WOMM-U: Bienvenidos a Miami!

With all due respect to Will Smith, I am looking forward to receiving this greeting while at WOMMA's WOMM-U event.

I'll be a faculty member (a tough stretch for me, I know) facilitating one of the highly interactive sessions on "How Does WOM Scale?" where we'll discuss issues of scalability, measurement, and optimization for WOM initiatives.

These are small group discussions of 10-12 people and will be driven by questions and comments from the group members. I will bring some talking points, however, based on exciting new research I've been doing with ChatThreads as it relates to these issues.

Dr. Kate Niederhoffer, VP of Measurement Science at Nielsen Online, will be the other faculty member/facilitator on the same topic.

It all goes down May 8-9, 2008.

Hope to see you there!

PS -- Don't worry. There won't be any grades and I won't bring my red pen with me. :-)

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Tags: WOM word of mouth Word-of-Mouth Marketing marketing communication

Journal of Advertising Research -- Special Issue on WOM

JAR, or the Journal of Advertising Research, has put out a special issue exclusively devoted to word of mouth, social media, and social networks. It's actually from the December 2007 issue so I'm still a little behind, but I hope to review some of these articles in upcoming posts, especially since not everyone may have easy access to the journal without a subscription (a benefit of having access to a university library).

People familiar with WOMMA will recognize some of the names, including Ed Keller (Keller Fay Group), Jim Nail (TNS/Cymfony), and Kate Niederhoffer (Nielsen Online).

The opening segment is written by Joseph Plummer, co-editor of the journal. He sets up the special issue by broaching whether or not WOM represents a new advertising discipline or if it's just a fad -- it may be neither -- but leaves it up for the reader to decide.

He also ends with a call for folks to consider JAR as a publication venue for the latest and greatest (and they have a history for publishing WOM-related research, including an excellent piece in 2004 titled "Quantifying the Ripple: Word-of-Mouth and Advertising Effectiveness", JAR, 44: 271-280 by John Hogan, Katherine Lemon, and Barak Libai).

Be sure to give it a look and stay tuned for more!

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Tags: WOM word of mouth Word-of-Mouth Marketing

Predicting the Future of Connected Marketing

Along with a number of other folks, I've been contacted by Justin Kirby, co-editor with Dr. Paul Marsden of Connected Marketing: The Viral, Buzz, and Word of Mouth Revolution, to comment on whether or not the predictions for the future of connected marketing he made at the end of that book were right or wrong or have come true or not. He made the following 10 predictions in 2005 (my thoughts on each below):

1. Connected marketing will become more strategic, with the focus shifting from promotion (creating remarkable campaigns) to innovation (creating remarkable products).

I believe that CM will become more strategic. Some early companies seemed to experiment with WOM initiatives, especially more on the promotion end, because they may have had some extra money around from a media buy that wasn't spent. Other companies had a very intuitive sense of the role of WOM and factored this in to their strategic decision-making but weren't necessarily very formal or explicit about it. Now, however, I see much more thought going into how WOM initiatives are part of an integrated program. I would say that since companies may have experimented with promotional strategies early on that more money will be shifting into the insight and innovation aspects, but I think that smart companies will figure out that insight, innovation, and promotional goals are all important, at various times and to various degrees. Of course, my empirical base of information on this is anecdotal because there isn't yet continuously-tracked industry data about this. I'd love to see the Word of Mouth Marketing Association track the resource allocation of this, perhaps in concert with other industry associations.

2. ROI metrics will be mandatory for viral, buzz and word of mouth campaigns. ‘Advocacy rates’ and ‘sales uplift’ will become important parts of ROI metrics, displacing traditional measures such as campaign reach.

Indeed, that's definitely a take-away message from the second volume of Measuring Word of Mouth (published by WOMMA; disclosure: I edited the volume). There is increasingly more demand for accountability and ROI metrics. I still think campaign reach will be a factor, though, because companies will want ways to compare their WOM initiatives (especially more of the "promotional" variety) with other media and marketing channels and initiatives (and old habits are well ingrained). I think what you'll see is a metric that provides a sense of the relative value of a conversation versus another kind of media impression. I do agree with you that sales uplift will definitely be important and I think increasingly we'll see agent-based models used to help assess the role of WOM relative to other media and marketing channels to assess that. Further, we'll see greater refinement of advocacy metrics, especially those related to intention to recommend and actual recommendation behaviors.

3. Word of mouth tracking will become a key metric in brand tracking market research.

Yep, absolutely. And yep, we're seeing this as companies like Nielsen BuzzMetrics, Cymfony, BrandIntel, Keller Fay, etc. see their client lists grow. See Nathan Gilliat's blog for more details.

4. Buzz, viral and word of mouth marketing will be merged into the wider marketing mix, with online viral marketing adopted and integrated within advertising, word of mouth within promotions and buzz within PR.

Yes and no. I think buzz, viral, and WOM will be merged into the ongoing operations of the firm, across many different areas. Yes, online viral marekting will be integrated within advertising, but I think even more traditional advertising messages will need to take into account the pass-along effects of WOM in order to calculate their true value (there's a great article by Hogan, Lemon, and Libai on quantifying the ripple effect of advertisements and tying it to a customer lifetime value approach). But I wouldn't limit "word of mouth" to just promotions (I guess it depends on definitions here as you use "connected marketing" as the umbrella term and I use "WOM" as an umbrella term). For example, I consider WOM to also be a source of innovation and customer insight. I think PR will take up buzz strategies but equally important is figuring out ways to engage their stakeholders in a variety of environments, such as discussion groups, blogs, online and offline communities, etc.

5. Managing and avoiding negative word of mouth, online and offline, will be an increasingly important area in connected marketing.

Yep, absolutely. And not enough attention has been paid to managing NWOM. A good bit of this can be done in managing the service recovery process but also in tracking and learning from existing WOM, especially regarding innovation.

6. Online branded entertainment (advertainment, advergaming, alternate reality games) will be used more as key brand touch-points for entertainment brands.

I think so, but we're seeing it used beyond entertainment brands as well. Check out some of the case studies on the websites of PodDesign and M80 for example.

7. Techniques developed in connected marketing initiatives will be adopted for change management and internal communication.

Yes, indeed. Internal blogs can be a great knowledge management tool. Enabling and empowering employees (principles of WOM) is important so that they have the tools and skills to create effective relationships with customers and other stakeholders (though see Chapter 6 of the book Loyalty Myths [pp. 153-168] for some important cautions about the relationship between employee performance and customer loyalty and profitability).

8. Techniques developed in viral, buzz and word of mouth will be increasingly adopted in CRM programs as both retention and acquisition (turning buyers into advocates) tools.

It would be great to use CRM programs in this way. It's especially important to think about segmenting customers appropriately and designing CM initiatives that are tailored for them.

9. Cell phones will develop rapidly as an important medium for spreading connected marketing promotions, such as mobile invitations, SMS barcode discounts, etc.

Yes, I think we are starting to see this. I think it will be important to distinguish. though, how much of cell phones, as a medium, are being used in "push" versus "pull" programs.

10. Marketers will eventually be able to locate influencers by zip/post code, by which point they will be all chasing the same chosen few… Prepare for another paradigm shift in marketing?

Of course, influencers differ by product category, not just by zip/post code, but I think your point is that as methods to identify influencers become more "efficient" (from the firm's perspective) they may be overloaded with programs. I think what continues to remain important is providing programs that are strategically in line with the company's goals, relevant to the participants involved, and that leverage motivations for why people spread positive WOM (for example, altruism, status, personal and social expression after a delightful experience, reducing risk and uncertainty, etc.).

Interestingly I noticed that there were no predictions about any of the ethical concerns regarding disclosure, commercialization of chit-chat, and working with minors. These were hugely important issues for the industry, and will continue to be, so I'd add that in as well. I know you have a lot of thoughts on this so I'd encourage you to add it is as part of your assessment.

Good luck with your article. I'm anxious to see what others say and what your own reflections are!

UPDATE (2/13/2007): If readers of this blog would like to contribute their own thoughts on Justin's predictions then feel free to do so at the Connected Marketing site by contributing to this survey.

UPDATE (2/19/2007): My comment about the lack of predictions regarding ethics doesn't imply that Justin doesn't have a position on this important topic. Interested readers should read his final chapter in the Connected Marketing text where he addresses the topic of ethics and connected marketing programs. My comment was only pointing out that ethics wasn't mentioned specifically in the 10 predictions, not that Justin didn't cover the topic of ethics in his chapter.

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Tags: WOM word of mouth Word-of-Mouth Marketing buzz marketing viral marketing marketing communication connected marketing

Flog Alert Repository?; Company Training About Ethics Violations

Does anyone know of a central place where people are keeping a list of all the companies who have engaged in stealth marketing (including flogs, or fake blogs)? The latest flog (over a week old now) seems to be Sony for their PSP: alliwantforxmasisapsp.com (see links below for stories covering this development; of course is not the first time for Sony as they messed around with stealth marketing with the Sony Beta 7 as well).

Sony, or at least one part of Sony, is a member of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (for which I'm an advisory board member), so I would hope that at least some representatives from their company are learning about how social media works and the ethics involved so that no part of their company continues the use of stealth tactics.

The viral marketing firm that created the flog for Sony is Zipatoni (not a WOMMA member). According to a report in a MediaPost article, a person claiming to be a Zipatoni representative contends they advised Sony that there might be this backlash, but their client went ahead with it anyway (this information should be treated with caution, though, because none of this has been confirmed).

Anyway, this story, the Edelman fake blog scandal with Wal-Mart, and many other companies point to the importance of the education work that needs to be done within corporations about social media and ethics. At the latest WOMMA Summit in D.C. Rick Murray from Edelman gave an update on how his company has implemented a mandatory training program for all their employees. Further, they set up a 24/7 hotline where anyone around the world can call in with questions to make sure they are behaving in an ethically approriate way. They also engaged in a review of all their existing programs to ensure that there are no further violations of the WOMMA Ethics Code (at the time of the presentation they were 98% done). Read this post for more details about what Edelman is doing in response.

Other links about the Sony fake blog for PSP:

Sony 'fesses to fake blog. Still gets it wrong. -- Michael O'Connor Clarke

Oh Sony, What Were You Thinking? -- David Binkowski

Sony pays PR firm to lie about wanting a PSP for Christmas -- Videogamesblogger.comSony's holiday marketing campaign sniffed out -- Engadget

Sony Confesses To Creating 'Flog,' Shutters Comments -- Media Post Article

And be sure to check out the following link for a YouTube video created by gamers essentially saying that Sony is stupid for thinking that gamers are stupid and wouldn't figure out the flog.

Thanks to Constantin Basturea for some of the links above.

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Tags: WOM word of mouth Word-of-Mouth Marketing buzz marketing viral marketing marketing communication stealth marketing flogs fake blog

FTC Response on Word of Mouth Marketing Regarding Disclosure

I'm blogging today from the Word of Mouth Marketing Association Summit in Washington, D.C. We just heard a presentation from Mary Engle, Associate Director for Advertising Practices at the Federal Trade Commission. She discussed the FTC's response to a complaint received from Commercial Alert (see background on the complaint and FTC consideration here). She summarized their complaint as follows:

Commercial Alert states that it is deceptive for marketers to pay consumers to engage in buzz without disclosure of the monetary exchange. They sought investigation of "buzz marketing" practices and asked the FTC to issue guidelines and bring cases. (NOTE: Commercial Alert should be calling this "shilling" or "stealth marketing" rather than calling this buzz marketing).

Here's the quick summary, with more details below:

- when payment is made to a consumer, that payment, by law, needs to be disclosed;
- marketers do not need to get parental permission for teens 13-18, but do need permission if the kid is under 13 (consistent with COPPA);
- non-monetary compensation (such as free samples, reward points, swag, etc.) do not need to be disclosed by law, but the FTC referenced that the WOMMA ethics code requires disclosure regardless of payment.

Here are the details:

The FTC declined the request to issue specific guidelines for WOM marketing, arguing that they feel a case-by-case investigation and enforcement is adequate. However, they did issue an official response later stating the the FTC's Endorsement & Testimonial Guides are applicable to WOM marketing. The FTC states that paid WOM advocacy fits the following definition of endorsement:

"An endorsement is any advertising message that consumers believe represents the opinions, beliefs, experience, etc. of a person other than the sponsoring advertiser" (Slide 8)

The Endorsement Guides require disclosure of the relationship between a seller and endorser "that might materially affect the weight or credibility of the endorsement" (Slide 9). They define a material connection as "one that isn't reasonably expected by the audience" (Slide 9). They also provide the following examples of these relationships: 1) seller is paying endorser, 2) endorser is related to seller, and 3) endorser is business associate of seller.

Their reasoning is that consumers wouldn't normally expect that someone has been paid to talk to them about a product. Further they suggest that consumers may give more weight to Person A's views rather than Person B's views if they know that Person A is independent from a seller while Person B is getting paid. Therfore, the reasoning goes, "Under the FTC Endorsement Guides, financial tie between the seller and paid agent should be disclosed."

Ms. Engle's presentation also addressed if the WOM program participant isn't paid, is disclosure still required? The FTC argues that it depends on whether consumers would give more weight to an endorsement if payment was or wasn't involved. It also notes that WOMMA's ethical guidelines call for disclosure even when there isn't payment. (For a research study about the potential business benefits of disclosure and guidelines for companies, please read my "To Tell Or Not To Tell?" report).

The Commercial Alert complaint also expressed concern about children's involvement in WOM marketing programs. The same disclosure applies in these cases. But what about parental consent? If a marketer solicits participation of kids under 13, then marketers need to comply with COPPA (Children's Online Privacy Protection Act), which means parental consent is required. But outside the scope of COPPA, the FTC doesn't enforce any other law that requires parental approval.

Download Mary Engle's Presentation from the FTC (opens into PDF file)
Commerical Alert's Reaction (Dec 11, Dec 12)
WOMMA's Reaction
Download To Tell Or Not To Tell? Research Report (link to download page)

Disclosure: Advisory Board Member of WOMMA

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Tags: WOM word of mouth Word-of-Mouth Marketing buzz marketing disclosure

What Some Leading Academic Researchers on Word of Mouth Marketing Are Up To

On Monday, I'll be giving the "State of Word of Mouth Research and Measurement" talk at WOMMA's Research Symposium. I'll be reviewing some of the latest academic research that affects the WOM marketing industry and offering a modest proposal of research priorities for the upcoming year.

You can find my a copy of my presentation handouts here.

As part of the research for my presentation I interviewed some of WOMMA's academic advisory board members, some of the leading researchers working on WOM. I asked them to give me a description of their current projects. Some of their projects have been published already while others are in the earlier stages as working papers.

Because I won't have time to discuss all of this in my presentation Monday morning, I am attaching this PDF file as a supplement to my talk. To learn more about the WOMMA Advisory Board members please visit the Advisors page on WOMMA's website. And to learn more about other industry and academic research studies please download the WOM Bibliography Project from my download page.

Please note that this is a very selective and partial list so it's not meant to exlucde anyone. Any other folks who are doing interesting work in this area should feel free to contribute an update in the comments section to this post.

Also be sure to check out the latest research book published by WOMMA: Measuring Word of Mouth, Volume 2. (Disclosure: I served as the workgroup leader editing this volume).

Download presentation supplement

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Tags: WOM word of mouth Word-of-Mouth Marketing buzz marketing viral marketing marketing communication WOM research

Proud Teacher

Three students from my WOM, Buzz, and Viral Marketing Communication class (Summer 2006) will be presenting at the WOMMA Research Symposium in D.C. Here's the press release!

Congrats Carrie, Ken, and Nick!

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Tags: WOM word of mouth Word-of-Mouth Marketing buzz marketing viral marketing marketing communication

Advertising Age Article on Net Promoter Score Becoming an Industry Standard

Some folks may have missed this due to the 4th of July holiday here in the States, but Matt Creamer over at Advertising Age wrote an article entitled "Do You Know Your Score?" [print edition, cover story and p. 24 for July 3rd, 2006].

The article does a nice job of talking about how the use of the Net Promoter Score (NPS; the likelihood that a person will recommend an organization, brand, product or service [OBPS] to a friend or colleague) is becoming a standard across many different industries but especially among the word-of-mouth marketing community. The NPS score is calculated by subtracting the number of people who would not recommend the OBPS, or detractors, from the number of people who definitely would recommend the OBPS, or the promoters.

There are several advantages to using the NPS to track performance (whether it be product or service quality, customer service interactions, or the effectiveness of a word-of-mouth marketing campaign) including that it's easy to understand, it's straightforward to calculate, simple to administer, many companies are using it, and it has been tied to revenue growth (tested in both US and UK companies).

Fortunately the article also mentioned some of the drawbacks or cautions about using the score as the "only" or "ultimate" question. When I discuss the NPS during presentations I discuss its wonderful utility as well as four critiques:

1) Is revenue growth the only financial indicator that matters?
2) Is the number of promoters, versus likelihood to promote, a better indicator of revenue growth?
3) Does NPS tell you what’s working and what’s not working?
4) How precise is NPS?

First, besides revenue growth, other indicators are also important such as operating cash flow (the “lifeblood of the firm”), cash flow volatility (indicator of financial risk), Tobin’s Q (the relative value of such intangible assets as knowledge, human capital, brands, and relationships), and the price-to-book ratio (the ability to generate cash from assets). These other indicators are discussed in Neil Morgan and Lopo Rego’s letter-to-the-editor in the April 2004 Harvard Business Review (they are marketing professors at the business schools of UNC-Chapel Hill and University of Iowa, respectively). They conclude that revenue growth doesn’t necessarily equal success in these other metrics and thus companies shouldn't use NPS as the "only" thing to focus on in increasing shareholder value. They and others have also argued that customer satisfaction scores are also correlated with important indicators in certain industries.

Second, Morgan and Rego argue that there is evidence that the number of people promoting may actually be a better indicator of revenue growth. However this is not consistently supported as Paul Marsden and colleagues, who have studied NPS among UK companies, did not found this in their research (learned via e-mail correspondence).

Third, an important concern is that NPS doesn't tell you what's working and what's not working. It's important to know why one has a high or low NPS so that an organization can make appropriate changes, or build on their strengths. Some people worry that organizations will stop at just measuring NPS and won't do enough follow-up research to understand why they're getting that score.

Finally, some people question how precise the NPS metric is. Pissed-off detractors who give an organization a "0" on the 0-to-10-point scale (0 - extremely unlikely to recommend, while 10 is extremely likely to recommend) are weighted the same as "passive" folks who give the organization a 5 or a 6 (this critique is discussed in a Business Week article). To be fair here, though, Fred does talk about how to address each of the three categories -- promoters, passives, and detractors -- differently when trying to improve one's performance and thus NPS score.

In their critique of the NPS in their HBR letter-to-the-editor, Morgan and Rego write that before an organization adopts the NPS, they should ask two questions:

1) What customer feedback measures best predict business performance in my industry?, and

2) What dimensions of my business performance am I trying to maximize?

According to them, an organization should only adopt the NPS if the answer to #1 is the number of net promoters, and to #2, revenue growth and nothing else. They also emphasize the importance of tracking what’s driving the recommendation as well as the number of customers making the WOM recommendations.

However, another way of thinking about whether a company should adopt the NPS is offered by Dr. Laura Brooks from Satmetrix. She argues in a blog post that a company should adopt the NPS if it actually motivates employees (and the organization as a whole) to change their behaviors.

And for a response to why some people hate the NPS, be sure to check out this blog post from Fred Reichheld.

Stay tuned for WOMMA's Measuring Word-of-Mouth, Volume 2 where we'll see how different WOMM companies are using the NPS in their businesses [disclosure: work group editor for this research book].

Other posts of interest:

My blog post about the London School of Economics study entitled "Advocacy Drives Growth"

My blog post about metrics used by WOM marketing companies to determine ROI

- Image above copyright by Advertising Age and Crain Communication. It is being used without their permission and knowledge but hopefully they won't mind.

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Tags: WOM word of mouth Word-of-Mouth Marketing buzz marketing viral marketing marketing communication

The WOMBAT Strikes Back -- WOMBAT 2 in San Francisco

WOMMA's Word-of-Mouth Basic Training Conference is coming back for more. WOMBAT 2 will be in San Francisco June 20-21, 2006.

I won't be able to make this one unfortunately as I'm teaching my summer class on WOM, buzz, and viral marketing communication (and missing two class periods in a row during the summer term is like missing a full week in a regular semester). I'm bummed that I'll have to miss the keynote speech by Shel Israel and Robert Scoble, authors of Naked Conversations :-(

But hopefully there will be some good blog coverage of the event that we can all follow!

Disclosure: Advisory Board Member of WOMMA

DuPont's Endorsement of WOMMA's Ethics Code

I just finished the WOMMA-sponsored teleconference on word-of-mouth ethics (recap). I don't know the actual count of how many people participated but there were a lot of *beeps* as people joined the call. The podcast should be available on the WOMMA website in the coming weeks (disclosure: WOMMA Advisory Board member).

I enjoyed hearing my co-panelist, Gary Spangler from DuPont, speak about the latest news in WOM marketing ethics. DuPont is the first Fortune 100 company to fully endorse the WOMMA Ethics Code in all of their marketing and communication practices. Gary talked about his involvement in helping DuPont integrate the Code into his company's policy: he acted as an "internal champion," he helped to create knowledge and educate others about what WOM marketing is and what forms of WOM marketing are unethical, and talked about the importance of getting the key decision-makers involved. Apparently DuPont's existing corporate values were already consistent with the spirit of the Code so there was nothing to prevent them from officially endorsing it. Gary feels that the governance issue regarding ethics rests on the "client side of the equation," meaning that it is incumbent on clients not to work with firms that engage in deceptive deceptive marketing practices.

Andy Sernovitz actually began the call with an overview of ethical issues facing the WOM marketing industry (PDF), followed by Gary, and then me talking about my "To Tell Or Not To Tell?" study on the role of disclosure in organized word-of-mouth marketing programs. One ethical issue that wasn't addressed in the call was the societal effects of word-of-mouth marketing and peer-to-peer influence programs (I only mentioned it as one other ethical concern that has been expressed, in addition to the role of disclosure, and the role of minors).

We all fielded questions from the audience which included: best practices for companies to ensure the agencies they are working with are engaging in ethical practices, whether or not to run a WOM marketing campaign if you know you have an inferior product, and how, if at all, a company should participate in online consumer-to-consumer discussions about its own brand.

Finally, stay tuned for some ethics initiatives coming out from WOMMA in the near future that will help companies ensure their involvement with word-of-mouth marketing programs is consistent with the WOMMA Ethics Code.

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Tags: WOM word of mouth Word-of-Mouth Marketing buzz marketing disclosure ethics

Free Lunch Teleconference on Word-of-Mouth Marketing Ethics

Who ever said there's no such thing as a free lunch?

On Wednesday, April 19th, at 12 noon, the Word of Mouth Marketing Association will be offering a free seminar on word-of-mouth ethics.

The title of the seminar is "WOM Ethics: A Practical Guide to Doing it Right."

The seminar is free so that as many people as possible can benefit from this important issue. Simply dial 512-225-3050 and then enter passcode 772541#

Andy Sernovitz from WOMMA will be talking about the WOMMA ethics code and principles of ethical WOM. Gary Spangler from DuPont will be talking about the practical, company-wide implementation of the ethics principles behind the code. And then I will be speaking about my research on the role of disclosure in organized word-of-mouth marketing programs. You can learn more at http://womma.org/telecon.htm

In the interests of full disclosure, only the teleconference is free. You have to bring your own lunch :-) (and I'm an advisory board member of WOMMA)

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Tags: WOM word of mouth Word-of-Mouth Marketing buzz marketing disclosure ethics

Free Pass to WOMMA Basic Training Conference for a Worthy University/College Student

It turns out I had a winning bid for the charity auction to the Word of Mouth Marketing Association conference. I'd like to donate it to a student who otherwise wouldn't be able to attend the conference. Ideally this could be any interested student in a university or college, but given travel and hotel costs, it might be a student in the Orlando area. If you fit the bill send me an e-mail! If no one eligible contacts me in the next few days I'll donate the pass to WOMMA to use at their discretion.

Disclosure: I am a member of the WOMMA advisory board.

Put Your Money Where Your WOMMouth Is!

Anyone interested in attending the Word of Mouth Marketing Association "Basic Training" conference in Orlando? It costs $795 if you're already a member or $1,095 if you're not a member. Or, you can bid your way in with all the proceeds going to a number of great charities (American Red Cross, The Prostate Net, Habitat for Humanity, Electronic Frontier Foundation, etc.). WOMMA is auctioning 20 passes on eBay and right now the bids are well below the prices quoted above. To learn more about the charity auction visit this page on the WOMMA website.

I just put in a bid for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. As a WOMMA Advisory Board member I won't need the pass if I win it so I'm happy to give it to someone who wouldn't otherwise be able to go. I'll know in a couple days and will provide an update on my blog.

Also, I'll be releasing a summary report from my latest research project on the practical benefits of disclosure in organized word-of-mouth marketing programs. The title of my report will be "To Tell Or Not To Tell? Assessing the Practical Benefits of Disclosure for Word-of-Mouth Marketing Agents and Their Conversational Partners." More details in the days to come...

Tags: WOM word of mouth Word-of-Mouth Marketing charity disclosure

WOMMA Basic Training Conference in Orlando

The Word-of-Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) will host their next conference -- Word of Mouth Basic Training -- in Orlando, FL, January 19-20, 2006.

I'll be speaking on Day 1. Here's the title and blurb for the panel, along with my fellow panelists:

Measurement 2: Why People Talk: Consumer Behavior and Word of Mouth

Walter Carl, Professor, Northeastern University
Kerry Stranman, Partner, Chief Strategist, MotiveQuest
David Fletcher, MD MediaLab, Mediaedge:cia UK

Learn how consumers interact in a word of mouth world. Discover what gets them talking, why they get active in discussions -- and why they don’t. Learn how to understand their motivations and how to measure them.

You can get a $100 discount by using the following code when you register: "speakerdeal"

Disclosure: I am an Advisory Board member for WOMMA and received an e-mail asking me to mention the conference on my blog, which I am happy to do :-)

Follow Up from the WOMMA Metrics Conference

On Wednesday I had the opportunity to participate on an excellent panel at the Word-of-Mouth Marketing Association’s conference on measuring WOM. The panel was “Optimizing WOM: Which Words Work?” In a nutshell I argued that the sub-title of the panel was slightly misleading. It seemed to suggest that there’s this magic combination of words that will lead to a viral explosion in WOM if you just get the right words down. Perhaps, but not likely. My point was that the magic is not to be found in the words of marketers, but rather in the creation and sharing of everyday consumer conversations. And one way to gain insight into these everyday conversations is to study the following four factors: the relationship of the participants talking, the locations where the WOM episodes take place, the topics of talk surrounding the specific brand-related talk, and the activities done before, during, and after. Taken together, these make up some of the components of what I called the “conversational geography of WOM”.

For each element I referenced findings from a collaborative research project with BzzAgent, Inc.. For example the most frequent topics of talk surrounding WOM episodes included topics related to everyday life, such as family, special events (birthdays, weddings, etc.), “casual” talk, reviewing the day’s events, relationships, and gossip. After sharing some practical ways for organizations to take advantage of this information, I concluded with the following two take-home points: 1) marketers should pay attention to the relational and conversational context of WOM, and 2) understand how consumers make sense of their world in order to weave brand-related talk into the everyday conversations that are already going on. A copy of the slides should be available soon on the WOMMA website.

Following my presentation the other two panelists – Greg Wester of VoodooVox, Inc. and Dave Cadoff from FutureNow – spoke about the importance of the individual people involved in WOM. Greg had a fun, clever, and unique presentation in which he showed three concrete ways that marketers could facilitate consumer conversations by creating personalized, interactive online WOM campaigns. Greg created three fun superheroes to illustrate each of the communication processes he discussed: Tuning, Transmitting, and Magnetism. Be sure to check out the WOMMA website for slides to his presentation.

A podcast put together by Ben McConnell where he interviewed some of the presenters at the conference should appear early next week on the Customer Evangelist blog (Ben was gracious enough to invite me to be interviewed as part of the podcast). And an article about the conference appears on AdRants’ website.

Other presentations I enjoyed and would encourage people to check out include:

- Matt McGlinn's (Director of Research, BzzAgent, Inc.) ideas on what motivates WOM;

- Pete Blackshaw's (CMO, Intelliseek) talk about conversational text-mining and the release of BlogPulse, a free tool to analyze trends in the blogosphere;

- Karen Kraft's (Decision Analyst) presentation on using online focus group participants to track offline, organic WOM;

- Terry Pittman's (Executive Director, Digital Services Research, AOL) thoughts on what makes products worth talking about.

All the speakers contributed articles to the first volume on measuring WOM so you can also find more information about their ideas there.

***
Links to blogs, podcasts, and articles referencing my presentation:

- AdRants’ Article

- Customer Evangelist Podcast on "Measuring WOM" (release date July 22, 2005)

- Gary Stein's Blog (Jupiter Research analyst)

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.