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July 14, 2004
Word of Mouth Marketing Association forms
This week in Chicago, Ben and I attended an exploratory meeting of the new Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA), which was formed in May.
It's high time for an organization dedicated to legitimizing WOM and creating it as a standard marketing discipline, and we salute the three amigos who had the foresight to launch it: Dave Balter of BzzAgent, Jonathan Carson of BuzzMetrics, and Pete Blackshaw of Intelliseek.
The meeting's "interested parties" featured notable people and companies:
* Reps from PR firms Edelman and Fleishman Hillard
* Reps from ad agengies GSD&M and Tribal DDB
* Dave Godes, professor at Harvard Business School. See his WOM work here.
* Ed Keller, co-author of "The Influentials"
* David Carlick from Vantage Point Venture Partners and a board member of Satmetrix Systems
* Andy Sernovitz from Gaspedal Ventures
A good chunk of the discussion among the assembled group of 18 people was how the association would declare standards for ethical word-of-mouth marketing. There were palable laments that too many companies and agencies are already miles down the slippery slope of seeding chatrooms and hiring actors for WOM campaigns. Within this assembled group, no one supported those tactics, thankfully.
For many of those in attendance, WOM is akin to media, a set of tactics to replace advertising. Indeed, the organization's launch vehicle is Ad:Tech, the online advertising conference. A lot of discussion Tuesday focused on ensuring that measurement standards are a top WOMMA priority. One PR company rep said she has to explain to her Fortune 500 clients how to compare WOM to standard PR measurements such as "talk points."
But too much focus on WOM as "media" trades one slippery slope for another. WOM is not just a set of tactics used in an endless series of guerilla campaigns; it can be a company strategy, even a business theology, about developing customer relationships that directly lead to company success. Companies like Enterprise Rent-a-Car, Krispy Kreme and Intuit see it as a core company strategy.
A few ways WOM plays in a business:
* Viral and buzz marketing. Short-lived WOM driven by marketing/PR/promotion departments.
* Street teams and guerilla marketing programs. They're short-term campaigns also driven by marketing department.
* Referral and tell-a-friend programs. Rewards based programs usually driven by a product launch campaign.
* Customer advocacy programs. They're long-term programs managed by loyalty or customer retention groups within companies.
As a customer advocacy strategy, WOM often lives at C-level significance. If WOMMA's vision is to elevate WOM as a discipline -- not just another media channel -- it should position WOM as a company strategy. Creating more balance within WOMMA by including more marketers and company reps among its "interested parties" list should be the top priority. An out-of-the-gate focus on develping comparable metrics diminishes the opportunity for WOMMA by subjugating it to the media-buyer level. (Nothing against media buyers.)
For agencies, WOM should be more than convincing clients to dedicate advertising budgets toward WOM marketing campaigns. It's about changing the nature of a company's approach to communicating with customers. It's about talking with customers, not talking at them.
Talking at customers is what advertising does.
Other blogs that reference Word of Mouth Marketing Association forms:
» Oh please no! from "Hello_World"
The Church of the Customer just posted an interesting piece on the all new Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA). In the post they referred to word of mouth as WOM. I hope and pray that this is pronounced W.O.M [Read More]
Great post Jackie, and thanks for all your help and great ideas in getting WOMMA off the ground. I couldnt agree with you more -- we have to make sure that WOM and advocacy and brand evangelism etc is not just seen as another media channel to exploit, but as a way of doing business. Of course, sometimes it takes some small steps (and use of existing paradigms) to get there; but its crucial that the longterm vision guide us all the way.
