Transparency, disclosure and accessibility are all important to building a communications strategy that builds trust. More and more there are studies correlating business ethics and the bottom line. Good ethics is good business.
Internal training is crucial, the mistakes are made because often the right hand does not know what the left is doing. Explain that transparency is not an option, it's mandatory. Screen out your agencies and partners, educate them on best practices. Remember the fundamentals.
Open Q&A:
George Silverman: Being ethical shouldn't be driven by the fear of getting caught, the real reason to be ethical is because it imposes a certain mental discipline to focus on the needs of the customer, not how to manipulate them.
Andy: Honest marketing companies make more money, because people will only recommend companies they trust.
What part should WOM take in the marketing mix? That was the question that a panel of three experts discussed. The experts?
Jamie Tedford, SVP, Marketing & Media Innovation, Arnold Worldwide
Dave Balter, Founder/CEO, BzzAgent
Nicholas Scibetta, Senior VP, Global Director Communications & Media Strategy Network,
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