March 2007
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Join dozens of your fellow Word of Mouth Basic Training attendees the evening of Monday, April 16, 2007 from 5:30 p.m. until 7:30 p.m. for the WOMBAT pre-registration reception in the Hotel Atrium at the InterContinental New Orleans. Sponsored by Icosystem, this pre-registration networking opportunity will include complimentary cocktails and a chance to mingle with other conference-goers in a relaxed environment.
Come to register early; stay for drinks and pre-conference networking. As an added bonus, folks who pre-register will be able to sleep in on Tuesday morning!
Register for WOMBAT today!
USA Today added social network functionality to its website earlier this month, allowing the news to become a more interactive experience for the site's readers. Now, in addition to being able to read the news, USAToday.com readers can create a profile, post on news-related discussion boards, see what other readers have to say about current events, and even comment directly on news stories within the articles themselves, transforming a once stagnant form of media into a conversation.
The new USAToday.com includes a slew of social network capabilities, from videos and blogs to content sharing and recommendation tools. All of the efforts culminate in a news experience that is ripe with word of mouth potential.
Learn more (USAToday)
Learn more (WebProNews)
Sometimes a little word of mouth marketing can go a long way for a cause. Case in point: The "These Come from Trees" blog, where Pete Kazanjy is working hard to eliminate extreme paper waste in fast food restaurants. On the blog, Kazanjy sells stickers that read "These come from trees" and prompts folks to place them on public paper towel and napkin dispensers -- a strategy that involves putting the right message front and center at just the right time. According to Kazanjy's blog, a single sticker will save up to 100 lbs. of paper per year, which is just about the paper volume produced from a single tree. Not bad for a little square of adhesive.
Kazanjy, a product manager and designer from Palo Alto, Calif., got the project idea one day during lunch when he noticed the exorbitant number of paper napkins being taken, unused, and mindlessly trashed by restaurant patrons -- including himself. Kazanjy figured that a little reminder would be enough to persuade people to mind their waste. The project itself is "sticky" enough, but because Kazanjy's project is hosted on a blog, it's been easy for fans of the project -- including marketing guru Seth Godin -- to spread the word.
Learn more (These Come From Trees Blog)
Learn more (Seth Godin's Blog)
Learn more (TreeHugger)
To promote its Easy Mac product, Kraft Foods and WOMMA member company FCB Chicago created the University of St. Arvin website (www.u-starvin.com), which showcases college students looking for something to curb their appetites. One area of the website demonstrates what happens when there's no Easy Mac around: Students start to microwave things such as marshmallows, soap, and ketchup packets instead.
Aside from some seriously funny footage, the site is equipped with ways for students to spread the word about their need for Easy Mac. Prewritten letters home, appealing to parents to send a case of Easy Mac to their hungry college student, can be forwarded via email -- complete with a "send your favorite student a case of Easy Mac" link -- upping the site's viral potential.
Learn more (iMedia)
Learn more (Adrants)
Learn more (AdWeek)
Learn more (U-Starvin)
To get the buzz machine up and running before the launch of its next album, "Year Zero," industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails is setting fans loose on an online scavenger hunt devised by marketing company 42 Entertainment. The first of the band's "hidden" sites was discovered by fans who deciphered the meaning of highlighted words on a tour T-shirt. Since that discovery, fans have found an array of cryptic websites and message boards that are linked to the band and that depict a ravaged, dystopian picture of the future United States.
Nine Inch Nails fans eager to solve the puzzle of the mysterious websites have been posting on message boards themselves, hoping to find the next clue that will lead them to the final piece of the "Year Zero" puzzle. In the meantime, NIN is using the rabid curiosity of its fans to generate enormous amounts of pre-launch buzz about its upcoming album.
Learn more (AdRants)
Learn more (Digit Magazine)
WOMMA's Word of Mouth Basic Training (WOMBAT) conference is April 17-18. That's less than a month away! Have you registered yet? Here's five reasons to reserve your seat today -- before it's too late:
1. An Amazing New Orleans Feast
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We'll be meeting Tuesday evening in Lafayette Square -- one of New Orleans' oldest and most beautiful parks -- for a traditional, down-home New Orleans meal. Plus we're offering free crawfish eating lessons!
2. Spectacular Keynotes
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Meet Chip Heath, co-author of "Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die," and blogger David Weinberger, co-author of "The Cluetrain Manifesto," exclusively at WOMBAT.
3. Big Brands
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Learn lessons from the industry's biggest brands. We'll have case studies from Coca-Cola, Cold Stone Creamery, General Mills, Intuit, Jaguar, Jet Blue, LEGO, MINI, Nintendo, O Magazine, PETCO, Tabasco, Yahoo!, and more!
4. Tons of Networking
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Everyone who's anyone in word of mouth marketing will be here. Our two-day agenda includes plenty of time for dedicated networking with everyone you need to know and want to meet.
5. Cocktails and Shut-eye
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Join us the evening of Monday, April 16 for a pre-conference event. Register early and stay for complimentary cocktails. The best part? Folks who pre-register will get to sleep in on Tuesday morning!
Register for WOMBAT today!
MINI USA's latest campaign hinges on a series of short films directed by Todd Phillips of "Old School" and "Starsky & Hutch" fame. The "mini" films follow the adventures of Hammer and his sidekick Coop -- a MINI Cooper with a British accent who is clearly the brains of the two-person operation. The campaign never tries to hide the fact that it's a blatant plug for the MINI, and even pokes fun at itself for being just that. At one point, after boldly rescuing Hammer, Coop quips, "Yes, that was incredibly MINI of me."
Aside from the surprisingly funny spots, there is also an "Action Name Generator" on the site (WOMMA's official action name: Wildfire Winters). After users discover their action name, they can forward it to a friend, giving the entertaining spot plenty of viral potential.
Learn more (Hammer & Coop)
Learn more (AdAge)
As the proliferation of online shopping continues, vendors must come up with new ways to attract consumers amid all the online clutter. More and more, online retailers are relying on social media and user reviews to cut through the chaos and get the attention of would-be customers. Some companies even found ways to make the reviews themselves more interesting. For instance, WOMMA member company Bazaarvoice has created a customer ratings and reviews functionality for Overstock.com in which customers can upload videos or include content from video hosting sites as part of their reviews.
The added bonus of using customer reviews and ratings on online shopping sites is that a company can use the information from the postings to glean valuable knowledge about its customers, including what products they prefer and what features could be improved, as well as potential glitches in customer service, etc.
Learn more
In honor of WOMMA's upcoming Word of Mouth Basic Training event, which is taking place in New Orleans April 17-18, WOMMA sponsored a trivia contest the week of Feb. 26. The first 10 folks to answer our (very tricky!) New Orleans trivia questions correctly by email won a FREE copy of WOMBAT keynote Chip Heath's "Made To Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die."
Congratulations to the winners:
- Heather Doyle, Central Pennsylvania College
- Derek Karchner, Rosenberg Communications
- Tim Menzia, StartSampling
- Emily Moscato, Three
- Julie Ann Padgett, University of Illinois
- Tad Perryman, Moroch
- Caleb Poterbin, Blueliner Marketing
- Lloyd Silver, Provada
- Doug Stokes, Campbell Mithun
- Jonnie Stone, Genworth Financial
Test your New Orleans knowledge before you head down for the Word of Mouth Basic Training conference; take the quiz yourself.
Register for WOMBAT today!
When a company does something so right that it knocks its customers' socks off, those customers will inevitably talk about it. That's what Nintendo of America recently found out when a happy customer wrote in to a popular consumer blog, The Consumerist (http://www.consumerist.com), to spread the word about an amazing customer experience.
A customer in the Redmond, Wash., area had a broken Wii. Customer service told him to bring it over to the Nintendo campus for repair. The customer was greeted on site by life-size Mario and Pikachu characters, as well as a friendly receptionist. Nintendo wisked the customer's Wii away and returned it -- fully repaired and with the warranty clock reset -- in under 30 minutes. And then what happened? The customer couldn't wait to tell someone about it. He wrote in to the Consumerist, and probably told all his friends, too.
Learn more
In a move the blurs the boundaries between literature and marketing, Lexus has tapped Los Angeles writer Mark Haskell Smith to write a serial novel as a promotion for the automaker. The idea for the "adver-novel," which will be published in three installments in the Lexus quarterly magazine, was hatched as part of the company's overall efforts to reach a younger, hipper target audience.
Subtlety is the key to making this kind of marketing endeavor work, experts say. Consumers don't want to read a 200-page advertisement, but if the advertisement manages to masquerade as an enjoyable piece of noir crime fiction, as Haskell Smith's tale of the "Black Sapphire Pearl" intends to, then consumers have something worth reading -- and talking -- about.
Learn more (Washington Post)
Learn more (Lexus)
To get female high school athletes talking about Tampax, the Procter & Gamble brand is sponsoring a "battle" on niche social networking site Takkle.com. Tampax is challenging high school cheerleaders to submit video clips of their most crowd-rallying cheers; users vote on their favorites and the winning team takes home $10,000 in cheerleading equipment.
Tampax chose Takkle.com to house its cheerleading competition because it is a social networking site dedicated to female athletes, which is the audience Tampax wants to reach. According to Tampax assistant brand manager Flavia Mason, Tampax sees the "online environment playing a role as a marketing vehicle," and is using the environment to be more targeted, which helps focus its word of mouth efforts.
Learn more (AdWeek)
Learn more (BizReport)
DaimlerChrysler and Marvel Comics have teamed up to make the Jeep Patriot the star of its own comic book. The first panels of the comic have already been created and are posted at PatriotAdventure.com. It's up to readers, however, to create the rest of the "Patriot Factor" storyline by proposing plot lines. Writers of glowing submissions will be chosen to get co-author credit for the final, 28-page comic, which will be published in early spring. Also, the first 100,000 people who register at the site will get a free copy of the completed comic.
While the Patriot will be front and center, the vehicle won't be doing any actual crime fighting. It will, however, provide transportation for the story's protagonists as they work to foil the "bad guys." The campaign, designed by WOMMA member company Organic, aims to connect the Jeep Patriot with its younger, tech-savvy target market, and combines many elements that make word of mouth work: user-generated content, a fun contest, and a wacky mashup of something consumers like (comics) and something they need (transportation).
Learn more (ClickZ)
Learn more (BrandWeek)
WOMMA is thrilled to announce two exciting new speakers for our upcoming conference: esteemed blogger Dr. David Weinberger and ski-instructor-turned-marketing-innovator Peter van Stolk of Jones Soda. Both will join Chip Heath, the best-selling co-author of "Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die," as keynotes at WOMMA's Word of Mouth Basic Training conference, April 17-18 in New Orleans.
Learn more about these incredible keynotes by visiting our event website.
View the WOMBAT agenda.
For a lot of farmers, the name "John Deere" is synonymous with "tractor," so when MahindraUSA entered the market, the company knew it had to be something more. It focused its efforts on turning "Deere owners into Mahindra believers." According to the company's website, 82% of people who have owned both a Deere and a Mahindra say they'd buy another Mahindra, and 97% of Mahindra owners are satisfied with their tractors. Part of their marketing strategy, as a result, has been to get some of those "believers" talking.
One such Mahindra believer is Joel Combs of Pine Knot, KY, who authors a blog titled "The Life of a Farm Blog" in which his Mahindra tractor plays a substantial role. The blog itself focuses on Combs' life, including his children, his neighbors, home repairs, the trials of farm life, and, of course, his Mahindra tractor. There are photos of Combs on his tractor, as well as a Mahindra ad on the blog, but other than that, it's all about Combs and his experiences as a hobby farmer who just happens to have a great deal of brand love for one particular kind of tractor.
Learn more (The Life of a Farm Blog)
Learn more (Influential Interactive Marketing Blog)
Coffee shops are everywhere. Throw a rock (or a handful of coffee beans) and you're bound to at least graze a nearby cafe. So what's an independent coffeepreneur to do if he wants to stand out from the herd when opening up shop? Ervin Peretz, founder of the Kirkland, Wash. Terra Bite Lounge, decided on a pretty radical tactic: No prices are listed, and Terra Bite patrons pay whatever they choose for their cups of Joe.
Peretz is banking on the fact that particularly generous caffeine aficionados will offset the profit loss incurred from more stingy sippers, and a low-overhead business model keeps the Terra Bite's profit margins manageable. According to Peretz, the idea behind the Terra Bite Lounge surfaced during a debate with a colleague in which Peretz insisted that people are essentially good and will respond positively if they see goodness in their environments. Whether Terra Bite will prove Peretz's theory right or wrong remains to be seen, but in the meantime, the idea of a coffee shop that lets you pay what you choose -- or not -- is certainly worth talking about.
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