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Can we just shut up about word-of-mouth? Word-of-mouth marketing just won't pipe down today. WOM shop BzzAgent is offering a money-back guarantee (based on its own measurement criteria, of course) that one of its campaigns will outperform a competing effort using other media. There’s a $300,000 minimum for both the WOM and competing campaigns. I find that price tag odd, given that BzzAgent itself claims its yakkers’ conversations are worth about 50 cents apiece. Separately, Augustine Fou of MRM dismisses the whole phenomenon in an Adweek guest column, claiming: “Word-of-mouth marketing isn’t something you can, should or need to do.” Strong words, indeed. You know, people are going to tire of all this brand-building chatter and the buzz agencies will have to try something new. My suggestion: the Reverse Psychology Campaign. You sidle up to someone and say: “Breakfast at Denny’s? That’s really not your kind of thing, is it? I just can’t see you eating there.” Before you know it, McD’s would be kissing its omlette-and-hash-browns market share goodbye. —Posted by David Gianatasio

July 14, 2008 in Gianatasio | Permalink

Comments

What makes me laugh is the hypocracy of all these WOMM companies. Seriously. It's really comical.

Spike Jones at Brains on Fire condemned a company for being paid to post blog articles yet they set up a program for Fiskars which pays the bloggers to participate. They say it's less offensive because the bloggers actually love the product. Hypocrits.

See the thread here: http://brainsonfire.com/blog/2008/07/10/you-have-got-to-be-kidding-me/

BzzAgent is the biggest scam going. People sign up with them for free stuff, period. I'm an agent and I reported hundreds of "conversations" that I never made to test their follow-up. Nothing was ever followed up. They're a joke and anyone that uses that service is buying candy canes and snow flakes, not real ROI.

True WOM happens naturally because people love the company or product. Sure you can nudge them but don't call it WOMM. Call it Marketing, cause that's what it is.

Posted by: BIG Kahuna | Jul 14, 2008 10:45:00 AM

Here's an article on my take on Word of Mouth Marketing Companies:

http://www.brandidentityguru.com/wordpress/?p=745

Posted by: BIG Kahuna | Jul 14, 2008 11:38:54 AM

Nice post, David. I feel I need to make a couple of clarifications to the above comments. The post I wrote about was about a company that pays people who have no idea what they're talking about to post of forums without disclosing that they are paid.

The Fiskars movement is not only lead by very knowledgeable, PASSIONATE crafters, it's also built on complete transparency. Everyone knows that the leads (who were fans of the brand and blogging about it even before the Fiskateer movement) are part-time, paid employees.

And lastly, we don't even call it word of mouth. It's just common sense - building one-on-one relationships with real, passionate people.

People need to get their facts straight before they speak out of school...

Posted by: Spike Jones | Jul 16, 2008 9:24:26 AM

WOM online is more measurable and monitorable than WOM offline. This may be why people think that it is somehow different. What they forget is that WOM is made by people, and if you pay people to talk, they generally will talk a lot and report having talked more. This doesn't mean WOMM online isn't effective and measurable, it just means that in order to effectively create it, marketers must first understand and monitor it.

Posted by: Linda Margaret | Aug 11, 2008 8:20:41 AM

Spike, if you don't call it word of mouth why is Geno Church's title "Word of Mouth Guru"? All you guys talk about is word of mouth.

Posted by: BIG Kahuna | Sep 18, 2008 10:31:28 AM

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