January 2007
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WOMMA's much-anticipated Word of Mouth Basic Training (WOMBAT) event for 2007 has been announced, and we know you're not going to want to miss it. WOMBAT is your how-to resource for everything word of mouth. A full roster, jam-packed with case studies and practical, hands-on lessons for anyone involved in buzz, viral, blog, word of mouth, and grassroots marketing.
When: April 17-18
Where: New Orleans!
What: 50+ amazing speakers, how-to instruction, detailed case studies, and tons of high-energy WOM networking
Why: Basic training is the foundation of every word of mouth effort, and this is your two-day WOM boot camp
Sign up today:
http://www.womma.org/wombat3/register/
What do past attendees have to say about WOMBAT?
--> "WOMMA is like going to an all you can eat buffet where they also
give lectures on Word of Mouth." Jeff Goodman, Moses Anshell
--> "It's great to see what other like minded people are doing. I really
have a sense that we're building something here." Tac Anderson,
BlueLine Grassroots
--> "This was a new world for me and I appreciate how you made the
content easy to understand. I am leaving with so many ideas and
concepts!" Nicole Sampson, Deep - A Marlin Network Agency
--> "The best and most informative conference I've ever attended -- and
fun as well." Ivan Palmer, Wildfire
To promote the second season of its hit series "Rome," HBO gave diners in more than 90 restaurants in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago complimentary bottles of wine. The bottles were served with a card that read: "A taste of 'Rome' awaits you. Ask server for details." The appropriately branded bottle of curiosity-inducing spirits, as well as the experience of getting a surprise freebie, are things HBO hoped restaurant goers would take home with them. The free wine may have inspired conversations with friends and family, and might have even influenced the channel-surfing trajectories of wine recipients. Either way, HBO found a clever way to use word of mouth to keep its series top of mind.
Learn more (AdAge)
Learn more (Promo Magazine)
In a (not so subtle) twist of irony, Comcast is using a YouTube video to promote its new website, Ziddio.com. The video, which pokes fun at the current scramble to try to uncover the "secrets" of making online videos turn viral, is a spoof of a vocational school commercial. In it, the "Viral Learning Center" claims to be able to help floundering marketers master such things as: the art of falling, hurting yourself, hurting others, hurting animals, using animals to hurt people, Eastern European dance routines, and working with excrement and vomit.
Ziddio is a contest-based home for user-generated videos, the only caveat being that the contests are based on Comcast ON DEMAND brands and programming. Contest-winning videos will be available on Comcast ON DEMAND, as well as on the site, which may drive viewership.
Watch the video
In an effort to win over the "CEO of the house," Nintendo has brought tech-smart "alpha moms" on board to help spread word of mouth about its new gaming system, the Wii. The alpha moms have hosted Mary Kay-style Wii parties, presumably inviting other moms in their social circles to come over and play video games, an activity traditionally reserved for their children. The moms were an integral part of Nintendo's efforts to get non-gamers to pick up the Wii controller and give it a try.
Alpha moms were just one part of the company's overall word of mouth efforts. Consultants for Nintendo also identified gamer loyalists and large, multi-generational families in eight U.S. cities to generate buzz around Nintendo Wii, putting the game in the hands of a remarkably diverse group of talkers.
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If you ask Toyota, people buy hybrid vehicles for a reason. The company is relying on that reason -- whatever it may be -- to drive traffic to its recently launched, hybrid-dedicated microsite, banking on the fact that its customers are itching to talk about what factors influenced their choice to "go hybrid." At the site, users can create a profile and take part in community discussions with other hybrid owners, providing an ideal place for word of mouth to happen. Toyota predicts that the stories and convictions expressed on the site will provide inspirational fodder and move more consumers to make a Toyota hybrid their vehicle of choice. Other features of the site, such as the gas savings calculator, reinforce the idea that current owners made the right choice when they purchased their hybrid vehicles.
Learn more (Yahoo!)
Learn more (Toyota)
To meet kids' growing demand for social network functionality, Disney's newly launched website includes an online community where kids can customize profiles and personal pages to share with other users. There are certain restrictions on the site, though, that are raising concerns about the initiative's potential for success. The site doesn't allow users to upload photos or to write original content about themselves and includes parental controls -- which, some argue, inhibits the creative freedom that makes social networks so appealing for youngsters in the first place.
Disney contends that limitations and parental controls are necessary for the safety of its very young demographic. The effort functions as virtual training wheels for kids that are too young to safely navigate the total freedom of other social networking sites -- but with all of the limitations, kids might find it more stifling than fun and take their web traffic elsewhere.
Learn more (Mickey News/ Red Herring)
Learn more (Mickey News/ L.A. Times)
Learn more (MediaPost)
Learn more (WebProNews)
The Cheesecake Factory's reliance on word of mouth has certainly stood the test of time. According to a recent Idaho Business Review article, The Cheesecake Factory has been spreading its own sweet, sweet word of mouth message for 28 years, never having to rely on traditional advertising to fill the seats in its 120 locations. Howard Gordon, Cheesecake Factory VP of business development and marketing, says it's the "personal touch" that strengthens the reach of the Factory's WOM -- right down to the free cheesecake that accompanies The Cheesecake Factory's press releases. That's one way to get stellar media coverage: Sweeten the deal.
Learn more (Idaho Business Review)
Learn more (AdJab)
AudienceBuzz.com is among the latest social networking sites to carve out a niche within the ever-segmenting world of online communities. The site was established as a place where fans can rate live performances -- including music, theater, dance, performance art, lectures, readings, and more -- and claims audience members, artists, and performing arts venues alike can benefit from the conversations the site generates. Audience members have a place to go for consumer-generated reviews before shelling out money for a performance, artists can pick up valuable feedback and connect with both fans and potential fans, and venues have a community-based forum for promoting upcoming shows. Everyone benefits, and all the folks that make it happen have a place to interact, making AudienceBuzz the kind of place where word of mouth can flourish.
Learn more (AudienceBuzz)
Learn more (Concord Monitor)
The American Legacy Foundation (ALF) is taking its popular "Infect truth" ad campaign to online social networks, where it hopes a young audience will receive its anti-smoking message and spread it. Last month, ALF began posting "Truth" branded wallpaper, bumper stickers, birthday cards, Sony PlayStation case covers, and more to sites such as MySpace, Hi5, Bebo, Piczo, and Xanga, all featuring the tagline, "Knowledge is contagious: Infect truth." ALF hopes users will use forward-to-a-friend technology to send such content to their peers, vastly extending the campaign's reach. With a declining budget, the organization is trying to make its marketing dollars go farther by investing in word of mouth, which it says is more affordable, more accessible, and more effective. It also happens to be more popular among its target audience -- teens -- making it a smart choice for a socially-savvy campaign.
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Hoping to seize on consumers' enthusiasm for their favorite companies, Yahoo! has announced plans to partner with "passion brands" in order to drive sustained traffic to its social media properties, including Flickr and Del.icio.us. Yahoo! has hand-picked a list of 100 brands for which it will build "brand universes." As Yahoo!'s take on branded social media, these universes will function as dedicated areas within Yahoo.com where fans of a product can congregate to share news, links, user-generated content, and more. The first such universe was launched in November for Nintendo's Wii gaming system at wii.yahoo.com.
Unlike their branded counterparts on MySpace and YouTube, advertisers do not have to pay for their Yahoo! destinations. Instead, Yahoo! is creating them free of charge -- an enterprising way to benefit from traffic generated by other companies' positive word of mouth.
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Krystal has featured its brand evangelists in TV commercials, viral videos, and even in a special customer Hall of Fame. Now, the burger chain is putting them front-and-center in an online community that it has launched for "Krystal Lovers" at www.krystal.com. The Krystal Lovers Lounge will function as a social networking site for the company's biggest fans and will feature customer profiles, message boards, viral videos, and exclusive video game trailers and downloads. According to the company, more than 2,000 users have already registered since the site's informal launch last August, thanks mostly to word of mouth. Krystal plans to use its member list for email marketing and says that the site will afford it a unique opportunity to interact with and learn more about its most avid customers.
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The Canadian Cancer Society (CCS) has announced a new weapon in its fight against breast and cervical cancers: word of mouth. Taking its cue from a successful campaign tested in the United States several years ago, CCS will launch a pilot program this year in northeastern Ontario called the Lay Health Educator Project, which it hopes will encourage more women to get screened for cancer. Through the test program, CCS will recruit approximately 30 local women in order to train them in cancer awareness. Those women will become lay health educators, charged with encouraging their family, friends, and co-workers to undergo mammography breast exams and pap tests for early cancer detection. If successful, the program will join several others like it as proof that word of mouth can sell anything -- even survival.
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Denver-based pizza franchise Anthony's Pizza & Pasta has created a novel buzz campaign that it hopes will make transplanted New Yorkers feel more at home in the Mile High City. The restaurant chain, which serves New York-style pizza, is targeting East Coasters with several buzz-worthy stunts, one of which involved driving an authentic New York taxi around town promoting the business. Anthony's isn't ignoring New Yorkers' ability to spread word of mouth, either; a central piece of its buzz campaign has been the distribution of 500 "transplant" bumper stickers to Denver residents who hail from the tri-state area. The stickers give New Yorkers a means for finding one another -- and for spreading the word about some tasty transplant grub.
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Nintendo's new gaming system, the Nintendo Wii, features a unique controller that has consumers not just playing, but also talking. The controller -- a motion-sensitive, wireless remote -- is allegedly flying out of some over-excited gamers' hands when they're using it, causing damage to walls, television sets, and even other gamers, who are sharing their stories with each other online. While some brands might shy away from such publicity, Nintendo seems to be embracing it. The company is promoting the controller's safety strap while gamers are celebrating its durability and fun-factor. Regardless of what they're saying, some experts have observed, what's important is that people are talking about the product at all.
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WOMMA member company Coca-Cola celebrated the holidays last month with a YouTube promotion designed to spread both holiday cheer and brand allegiance. The Holiday WishCast was the first YouTube promotion for Coke, which once was noted for being wary of user-generated content. It involved six holiday video greetings featuring popular video bloggers that YouTube users could customize and send to their friends via email. The promotion is proof that even the WOM-skeptical can get behind word of mouth once they realize it doesn't hurt their brand, but rather helps it.
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TIME Magazine announced its Person of the Year last month, and for a change it wasn't a celebrity, politician, or newsmaker. Instead, it was you. Sidestepping years of tradition in which the rich and famous were named the world's most influential people, the magazine declared that armies of regular folks -- friends, communities, and everyday consumers -- seized control of the history books in 2006. Their weapon of choice: word of mouth.
Consumers last year didn't just consume, after all; they created. And they shared their creations with each other, too. By participating in online media environments such as YouTube, Facebook, and Second Life, according to TIME, consumers grabbed the "reins of the global media" and founded a "new digital democracy." It was a good year for word of mouth -- and 2007 looks even better!
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Warner Bros. Studios is thanking word of mouth for the success of its computer-animated feature, "Happy Feet." The movie raked in $41.5 million in its opening weekend, and two weeks later had grossed more than $121 million. While the movie was marketed as a family film, Warner Bros. attributes the surge in ticket sales to adult viewers without children, who it says were drawn to the movie by positive reviews and word of mouth. The movie -- which boasts adult appeal courtesy of its high-tech visuals, environmental message, and reinterpreted pop soundtrack -- is proof that a genuinely good product can find fans it never knew it had.
Learn more (Yahoo! Movies)
Learn more (Playfuls.com)
The city of Des Moines, Iowa, is taking a new approach to business development, and it's counting on local residents to spread the word. The Greater Des Moines Partnership, a local economic development group, launched the "Des Moines. Do More." campaign last month in order to attract more workers -- and more businesses to employ them -- to Des Moines. The $300,000 effort is relying on word of mouth advertising to reach computer-savvy consumers in other states and will use viral e-cards and video clips to get their attention. "When consumers tell other consumers something is cool," Iowa State University marketing professor Russ Laczniak told The Des Moines Register, "the message is more believable."
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Cuisinart Canada initiated a new word of mouth campaign this fall targeted at busy mothers, which it's calling a "Word of Mom" program. The company, which manufactures kitchen accessories, is hoping to turn parents into brand evangelists via a partnership with social networking site urbanmoms.ca. The blog-style site does not sell advertising, but rather "invites" certain brands to participate in its online community; in this space, Cuisinart Canada has created a "Cuisinart Kitchen Party" section in which moms can share recipes, product evaluations, food stories, and more. Recognizing that moms connect offline, too, the company will begin hosting real Kitchen Parties in moms' homes early this year, teaching women and their friends time-saving recipes that they can make with Cuisinart products -- a unique way to not only engage consumers, but excite them, too.
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Lexus is getting its customers to talk about its new flagship vehicles, the LS460 and the LS460 L. Its strategy? Turn these products into art. The car company has created a traveling exhibition titled "Light and Speed" to showcase its 2007 models, which Lexus hopes will woo its target consumers -- who it describes as affluent, worldly, and appreciative of art -- into talking about them. The exhibit debuted in Los Angeles, spent last month in New York, and will travel to Chicago this month. It includes several collaborations with artists, who have designed both architectural and photographic works around the cars in order to turn them, like other art, into "conversation pieces."
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