And That's A Wrap from Hamburg!

That's it! Nils Andres has just wrapped up the conference. Everyone is engaging in their leave-taking behaviors (as we communication people like to say).

Stay tuned for another post in the next couple days about the effectiveness of viral marketing campaigns like the subservient chicken campaign. I've had some great conversations with Steven Erich from Crispin Porter + Bogusky, the company that developed the campaign.

I hope readers found these postings helpful. This is my first time blogging at a conference like this. I'd love to hear your feedback and constructive criticism (or even nasty, harsh complaints!).

Why Does Negative WOM on the Internet Hurt? A Case of Consumer Product Reviews

Shahana Sen from Fairleigh Dickinson University is talking about "Why does negative WOM on the internet hurt?: A case of consumer product reviews."

Shahana cites research that shows price is not the key determinant for why people shop online. Instead it's the site experience (which includes whether or not you have register in order to purchase, if it was difficult/easy to compare items, etc.).

Shahana asks: "Since eWOM is from stangers, unlike traditional WOM, do consumers believe and rely on these reviews?" [NOTE: Sometimes WOM can take place between strangers, esp. in point-of-sale situations].

Also, is there a negativity effect? "Are negative product reviews found more credible and more useful than positive reviews?"

For utilitarian products (computer monitors, printers, manuals, PDAs, etc.), people rate negative reviews as more useful more than not useful (61% v. 39%).

For hedonic products (pleasure-providing products: movies, music, etc.), negative reivews are rated useful less often than not useful (28% v. 72%).

She then looked at two different kinds of books -- a computer manual v. a vacation book -- with a controlled experimental design. She found the same results as above.

Readers were more likely to trust the motives of negative reviewers for utilitarian products, but for hedonic prodcuces, readers trusted more positive reviewers.

So, what explains this difference?

Hyptheses: 1) Heterogeneity of tastes (everyone has different tastes for things like movies, restaurants, etc.), and 2) motivated reasoning bias (when looking forward to consuming a hedonic product you are already in an interested state; thus you're pre-disposed towards liking it and thus when you read a negative review you might be more likely to disregard it because you want to support the state that you're already in when seeking the consumption experience).

What's the take-away for marketers?

Websites typically attract more positive than negative reviews. But when you do have negative reviews on your site, don't worry about it, at least for hedonic products. Why? Because readers are likely to discount these negative reviews for hedonic products. Plus, negative reviews on the web site give the site an overall credibility. Of course, you don't want only negative reviews!

Interesting question during Q&A: Are people more likely to seek out reviews for hedonistic v. utilitarian products?

Nice presentation Shahana :-)

Podcasting, Part 2

Bill Flitter from Pheedo is doing his "Part 2" presentation about podcasting.

One of the benefits of podcasting is the time-shifting of information (meaning it's "on demand" and content you can take with you when you go and where you go).

Pheedo does integrated marketing campaigns across RSS, blogs, and podcasts (so podcasts are just one piece of a larger pie).

One case study Bill mentioned is putting product placement in a podcast. The key point that it made the promotion so effective was that is very relevant to the podcaster's audience. The podcaster invited his listeners to become viewers into his show which was ideal because the company wanting advertising has a very visual product that meshed well with what the podcaster was doing for that show: GoToMeeting

Content-added (later Friday night): It seems that this "monetization" of podcasting is similar in themes to traditional media but just with the new medium of podcasting. One difference may be that the audiences, at least for the time being, are smaller and more personalized than traditional "mass media" and so there's more of a sense of personal endorsement and recommendation from the podcast creator. I wonder how long this perception will last...

How To Catch A Murderer, and Learn A Lot About Naturally-Occurring WOM Communities In the Process

Suresh Sood from the University of Technology, Sydney explains how to identify the natural WOM communities in moblie (3G) networks. Specifically, how do you identify the key people in these communities? (For example, if there's a crisis and a message needs to be sent out to key people right away, how would you identify who those well-connected people are?).

They looked at a visualization of A-B video calling data (A = dialing numbers; B = called numbers). Looking at nodes (in this case, callers and called) and links (the calls between A & B) and they call it "train of thought analysis". This method is often used in intelligence and criminal investigations (it was used to catch a murderer in Australia and is now being used for commercial purposes). It is also called "solving the backward problem". Solving the forward problem is creating a hypothesis and testing it. But to solve the backward problem you have the data already and then are working backwards to determine what the networks are.

Suresh explains how it's "resource intensive" meaning that it's expensive but it can also save a company a lot of money. There are also privacy concerns when using database information to identify the nodes.

Suresh seems to be talking about using the tools of social network analysis for commercial marketing purposes.

Online Strikes Back!

So far, presenters have gone back and forth about the importance of studying online VERSUS offline conversations, as well as studying both online AND offline conversations. The last three presentations have been about how to track and understand online conversations. We heard from firms that track online conversations for companies. Right now we're hearing from Kristine de Valck from HEC School of Management, Paris.

She asked what do people online in virtual communities talk about and how do they try to influence each other? Examples of VCs include eBay, iVillage, HealthCommunities.com, YahooGroups.com, or corporate-sponsored ones like Heineken).

VCs were defined as "Affiliative groups whose online interactions are based upon a shared enthusiasm for, and knowledge of, a specific consumption activity" [missed citation for quote].

She provided some background about "Netspionage" -- monitoring the internet conversations for information.

Kristine does a nice job of discussing the pros and cons of online monitoring of conversations. The pros include it's naturally-occuring interaction, it's unobtrusive, publicly available, archived, inexpensive, etc. The drawbacks are that there is so much information so how does one begin. Durther, some claim that only about 10% of the interaction is truly informative for marketers. And researchers still have to deal with issues of reliability, validity, and generalizability.

She has a nice slide on different Methods of analysis: Web Mining, Signal Detection, Web Page Analysis,
Discourse Analysis, and Netnography (what she'll discuss; online ethnography). The foundational article for netnography is Netnography -- Robert V. Kozinets (2002) in Journal of Marketing Research, 39 (February), 61-72.

Great slide on the ethics of monitoring issues.

She conducted a case study of a Dutch virtual community about culinary matters.

One of the ways they attempt to influence one another is to call on authority. They also provide stories about deviating behavior. Other activities she describes include contextualizing as a way to explain their behavior and confessing secret passions (ironic given the how this information is publicly available!).

Her closing thought is that netnography is immersive, interesting, insightful, incomparable, and indispensable.

Counter-Intuitive Findings About Positive & Negative WOM

Robert East of Kingston University (England) wanted to challenge two traditional assumptions about WOM:

1) Negative WOM (NWOM) is more frequent than positive WOM (PWOM). FALSE
2) NWOM has more impact than PWOM. FALSE

Why is PWOM more frequent than NWOM? Robert claims PWOM episodes are more frequent (3x more than NWOM) because there are 3x as many opportunities to give it (people are more likely to have satisfactory rather than dissatisfying experiences). Also, many people lack negative examples that they could provide (for example, how many people could recommend against a particular dentist when it's more likely you could recommend FOR a dentist).

Does NWOM have more impact than PWOM? Robert says we might think this because NWOM is rarer than PWOM and so we might think rare info is more surprising and informative. But based on survey results, PWOM was reported as having A LITTLE MORE IMPACT than NWOM (but the difference is not statistically significant; 64% reported PWOM impacted their decision on different categories versus 55% claiming the same effect of NWOM).

The most interesting finding, according to Robert, is that PWOM follows market share. For example, Nokia has 40% MS for mobile phones and 40% PWOM. But they also have 24% NWOM. Sony-Ericsson has 24% MS with 21% PWOM and 22% NWOM. NWOM for mobiles relates to market share but is flattened. Check out his presentation for more details.

Some Other Notables from Day 1 in Hamburg

There were some other notable presentations, beyond the ones I've already mentioned, from Day 1 of the Hamburg conference.

Fergus Hampton from Millward Brown had a very interesting talk. Here are some highlights:

- The most successful example of WOM is religion, in its various forms.
- People are media. Everyone is (or can be) a journalist, advertiser, editor and publisher.
- He is interested in why so many people trust customer opinions or reviews on websites (one study cited 61% of people trust these sources as honest and fair.
- One helpful distinction between offline and online WOM is that offline is more powerful (in the sense of higher trust and higher impact to the conversation) while online is more versatile (there will be an expert on something somewhere online). [Online also has more potential reach, esp. in a shorter amount of time. Some would argue that influencers for certain brands and categories are likely to be online and thus their WOM can be more easily tracked].
- Some key take-away points about what engaging WOM means: 1) relinquishing control, 2) recognizing consumers as brand participants, 3) transparent and honest behavior, and 4) abandoning marketing speak (or what Lois Kelly called the "doglish" problem).

Strawberry Frog was very interesting. Their tagline is that they bring "the discipline of brand marketing and the populist power of grassroots movements". The most interesting thing I took away is their sequence for planning communications: 1) start with a powerful idea that can define a culture and is on the rise; 2) create a set of actions or events or communities to draw people in to this idea; 3) use mass communications to amplify the message for broader reach; 4) active WOM with PR and placement of content; 5) create media that people can own in both online and offline formats so people can keep talking; 6) Use direct marketing and promotions for those who are ready to buy. Thus, the point is do the grassroots work first, then go mainstream.

Two other agencies -- Fallon and Crispin Porter + Bogusky -- also spoke. They showed some impressive and entertaining advertisements they used to generate WOM. Both spoke about the need to create content that engages audiences. A high point of Fallon's talk was an ad for a Sony TV set. Crispin Porter + Bogusky showed a lot of their work with the Burger King campaign and how they sequence it (subservient chicken and "The King"). In both instances I thought how cool and innovative the ad agency was to come up with the ad but less about the products or companies the ads were about.

Be sure to check out Scott Foe (Games Group of Nokia) and Alexander Macris' (CEO of Themis Group) presentation on how to achieve WOM in the gaming industry. They have a proven approach that starts with a great product, then targets key influencers in the gaming industry (what they called "Superconductors"), creating ways for them to engage with one another, as well as creating ways for their fan bases to be involved as well. Their idea is to get the hard-core fans involved through the influencers, and then use traditional media to get mainstream audiences interested in the games (esp. print and web-based trade publications that then move to more mainstream magazines). I wondered how they could also use WOM strategies to move the games from the hard-core to the mainstream as well.

Learned a bit more about podcasting from Bill Flitter from Pheedo, Inc. Looking forward to his Part Two later today.

Why Aren't There Many German Companies at the First International WOM Marketing Conference in Hamburg?

There are just a handful of German companies, or companies who have offices in Germany, here at this first event in their own backyard (there are a couple from the beverage industry and shipping services). I've asked around about this and here is what I learned...

Apparently some companies experimented with viral and buzz marketing during the internet boom, got burned, and then soured to the idea. These firms also seem to equate stimulating buzz as the only form of WOM (as distinct from a philosophy of consumer generation, engagement, and involvement with an associated set of strategies and tools to manage and measure WOM).

Rather than being interested in WOM it seems that some German companies may have been more interested in brand extension and management (for example, when a brand has a new model and wanting to make sure consumers see it as an innovation rather than just a copy of the old model).

I don't have much more detail about what the bad experiences were in earlier years, or what German companies were invited and didn't come. And of course there could be a bunch of other reasons, but in the end, it seems like a missed opportunity.

Addendum (14:30 Hamburg time): Others reasons might include that the companies are just used to what they're doing (for example, buying media for a 30-second TV spot) and the situation isn't perceived as bad enough to think in new, innovative ways.

Positive v. Negative WOM: An Exploratory Study

Jill Sweeney from University of Western Australia conducted a study to learn about similarities and differences between positive and negative WOM. They had six focus groups with 54 different participants providing positive and negative experiences with WOM (critical incident technique).

Here's some of her findings:

- Positive WOM was more associated with cognitions, whereas negative WOM was more associated with emotions.

- Positive WOM is driven by service quality (whethere people had a good experience with the quality of the service received).

- Dissatisfaction stimulates negative WOM, but there was a feeling of satisfaction after making the comment.

Negative WOM spread more quickly initially, but also dissipates more quickly than positive WOM. Negative WOM was also seen to be more powerful in shaping other people's views.

This is the first phase of three studies, with a small sample size, but there are two key points to take-away that support findings of earlier research: Have a good product or service to generate positive WOM, and when there's a negative experience, give people outlets to vent their dissatisfaction early on.

Nokia: Lifeblog" and the Moblogging Phenomenon

Ni Jian from Nokia is talking about the moblogging (mobile blogging) phenomenon and their Lifeblog.

He quoted some feedback from another blogger who asked her mom why she doesn't blog or actively maintain a blog:

1) Feels like she has nothing to say.
2) Doesn't want the world to see what she writes.
3) She doesn't have time to keep up with blogs.

Ni Jian argues that Lifeblog helps people to create content because it is like a multimedia diary. Pictures can also be taken very easy, with or without comments, and then posted very quickly and easily.

He feels that mobile blogging is an important channel for WOM marketing.

Sandy Pentland from the MIT Media Lab comments on how mobile blogging can be used also to monitor health issues (for example, in the context of caring for older parents or patients). But other technology that the MIT Media Lab is working on allows a picture to be taken as well as an audio-recording to be made as soon as two people shake hands.

The Gaping Void in Hamburg

Hugh Macleod, creator of the blog and website, The Gaping Void, is now speaking about blogs. His site gets about 15,000 readers a day. He contends that he has a much richer relationship with his readership than when a newspaper audience.

How does Hugh make a living blogging? He described a tailor friend of his who makes suits for the rich and famous. His friend wanted more business in America so they set him up with a blog "English Cut". Based on readers' interest in the deep insights into the intricacies of suits and tailoring that Hugh's friend was able to provide on the blog, his friend was able to triple his business in the States (be sure to check out the September 17th posting about "how to recognise anderson & sheppard: check the pockets" (you'll have to scroll down to see it).

Hugh thinks blogs are important because they have the potential to create a smarter, more engaging, conversation with your audience.

Hugh challenges the statement that the "best advertising is word-of-mouth". Instead he says that best advertising is the kind that "disrupts markets". As an example he contrasts McDonald's and Starbucks. McDonald's makes their seats orange and uncomfortable so that people will eat quick and leave. Starbucks disrupted this pervasive market practice and created a comfortable space for people to sit around, where real conversations can happen.

In his work with a wine shop they gave free bottles of wine to bloggers. This was done by posting a message saying if you're a blogger you can have a bottle of wine. They told the bloggers they don't have to comment on it, they can just enjoy it. A lot of the bloggers voluntarily generated their own peronalized WOM on their blogs. The point is that this was real, authentic contribution (this was contrasted with campaigns where people get "spraypainted in blue" to promote a product; the point is the WOM generated there has nothing to do with the conversations about the product).

One critique Hugh heard about the wine blogging was this: are you trying to turn bloggers into "wine pimps"? Hugh says no, that they're trying to connect with interesting people in authentic ways. (Presumably though there was a hope that people would talk about the wine and that it would lead to more sales of the wine). They also want to host dinners for bloggers. The idea is that it's just a cool thing to do. One effect of this is that this work is getting the internal employees excited about their brand, Stormhoek, which in turns get them excited when they talk about their products with those external to the company.

Hugh's advice for companies who are interested ian blogging is to read Robert Scoble's blog (Microsoft) for a year.

The take-away for me was this point: engaging the market in a more intelligent, meaningful way is a moral decision. Recognizing that there's no way to control consumer conversations, the best way to influence the conversation is to elevate the conversation.

Intel and the Study of Urban Atmospheres

Eric Paulos (and colleagues) of Intel Research is researching how people use and live in urban spaces. Not only do they look at how space is used from a functional, productive approach (for example, we get on public transportation to go from one place to the next) but more so from a social perspective. Specifically they're interested in the social aspects of "urban computing".

One project they are working on is "Jabberwocky" and the idea of "familiar strangers". These are people who are familiar to us but are strangers in the sense that we don't really interact with them. They color our lives where the relationship is an understood agreement to ignore each other, but not with any hostile intent. The idea is that there's so many people in urban environments we can't maintain more active relationship with them. The goal of this project is to find out how technology can facilitate this type of relationship. To study this phenomena they work with artists, urban planners, architects, and anthropologists. They also take advantage of bluetooth-enabled phones, just like the MIT Media Lab.

Intel Research also did some interesting work on public interaction with trashcans as well as the lost postcard technique (where postcards with a friendly message and URL were left around a city to see what people's curiousity would be). A number of the postcards were never heard from. Some people checked out the URL on the postcard but never mailed it back. Some looked at the URL and mailed it back. And some even mailed it back with their own personalized response.

A lot of this research is exploratory, conducted in order to understand the subtle, social dynamics of daily urban life. The take-away point is that technology needs to be designed to take into account such subtle social dynamics. Also, by studying the ways people engage with public spaces organizations can design programs that better engage their stakeholders.

Alex Pentland -- MIT Media Lab

Alex "Sandy" Pentland, from the MIT Media Lab, is now talking about how portable wearable devices can be used to understand social networks and interactions. They use Nokia "smart phones" to track patterns of social interactions.

You can learn more from the Human Dynamics Group at MIT.

The Buzz in Hamburg: Azoomma Marketing Lab

The presentation that seemed to have most everyone talking was presented by Inus Hwang, President of Azoomma Marketing Lab. The root of the Korean word "Azoomma" means housewife and this is the focus of their innovative company co-founded by two sisters, Inus and Sang Yun. Dr. Nils Andres, the organizer of the conference, introduced Azoomma as the "BzzAgent of Asia." They're story is worth sharing.

In 2000 they created an online community for married Korean women. This site created a wonderful opportunity to create interactions with one another. In 2003, they took this 600,000 member community into the WOM marketing arena. One sample campaign was for Hamsville Bacon. Korean culture was not accustomed to bacon and how to prepare it in meals so Azooma created a campaign whose goal was to show how bacon can be integrated into the womens' daily lives.

The campaign worked along these lines: Azoomma recruited 200 women from their online community, called "seeders" and then sent them "experience kits" about the product that included 100 cards to distribute to other people. Through Azoomma, the company provided resources for women to hold "rice and bacon" parties in their homes during a one-month period. The women invited their friends over to the house for these parties (much like a Tupperware party). There were 780 parties that involved a total of 5,955 participants (P1s). The women who participate in the parties are given "Buzz Tracking Cards" which have a number of survey questions, most notably how many other people (P2s) they told about the experience and the product and their purchasing behavior. These postcards, which have a tracking number tied to the woman who hosted the party (the "seeder"), are mailed back to Azoomma to track the WOM that was spread.

In this campaign they were able to have a total reach of just over 60,000 women that resulted in 58% of those women purchasing the product. According to their research, one seeder had an ultimate multiplying effect of 326x (this is based on an estimate of P2 interactions; I'm not clear yet on the formula used to calculate this number but hope to learn more soon).

According to another calculation, they were able to determine that the cost of reaching the number of people they did was 1/13 the cost of a TV ad. This brand now has the top position in terms of market share in Korea.

There are also other aspects of community involvement after the campaign. For example, the women take pictures of the events and post them online.

One challenge they are facing now, which I've also been dealing with in my own research, is how to track the P2 data (that is, the people who were told about the party and product after the party).

There are a number of principles that seem to make their model successful: 1) creating a grassroots community that provides members with a space to interact as well as a sense of connection and belonging; 2) leveraging the power of relational networks and the credibility derived from these relationships; 3) providing a meaningful experience for people to talk about; 4) a concrete method for tracking and measuring the WOM; and 5) creating opportunities for people to make the WOM marketing experience relevant and meaningful to their everyday lives (including the possibility of further consumer-generated-media through the online sharing of photos and discussion).

Right now Azoomma is a small company with a handful of clients, but they are tapping into some sound principles of WOM. Inus had a strong stage presence in her talk and many people found her presentation compelling. Conclusion: they're the buzz from Day 1 in Hamburg.

Live from Hamburg at the 1. International Word-of-Mouth Marketing Conference

Today is Day 2 of the 1. International Word-of-Mouth Marketing conference in Hamburg, Germany. The conference is being held at the swanky Dorint Sofitel Hotel.

My goal is to provide live updates throughout the day and also a review of Day 1 highlights.

The conference is being sponsored by the Brand Sciences Institute as well as WOMMA and Contagious.

The agenda for Day 1 included an introduction to WOM, measurement, WOM and advertising and "mass" media, podcasting, and blogs.

I spoke on Day 1 in the first slot after a presentation by Forrester research on integrating WOM marketing in the mdia mix. The highlight of their presentation was how WOM needs to be integrated through the consumer buying cycle.

The Forrester presentation was followed by Lois Kelly from Foghound, a strategic marketing consultancy firm. Lois expanded the notion of WOM beyond products and services arguing that we live in a "talk world" where companies need to learn how to make their brand conversations real and relevant, where people will say "That's interesting, tell me more..." She provided some helpful strategies to help companies build these "conversation themes".

My presentation built off of my research on the "conversational geography of WOM". My three take-away points were how companies need to understand the conversational and relational contexts of WOM (and I provided some tools on how to do this), how to incorporate WOM into the marketing mix in order to leverage its credibility effect, and how companies can become participants in consumer-to-consumer conversations rather than unwelcome guests. I shared findings from my latest research with BzzAgent and discussed the Volkswagen Alpha Drivers campaign as a case study.

In my next post I'll talk about the presentation from Day 1 that stole the show and had everyone talking...

Pre-Press Version of "What's All The Buzz About?" Now Available!

I have recently posted a pre-press version of my manuscript entitled "What's All The Buzz About? Everyday Communication and the Relational Basis of Word-of-Mouth and Buzz Marketing Practices". The official version of the manuscript will be published in Management Communication Quarterly later next year (2006).

You can download the pre-press copy from my Northeastern faculty website download page (please note that you will be greeted with a simple form to fill out that asks for your name, institution, and e-mail address).

This manuscript served as the basis for a BzzAgent white paper entitled "The Value of Managed Word-of-Mouth".

Feel free to post comments to this manuscript here or on your own blog. If you want to comment on your own blog, please provide the link to my download page (http://www.atsweb.neu.edu/w.carl/downloads/) rather than uploading or mirroring the PDF file.

Defining Word-of-Mouth: Nominal, Descriptive, and Evaluative Distinctions

A colleague from the Stockholm School of Economics, Sara Rosengren, recently commented in an e-mail exchange on how I define word-of-mouth in my research.

I am also a bit curious about your definition of WOM. Regarding everyday WOM you use "infomal, evaluative communication (positive or negative) about an organization, brand, product, or service" as a definition. I was wondering whether WOM actually must be evaluative? Couldn't it just as well be only informational (e.g., "there is a sale at Sears")? Russel Belk has written about this a long, long time ago (1971). He then makes a distinction between what he calls "nominal" (just a mention), "informational" (descriptive information), and "evaluative" WOM. I kind of agree that all these types are actually WOM, but often only the "evaluative" part is considered in research. It would be very interesting to hear your thoughts on this issue.

Here is my response to her excellent question:

Here's my take: I think the "informational" versus "evaluative" distinction is a tough line to demarcate from an analyst's perspective. That is, the view of interaction I adopt is a rhetorical view which implies that there is no such thing as "informational" talk; that is, talk is always selective and partial (and thus it can't be "just neutral" or "just informational", if not for the very reason that someone chooses to mention one thing rather than something else or not at all). However, we (as participants in conversations) make a practical distinction between talk that "comes across" as more or less informational or more or less persuasive. For the "WOM Communication Log" survey [used in a research study published in my 2006 Management Communication Quarterly article], there is a question about valence which would allow people to indicate for themselves whether the commentary was negative, neutral, or positive (about 20% of the episodes were reported as involving neutral valence).

The "nominal" distinction is a worthwhile distinction and is especially relevant to the "Total Interactions and WOM Episode" worksheet (the 7-day log where people recorded their number of interactions with people and the percentage of those conversations that included brand-related talk). From initial analysis of actual instances of transcribed WOM episodes we learned that "nominal" mentions are quite frequent, for example in the process of storytelling ("we were eating at McDonald’s when I saw..."). This is a nominal reference, but McDonald's features as scenic element of the conversation rather than as an object of the conversation. To help participants determine which "mentions" to count for the study I decided to only count it as a WOM episode if it was more than just a nominal mention. Of course, I suppose I could have had them count it as a WOM episode if the organization, brand, product, or service was an object in the conversation but this seemed like it would be too confusing. By the way, one thing I'm looking at with the transcribed interactions is how do some "nominal" mentions lead into more extended conversation about the WOM object. (I'm just in the early stages of this).

So, in short, I think Belk's category system can be meaningful and useful (given the point about a rhetorical view of talk) and I should have mentioned it in my article. Perhaps I'll do so in a future article. Thanks for raising this issue!

For those interested, the Russell Belk article discussed in this post is:

"Occurrence of Word of Mouth Buyer Behavior as a Function of Situation and Advertising Stimuli," Proceedings of the American Marketing Association, ed. Fred Allvine, 1971, 419-422.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Remarking on the "Remarkable" Book The Big Moo

I recently received a complimentary copy of The Big Moo which is an edited volume of essays about the importance of being remarkable in a competitive marketing landscape. The book is edited by Seth Godin and has a number of business thinkers as authors of short, motivational essays on how to do things that others would want to comment on.

I am about half-way through the book and so far I've found it to be a mixed bag: some of the essays accomplished their objective and gave some fresh insights and ideas, while other essays seemed a bit trite, and I think I just missed the point of some others. I imagine that most readers will have a similar response in that, like all things, what is insightful to one person appears hackneyed to another. The key thing, though, is that I think any reader will get inspired by at least one of the essays.

A few neat things that I really like about the book iunclude:

1) The philosophy behind the book understands the fundamental principle that individual and organizational activities generate conversations among their stakeholders and organizations need to pay attention to the value of these conversations so that they can be effective and sustainable.

2) The authors of each particular essay are not identified. At first I found this frustrating because I found myself looking first at who wrote the essay before I decided if I was going to read it or not. This way I was forced to read the essays based on the title and then had the added mystery of trying to figure who might have been the author.

3) All of the authors agreed to contribute to the book without any compensation (not uncommon in the academic world but somewhat remarkable in the business world) and all proceeds go to one of three charities listed in the book. The goal is laudable: to spread the word and help light a fire under people to think in ways that help make themselves and their organizations more remarkable. Readers are asked to buy copies of the book and give it to people who they think could benefit from it.

The book was provided compliments of the Word-of-Mouth Marketing Association to its membership. Those who received the free, advance copy were asked to comment on it.

By the way, the editor, Seth Godin, and some of the authors will be speaking at WOMMA's latest conference -- Word of Mouth v. Advertising: Consumers in Control -- in NYC on Sept. 28th. Those interested can receive $75 off their membership by using "eventalum" when they register online.

Apple-to-Apple Comparisons for WOM White Paper

John Moore recently provided a follow-up post to his comments on my collaborative research project with BzzAgent and the results reported in the white paper entitled "The Value of Managed WOM". In his post he concluded that "the two samples appear too dissimilar to draw any empirical conclusions" regarding frequency data for the number of interactions, WOM episodes, and episode-to-interaction ratio (the percentage of a person's total interactions that include a WOM episode). Below is my comment that justifies why I think it is an apple-to-apple comparison.

***
Hi John,

I enjoyed reading your follow-up post about my WOM research project with BzzAgent. However I want to clear up a misunderstanding in your post. I did provide the additional demographic information on the BzzAgent sample, which was as you reported (though see next paragraph). However, in order to be able to make apple-to-apple comparisons I matched the BzzAgent sample to the "everyday people" convenience sample by age and education level. That is, from the total BzzAgent sample I created a sub-set of those agents with "Some College" and aged 18-29. This is reported in the white paper on Footnote #1 on page 3.

You are right in pointing out that there is a higher representation of females in the BzzAgent sub-set that I used to compare with the convenience sample (it's actually 88% [BzzAgent sub-set] to 74% [convenience sample] for the variables under consideration; let me know if you want more details about how these perecentages were determined). However, among both the BzzAgent sub-set and the everyday people convenience sample there were no statistically significant differences for the number of interactions, number of WOM episodes, and the episode-to-interaction ratio (the percentage of total interactions that included a WOM episode) based on sex of the respondent.

Therefore, I think one can safely conclude that the BzzAgent sub-set and the everyday people convenience sample is an apple-to-apple comparison based on education level, age, and sex.

Thanks again for your interest in this research!

Walter Carl
***

I would also note to John, and other interested readers, that a larger sample of "everyday people" (that is, those not affiliated with a word-of-mouth marketing agency) is warranted and anyone interested in helping to fund that study should contact me... everything is ready to go :-)

Response to John Moore's (BrandAutopsy) Comments

Hi John,

Thank you for your comment and questions regarding my "What's All The Buzz About?" article! I thought I'd reply as a new post so that I can provide a more detailed response. I'll intersperse my comments within yours...

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Your report says managed word-of-mouth (WOM) programs, like those from BzzAgent, generate more WOM than happens from everyday people. Interesting, but not a surprising finding especially considering BzzAgents are most likely more skillful at recognizing and reporting WOM activity than their peers in your convenience sample. What are your thoughts about BzzAgents potentially being more skillful at knowing when and where WOM happens and thus being able to report such activity for your study?

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This is an interesting point. First, I agree with you, it shouldn't be a surprising finding that BzzAgents report more WOM episodes than non-Agents. The amount of the difference was what surprised me (for example, Agents having twice as many of their total interactions include a WOM episode). Second, I don't have any direct measurement of whether or not BzzAgents are more or less skillful at recognizing WOM opportunities. My sense is, however, and like yours, that they probably are better able to recognize WOM opportunities. The point I think you're getting at, though, is were they this way "naturally" or does it have something to do with BzzAgent. I don't know, but here are my thoughts:

First, at the very least, I think Agents are more conscious of, and attuned to, the WOM process. I think the more a person's awareness of WOM is raised, and the more a person is encouraged to spread WOM, then the greater likelihood that person will see opportunities to do so (it's kind of like the social-psychological process of buying a certain kind of car and then "suddenly" noticing how many other cars like yours are on the road).

But more importantly, another reason why BzzAgents might develop better acuity in seeing WOM opportunities is that there is a social system in place that a) provides positive feedback about the WOM activity and b) creates a community where this activity is supported. As Dave Balter and Matt McGlinn have talked about at WOMMA conferences, when BzzAgents submit reports, they receive personalized responses from company representatives about their WOM activity. This interaction between the Agent in the field, and the person at the "Central Hive", makes their Agents' own WOM activity part of a larger social process of participation in a community, which creates more identification with the values of that community, and one of those values is to share your feelings about ideas, brands, products, and services with other people (that is, engaging in WOM).

So, whether the BzzAgent system helps people to be better at recognizing opportunities for WOM, or the Agents were like that already (which may have attracted them to BzzAgent) is an open question. Either way, I would wager that any WOM program that makes engaging WOM part of a larger social and relational process, whether it's BzzAgent or some other model, will lead to increased levels of WOM activity. The non-Agents in the study don't have that added sense of being part of a larger community of passionate people spreading WOM.

And of course, BzzAgents have more opportunity for participating in WOM when they do so as part of a buzz marketing campaign. But very interestingly, and I think this is one of the more fascinating results, the majority of the BzzAgents' reported WOM episodes were not related to buzz marketing campaigns. But instead they were "everyday" WOM unrelated to specific products with BzzAgent. I have a whole section on the implications of this finding in my paper and why clients of word-of-mouth marketing agencies shouldn't want Agents to buzz about their product 24-7 (see my last comment at the end of the post for more details).

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And ... help me to understand how similar, in demographics and psychographics, your two sample sets are/were. The white paper only outlines the everyday, non-BzzAgent sample as being college educated adults ranging in age from 18 to 29. Since the paper empirically states the BzzAgent sample set is more socially active, I’d like to know if BzzAgents are potentially more socially inclined than are the people in the everyday, convenience sample.

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Another interesting question. I didn't have access to specific psychographic data on the BzzAgents, or the non-Agents, so I can't provide that detail for you. Additional demographic data was available for the Agent sample, and it's reported in my article. Here's an excerpt from the methods section:

"The participant sample was representative of the larger Agent population on all available demographic variables: sex, age, ethnicity, education level and income levels. 83% of the sample was female; ages ranged from 13-72 with 45% being 18-29; approximately 90% self-identified as white or European-American; 54% had some college or a 4-year college degree; and approximately 65% reported incomes within the range of $20,000 - $80,000 per year (26% reporting over $80K and 9% reporting under $20K)" (from Carl, in press).

For the convenience sample, the only demographic information collected was sex, age, and education level. 67% of the sample was female and the average age was right around 20. All were pursuing a 4-year college degree.

Now, the bit about if they are more socially inclined. Do you mean are they more introverted or extroverted, to use trait-based psychological terms? I don't have measurements of that, but Agents certainly reported engaging in more interactions on average. Specifically, about 140 interactions over a 7-day period for Agents versus 108 for non-Agents. (An interaction was defined as any conversation that a person considered meaningful and that was more than just a "hi and bye" made in passing). Thus, the white paper reports engaging in more interactions as an indication of being more "socially active," but we don't have data on whether or not they are more socially "inclined." I wouldn't want to speculate much more beyond that., though I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on that point.

I'll have new data coming in shortly for non-Agents about frequency of interactions, WOM episodes, and the E/I ratio (that is, the percentage of one's total interactions that include a WOM episode). I'll report those statistics when I get the data cleaned and analyzed.

I'd also like to respond to "Paughnee" who posted this comment to your blog:

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Most BzzAgents are probably in the habit of making a mental note of WOM in a conversation whether they are reporting it or not.

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Perhaps, but both Agents and non-Agents had similar instructions and a similar log sheet about what to record and what not to record. So I don't think this would be a big factor in how they reported it on the "Total Interactions and Word-of-Mouth Episode Worksheet" (the original log sheet I designed for this study; e-mail me and I can send you a copy if you're interested).

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Thanks in advance for helping this WOM evangelist become more enlightened.
johnmoore (from Brand Autopsy) Homepage 08.04.05 - 12:28 pm #

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My pleasure! Thank you for your interest in my research. I'd love to continue this conversation further! :-) I can send you a pre-press version of the full article if you're interested (just e-mail me). I would just ask that it not be posted or distributed as there are copyright issues based on the contract with the publisher for the academic journal.

Cheers :-)

Walter

--- Relevant Links ---

- BzzAgent Blog Post: "The Value of Managed Word-of-Mouth"
- BzzAgent White Paper: "The Value of Managed Word-of-Mouth" (PDF)
- Brand Autopsy's Blog Post: "Thoughts on a WOM White Paper"
- Church of the Customer Blog Post: "The Science of Word-of-Mouth"

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