WOM, Buzz, & Viral Marketing Communication

Taslim Sidi's Reflection Essay

2007-04-30T15:18:00.001-04:00

Based on my involvement and observation of word of mouth episodes (WOME) over the course of the semester, I determined there were distinct patterns within my communication practices. As I spend the majority of my time during the week in classes, working, and doing homework, I generally don’t get to spend a lot of time with friends or peers. Therefore, a lot of my conversations took place in an online venue, either through email or on a message board. These online conversations tended to be shorter, in both interaction time and in brand conversation time than my face-to-face communications. This was correlated to the fact that my conversation venue determined my level of trust towards my conversation partner. For example, in my WOME #2, I discussed Bare Essentials makeup on a semi private (because you do have to be a member) message board. Of all my recorded episodes, I had the least amount of trust in my conversation partner and also I had the least personal relationship with this person. On the other hand, my last recorded WOME was a face-to-face conversation with one of my best friends. Even though we were in the presence of others (three males), the trust between conversational partners was very high.

If anything, the three male spectators during my last recorded conversation influenced the topic of WOM rather than the quality of the communication. It was interesting to me to consider the nature of gender in regards to WOME over the semester. Though the details of conversational spectators were not in the reports, my online conversation was between females with female spectators. In these instances where I was addressing only women, I talked about makeup and celebrity gossip, two topics that could be gendered female. In my face-to-face conversation, WOMES #3, when we were in the presence of males, we discussed beer, or a topic that could be thought of as more masculine.

Additionally, brands seemed to introduce other brands into a conversation. For example, in the first WOME I recorded, my friend (female) and I were discussing celebrity gossip. Our conversation included the best way to find out about celebrity gossip, via blogger Perez Hilton, and also various celebrities such as Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton, that could be considered brands. Similarly, my 3^rd WOM conversation started about Edison Light beer, which my friend was conducting market tests on, and diverged into a comparison of that brand with other brands we preferred such as Bud Light, or Coors Light. Each brand became a gateway to talk about other brands, which I think is very telling of how I have conversations.

Throughout the semester I have been assessing how I discuss brands or products with my friends and others. Although the event or meeting in which a WOME took place might have been prearranged, any WOM occurred as a result of casual conversation. Many times the actual conversation was fueled by a brand, evidence of the commercialization of chitchat. Most conversations were not to recommend one brand over another, more so to simply discuss our experiences with a product, as a way of storytelling.

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

Holly Jackson's Reflection Essay

2007-04-30T15:17:00.002-04:00

Context for this post

Word of mouth interactions take place on a daily basis. So much so, that we barely differentiate them from normal, everyday conversations with friends. However, even though we may not realize it, I have learned that we all hold the power to influence our peers through conversations and interactions by simply becoming more aware of the WOM episodes I engage in with others.

I realized that most of my word of mouth episodes took place with my closest friends, those people being the ones I interact with the most and who tend to share my interests. In times when I was receiving a recommendation, it was crucial that I was interacting with someone who I trust to recommend something worth my time to follow-up with. However, I did notice that there were a few times when I found myself urging people, with whom I have just met, to try out something. Though these instances were somewhat rare, I had to be relatively new to the product or service myself and highly enthused by it as well in order to be recommending something to someone I barely know.

Most of my interactions also took place with a single person. Since most of them came up within casual, unplanned conversations, they tended to be one-on-one interactions while having lunch, driving to class, etc. However, I did notice that there were times when I would bring up the same topic in multiple conversations in the same day. This seemed to occur when the product or service was relatively new to me, yet was something I was very excited about and wanted to be the first one to encourage others. I noticed that often times I could chart the lifecycle of the WOM interaction, from the time I heard about and became excited about the product until the time I told others. I noticed that I had often heard about it from someone else, tried it myself, and if it was something worthwhile, I would recommend it quite often within that first week-to-month that I experienced it. While this cycle may only be applicable to those WOM episodes that were unplanned and unsolicited, I think it is something that would be interesting to study as a trend among others.

It was seldom that I gave a recommendation about something I was not passionate about, such as detergent or nightclubs in Boston. Instead, the product had to be something out of the ordinary or exceptional, and something that I truly enjoyed using or being a part of. It seems that most of my word of mouth episodes were ones of referral and, therefore, were about something interesting in my life at the time. Perhaps these were simply the most noticeable of my WOM interactions, but regardless, they were the most prominent and seemed to have the biggest impact on others. I decided to attempt to keep track of whether or not the people I was interacting with decided to inquire further about the product. While it was hard to track those who I was not close with, I found that all of my close friends either tried the product or service of my recommendation or at least followed up with research. Even though this might not always be the case, it was interesting to see how my simple, conversational recommendations actually led to inquiries from my friends and acquaintances.

It was strange to feel a sense of power from simple word of mouth interactions that I didn’t necessarily even realize I was having. I rarely think of myself as an influencer, but this goes to show that everyone, at some point in their lives, has the potential to influence, even if it is just to one other person. If companies can get a decent number of people to act as advocates on their behalf, and if each one of these advocates only serves as an advocate to one other person, their word of mouth reach has the potential to surpass their advertising and marketing reach and still be passed along to others. It is funny that most companies have yet to capitalize on such a market when the benefits seem so obvious.

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

Anne McGrath's Reflection Essay

2007-04-30T15:17:00.001-04:00

Context for this post

In documenting three WOM experiences throughout the semester, I learned a number of things about the way in which we communicate about brands, how I personally make recommendations and the way in which I receive information from my conversational partners, and what forms of word of mouth sparked my interest.

Through this exercise, I now understand that much of what stems conversation about brands are bad experiences with the brand. Originally, I thought a media advertisement would provoke conversation about a brand most of the time, but in my experience, this rarely was the reason. My first recorded WOM communication was done because a friend of mine had a horrible experience with Comcast. I immediately thought of the online viral video we looked at in class showing the Comcast repair man sleeping on the customer’s couch. This reinforced my idea that Comcast had poor customer service and I began to think of other companies to bring my business to in the future. I found that I spread this information to my social networks encouraging them to steer clear of Comcast and providing both the video and my friend’s experience as examples why.

I found throughout the three recorded experiences, that I was the one listening to my conversational partner vent about a bad experience with a company. I found that I kept my bad opinions to myself generally, but listened with interest as others told me their horror stories about Comcast, a local realty company, and Victoria’s Secret. In retrospect, I would consider myself a “generation 2” influencer. I’m not typically the one spreading information from my personal experience out to social networks. Rather, I take into account what I hear from various sources and spread that message onto other people. Therefore, according to much of what we’ve discussed this semester, I am not an influencer. But, I also don’t feel like I should be forgotten by word of mouth marketing companies. The influencer’s message is passed along because of people like me.

It is particularly interesting that the more negative the WOMunit, the higher amount of people I spread it onto. I recall learning about the Comcast blunder and telling many of my friends about it because it made an impact in conversation and I believed they could relate to the experience. As we’re all students at Northeastern, most of us use Comcast because of a student discount. Therefore, many of my friends were interested to hear about this person’s negative experience because it may someday directly affect them. The Victoria’s Secret word of mouth episode was more neutral, and therefore I did not pass it on to many people because it would have made a boring conversation. My last reported word of mouth episode happened just recently. Since it took place, I have told many other people about the situation my roommates and I have dealt with, only to find that other students have encountered the same problem. We were interested to hear their story and compare it with ours.

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

Andrea Manner's Reflection Essay

2007-04-30T15:16:00.000-04:00

Context for this post

Tracking my word of mouth episodes led me to realize the integration of brands and services into my every day communication exchanges. By reflecting on my word of mouth exchanges and the brands on which they are centered, I realized the high degree of commercialization evident in my personal communication exchanges. As a result of the frequency of discourse surrounding brands and services, I was essentially unaware of its pervasiveness in my interactions. In addition to my realizing of the commercialization of my communication exchanges, this assignment allowed me to evaluate whether or not I am a brand advocate and for what specific brands. Historically, I had never identified myself as an influencer for brands of services; however, through tracking my word of mouth exchanges, I was able to further assess my advocacy.

When reflecting on the word of mouth episode surveys I filled out, the over arching theme that continuously reemerged is how the commercialization of my communication exchanges has increasingly become second nature. When deciding on a word of mouth episode to record, I often had difficulty pinpointing one conversation. This lack of awareness leads me to believe that I have become immune to or unaware of the frequency of brands in my dialogue. My inability to recollect my conversations about brands does not imply that they did not exist, but that the brands are so deeply ingrained in my communication that they are difficult to identify.

While the commercialization of my communication has become second nature, documenting specific exchanges has certainly made the types of brands and services I discuss quite apparent. For example, the majority of my talk surrounding brands tended to take place face to face with my friends; this is most likely due to proximity and my less frequent use of the telephone, instant messenger, and other electronic media. In addition to the people with whom I am more likely to discuss brands, I also realized that the topics I tend to discuss more frequently are clothing, food, and music. Many times these conversations ended with a recommendation, as in the case of my word of mouth exchange about the restaurant, Wagamama, where I heavily recommended it to my conversational partner. Reflecting on the elements and topics of my word of mouth episodes help me to identify those products and services about which I am more passionate.

In addition to realizing the types of brands and services I tend to discuss with friends, this assignment also helped me realize the specific brands I advocate more heavily than others. For example, in my word of mouth exchange about Wagamama, a London-based noodle bar restaurant, I essentially tried to convince my conversational partner to go to the grand opening of the Boston restaurant. Because I was more knowledgeable about the brand through dining there in London and researching the restaurant on the Internet, I was able to be more convincing when influencing my friend to try the restaurant. Similarly, there were multiple occasions when I recommended Boloco to my friends, family, and co-workers because of my consistent satisfaction with their food and customer service. Essentially, my positive experiences with the brands have made me a loyal advocate for both restaurants. Therefore, this assignment has allowed me to realize with which brands I identify most, and those brands for which I am more apt to advocate.

When examining my word of mouth episodes, two major themes came to light. First, the commercialization of my dialogue between my friends has become so deeply engrained that I am often unaware of its presence. As a result of this lack of awareness, tracking my word of mouth episodes helped me realize the types of brands I tend to discuss most and those brands I recommend to others.

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

Kait Falconer's Reflection Essay

2007-04-30T15:07:00.001-04:00

Context for this post

The Word-of-Mouth Diary assignment provided me with an interesting opportunity that allowed me to see the effects that Word-of-Mouth communication had on my everyday life. I was able to get a grasp on the practical application of WOM and I was able to witness the degree of influence that individuals give their peers as well as look at how much trust I give to my friends and acquaintances. While the three episodes that I recorded did not provide any shocking results pertaining to what individuals I am more likely to trust or whose opinion I value, the episodes were educational in displaying the prevalence of WOM in my conversations with others.

In the past I would often deem people who were brand-happy or obsessed with the latest trend as somewhat shallow or in desperate need of getting their priorities straight. This assignment was a quick reminder for me to be wary when judging others. My three episodes clearly showed that I was also guilty of such “shallow small-talk,” and more importantly that it was less “shallow small-talk” than necessary discussion. My first survey was especially revealing. While I had a part time job at a retail establishment, the majority of my conversations involved talking about a product or service. Even when I no longer worked in retail, almost half of my daily conversations involved a product or service; I was alarmed to see just how often my conversations revolved around some material object or company.

Throughout the three episodes, the length of the WOM episode never exceeded an hour, and two were under a half hour. I think this is significant in that two of the episodes proved to effectively persuade at least one partner into purchasing or considering a product. I do however believe that the success of the episodes was based considerably on the relationship between my partner and I. Two of the three episodes occurred between my best friend and myself, these were more influential than the WOM conversation that I had with my roommate. While only three WOM episodes were mandatory for the class, the assignment made me significantly more aware of my interactions with others. In judging my everyday WOM interactions I found that I made more recommendations than I received, that my recommendations were often aimed at acquaintances, and that product or service recommendations actually made up a lot of my small talk, arising when searching for common ground on which to relate. I discovered that upon finding out that a person shared an interest of mine, the conversation would quickly turn to us making specific suggestions regarding the topic, perhaps a subconscious attempt to show one another our expertise on the matter.

Overall, I think the assignment reiterated the growing role that Word-of-Mouth is playing in today’s world. Increasingly we are bombarded by companies trying to persuade us that their product or service is better than their numerous competitors, and consistently another company is featured in the news concerning corrupt motives or false advertising. Appropriately, and as emphasized by my WOM Diary, people are seeking an alternative source for opinions, and when looking for reliability and honesty, turning to peers currently seems to be the best option available.

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

Reflecting on Your Word of Mouth Communication Episodes

2007-04-30T14:35:00.000-04:00

Our semester is now complete and I would like to announce that our final blog postings will come from five of our students reflecting on their own word of mouth episodes throughout the term. As part of a class assignment I asked students to record, via a web-based survey, three conversations they had about an organization, brand, product, or service. They then wrote a 500-word essay about any patterns they noticed in their own WOM communication practices.

I have received permission from each of the students to post their brief essays (in alphabetical order):

Kait Falconer
Andrea Manners
Anne McGrath
Holly Jackson
Taslim Sidi

Feel free to comment!

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

Heroes...Ads or No Ads?

2007-04-23T18:43:00.000-04:00

Last week I was watching the TV series Heroes on the internet with my friends. It was the first episode of it and there was a guy named “Hiro.” In the TV series, Hiro is an “anime enthusiast who develops a way to pierce the space-time continuum and move back in time through sheer will power.” So there he goes- Hiro saw a NYC poster in the train and then he inadvertently teleported himself to New York Times Square from Tokyo, Japan.
What really caught my attention was not the scene itself or the superpower that Hiro possesses, but it was the ads and the giant billboards that were flashing behind Hiro. It was so random…but a thought popped into my head - what if there is no more dazzling billboards hanging around? What would a quiet Times Square be like? A Times Square without neon lights? So I randomly brought up these “concerns” to my friend. Then we got into argument because he said that would be a very good idea – he does not like any ads.
Even though money spent on TV ads still take the major share of the media spending in the US (from Jodi Long’s presentation), I still think it is possible to foresee lesser and lesser money would be invested in the traditional mainstream media marketing, as to consider WOMM is gradually becoming so prominent in the upcoming future. Not to mention that WOMM is relatively cheaper than the traditional ads, WOMM is also effective and powerful. So would the mainstream media marketing be progressively replaced by it? Or is there any fraction between these two?
Yes, advertisements are ubiquitous that we almost impossible to avoid them. And I hate the fact that sometimes they are so annoying that I do not even want them to exist. But I feel like ads are so penetrated in my lives that I could not live without them anymore. Think about ads during childhood (even though I do not remember many of them…) and think about those great fantastic ads during prime time on TV. Not that I do not like to see more and more WOMM, but I just thought that a life without ads would be REALLY boring. I am already feeling sad when I imagine all these traditional ads hold the possibility of being taken down…as if it would really happen in near future......=[

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

Predicting the Future of Blogs

2007-04-23T16:29:00.000-04:00

As we wrapped up our last class we discussed the class blog, its trials and triumphs, but we didn't discuss WHY we blog. So, why do we blog? The class blog allowed for an exchange of ideas, making us more involved in the class and also demonstrated the WOM principle of community. Whether it was intended or not, our class used the blog to apply principles and terms learned in class to "outside" examples, emphasizing the experiential education that Northeastern is so famous for.

Additionally, businesses can use their blogs as a marketing tool, promoting new products, asking for consumer feedback so they can continue to build evangelists and establishing themselves as experts in their fields.

So following in Justin Kirby's footsteps as he made predictions on the future of WOM in the final chapter of Connected Marketing: The Viral, Buzz, and Word of Mouth Revolution, I would like to make a prediction on the future of the blogsphere.

1. Bloggers will move towards expressing themselves in a concise and clear way

The current convenience of "internet speak" in the era of instant messaging and texting has trickled down into the blogsphere. I believe that as this phase wears off, more bloggers will improve on their writing skills to garner increased audience and credibility (and for businesses profitability).

2. Pay for Post Blogs will decrease

Although current “pay per post” bloggers must disclose their associations to avoid schilling or stealth marketing, I believe that people still see these blogs as tainted; not as genuine as a blogger who has no motivation to blog other than the eight motivations for engaging in WOM that we identified on the first day of class.

3. Advertising on blogs will increase

Due to the decrease in pay for post blogs, I believe advertising on blogs will increase in the form of banner ads or links within blog posts. I see this frequently on popular blogs such as Perez Hilton and Dooce. Heather Armstrong, the blogger who runs dooce blogs about her family, her dog, and her life in Utah and advertising on her page is in the form of banner ads, not posts. On Perez Hilton’s blog, this is slightly different (as he does a fair amount of posting about upcoming music, artists etc that are promotions). However, I’ve seen on his blog that the background will become an advertisement and he also uses banner ads.

4. Corporations will want to establish metrics to measure blog ROI

Many businesses both large and small have developed blogs as a marketing and communications tool. In fact, I have attempted this for my own company, Bring to Light Photography, by establishing a blog (though I need to work on updating more often!). Many photographers across the country have started blogs in an effort to keep in contact with their current clients, offering them “sneak peaks” of their session images, and also attracting new potential clients. But how are businesses to measure the effectiveness of their blog? One way in which I am currently doing this is by using a stat program to count hits, returning visits, and locations of people reading my blog. This however doesn’t measure the intentions of blog readers to invest in my services. A metric needs to be established to measure ROI for time and resources spent blogging (perhaps by running a blog reader special offer??)

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

2007-04-23T15:31:00.000-04:00

-->I'd like to preface this by saying that I'm not a fan of the band Nine Inch Nails, BUT I'm fascinated by the way their new album is being marketed and I don't know if I would have paid much attention if I hadn't taken this class and gotten this heightened awareness of these things. 42 Entertainment, a creator of "alternate reality games," has designed an entire world around the just-released album, both online and off, that leverages the interest of their avid fans. It reminds me of a more in-depth extension of the "advergames" that Steven Curran spoke to us about back in January as ways to engage consumers in an entertaining and interactive experience. Actually, 42 Entertainment was behind the 'ilovebees' game for Halo 2 that Curran credited as one of the pioneers of the ARG trend in his chapter in Connected Marketing.

This game started about two months ago, when some of these fans started noticing that their NIN concert t-shirts contained highlighted letters that spelled out the phrase "I am trying to believe," which led them to a website of the same name. From that website are many more websites that seem to belong to this alternate world. People have also found USB drives containing audio tracks planted in bathrooms at NIN concerts.

After hearing about this, I was curious to learn more about 42 Entertainment. Their marketing campaign mission statement reads: "As a standalone agency, we drive brand engagement and ROI by immersing consumers in our clients' brands." The company's co-founder, Jordan Weisman, has come up with 5 principles of alternate reality games and I thought that several of them seemed to apply to things we talked about in class this semester.

Weisman recognizes that people 18-35 have become somewhat immune to traditional marketing messages, which is why 42 Entertainment goes the opposite way and hides, or whispers, their messages: "Finding it becomes an act of discovery--something they can feel proud of and are willing to talk about with their friends." Another principle emphasizes the importance of interacting with the "audience," and not limiting the exposure to computer screens but making it more of an immersion by putting clues on things like billboards, fliers, and fax machines--"every medium we could touch," or really offering people a total experience.

While this kind of marketing still seems highly specialized and probably wouldn't translate across all product categories, 42 Entertainment really seems to understand who their audience is and the best ways to reach out to them by making them feel connected and involved. The principle that I found most relevant is that 42 Entertainment strives to give the audience "a common emotionally charged history or mission" so that they "seek each other out and form into a cooperative to investigate and expose the story." The full text from this article can be found here. Also, at least as far as the Nine Inch Nails creation (I can't speak about any others for certain), they're advocating transparency--it's like they're using all the best elements of stealth marketing, but are open about it, and it's not appearing to hurt them at all.

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

New Study on Social Networking Sites

2007-04-23T00:54:00.001-04:00

As we have discussed in class, there has been a resurgence of word of mouth due to a variety of reasons, one of them being the emergence of communication tools to amplify word of mouth. Some of these tools are social networking sites, such as MySpace and Facebook. These websites allow users to communicate with one another by providing information in individual profiles, while sharing personal information and allowing picture and video posting.

A recent study by The Pew Internet and American Life Project looked at teen use of these social networking sites, and the levels of privacy used by teens when allowing others to access their personal profiles. The study reported that “two-thirds of teens with profiles on blogs or social-networking sites have restricted access to their profiles in some fashion, such as by requiring passwords or making them available only to friends on an approved list.” When we discussed social networking sites in class, nearly everyone mentioned that they restricted access to their personal information, and made their profiles visible to friends only, so this information did not surprise me. What was surprising though, was that the study reported “45 percent of online teens do not have profiles at all, a figure that contradicts widespread perceptions that the nation's youths are continually on MySpace.” The article mentions that this may be caused by failure to meet minimum age requirements posted by the site. However, even sites with age requirements have very loose guidelines which allow users to lie about their age to obtain access. It seems that this resurgence of WOM may not only be caused by the emergence of these tools, but also by the fact that people are starting to use these sites at a very young age, making them part of the everyday communication system. It will be interesting to see how WOM continues to increase in popularity and become a more prominent method of communication.

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

2007-04-23T00:54:00.000-04:00

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

BostonNow Offers a Progressive Approach to Print Media

2007-04-22T21:55:00.000-04:00

Last week BostonNow, a free daily newspaper, debuted a novel approach to print publications. In the first issue, the publisher wrote a note stating that BostonNow "will publish bloggers of all types in every section of the newspaper and on our website, and give readers the ability to comment on every piece". Essentially the progressive newspaper will combine traditional print media with consumer generated media in order to create more of an open discussion around current events. In addition to printing blogposts from their website, the publisher, Michael Schroeder, said the newspaper will maintain transparency by webcasting their meetings and allowing readers to offer their opinions via an online chatroom. Essentially BostonNow is attempting to involve their readers in choosing the content of the newspaper.

While this sounds like an effective way to combine traditional and consumer generated media, it has raised debate among some bloggers . One blogger on Boingboing.net mentioned that he heard Sean Bonner from Metroblogging say, "Print versions of blogs - their slogan should be 'Bringing you yesterday's news tomorrow". Therefore, there is some concern that consumer generated media will not trasfer well to the print medium.

Whether the newspaper flops or not, BostonNow is attempting to empower their readers by allowing them to provide the content for their newspaper. It will also raise the awareness of blogs to those who rely on traditional forms of media.

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

WOM Extending Its Influence

2007-04-22T15:51:00.000-04:00

The obvious question I’ve had while studying Word of Mouth is, “where will this all lead?” What areas will word of mouth impact and how will it be implemented? Apparently, one area where WOM will be a major player is on the internet. According to the DM News, (a newspaper for direct, interactive and database marketers) Word of Mouth will play a major role in the future of E-commerce. The article says that a panel of retail executives at Shop.org’s FirstLook conference. They have taken notice of how powerful user-generated reviews and interactive advertising content. Jacob Hawkins of Overstock.com said, “You have to engage your customer in a dialogue, so that they get used to hearing from you… If customers get used to conversing with you, then they will be likely to write about their positive experiences.” Additionally, he noted that bad reviews help them to avoid bad products.

It seems like, from what they are saying, e-commerce businesses are moving from listening and responding into the final level of involvement with their customers: joining in. I think that, being less established and entrenched in their ways than more traditional brick-and-mortar businesses, e-commerce companies are in a far easier position to do this. Because e-commerce is still relatively new, companies are still quite open to experimentation and testing out new approaches. While traditional companies would have to seriously alter their philosophies to include more customer input, it seems like a more natural step in the evolution of e-commerce.

Having worked for an e-commerce company myself, I can definitely attest to the high positive impact that consumer input can have. Customers often call customer service with concerns, questions, complaints, and suggestions and the company is able to take that input and make immediate changes to individual skus on the website. The impact is already profound and I believe this is only the beginning of word of mouth involvement. It is quite easy to see why the conference dubbed word of mouth as being the future of e-commerce.-->
Tags: WOM word of mouth Word-of-Mouth Marketing buzz marketing viral marketing marketing communication Northeastern University

Looks Like They're Catching On

2007-04-20T10:35:00.000-04:00

Throughout the semester, we have been talking about the way word of mouth is changing the industry. For many companies, ignoring the consumer-to-consumer conversations is no longer an option because of the profound effect they can have on the company’s image and sales. While traditional methods of marketing, advertising and public relations are still vital, an increasing amount of companies are looking for a way to manage their image in the word of mouth world.
The result? Some of the top players in the marketing, advertising and PR world are catching on and restructuring their range of services to include the consumer-to-consumer driven information. For example, it was recently announced that one of the biggest PR firms in the world was changing its mission from focusing on transmittance of information to the promotion of advocacy among consumers. They recognize that consumers are no longer being coaxed into purchasing decisions by the conglomerates, and that they are relying heavily on their peers to be honest and open in making recommendations.
In the press release following this decision, the company focuses on the three biggest changes in the market that inspired their decision:

1. The media no longer dictates to the people. Instead, consumers have become aware of the manipulative ways of traditional media sources and, therefore, are turning to their peers online to find out the real story.
2. Pull trumps push. With the amount of information being thrown at us from media sources on a daily basis, it is too risky for a company to rely on consumers to receive their message by simply pushing it at us. Instead, consumers are looking for something more. They want to engage with the company, share their values, and have their voice heard. In return, the consumer feels connected with the company and will act as an advocate.
3. New media technologies have increased consumer interaction. With the establishment of an online community, consumers are more closely connected to each other and, as a result, have a larger social network with which to share thoughts and ideas. No longer are consumers simply living in the business world, but businesses must figure out how they can fit into the consumer world.

It is important for the public relations industry to catch on because they manage the way a company presents itself in the marketplace. If the PR industry focuses on creating advocates among the consumer community instead of selling a pre-packaged image, they are focusing on fostering positive attitudes and connections with the public rather than pushing out messages and hoping that consumers will buy into it. Seems like a better approach all around.

Read the entire statement from the company here.
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Tags: WOM word of mouth Word-of-Mouth Marketing buzz marketing viral marketing marketing communication Northeastern University

"Wikiality"

2007-04-17T14:44:00.000-04:00

Although we often consider WOM to be one of the most credible sources of information in our daily lives, there are still going to be plenty of instances in which we'll have to tread carefully and really consider the truthfulness of WOM episodes.

A few days ago I was reading the 04-09-07 issue of US Weekly (yes, I really enjoy celebrity gossip) and saw a brief item called "Stars' Death Hoaxes." The item read: "Forget R.I.P.: Winona Ryder, 35, Sinbad, 50, and Todd Bridges, 41, are all still alive - despite recent reports. On March 8, blogs buzzed with "news" that Ryder died from a drug overdose. Two days later, Wikipedia.com listed a date of death for Sinbad." Wikipedia has since included an "Erroneous Death Report" section to its listing for Sinbad, and the listing for the site has been disabled from editing for new or unregistered users. Whether the incorrect report was listed as a result of false WOM or was just the cause of a lot of false WOM (and grief) is unclear to me, but the point remains the same.

This reminded me of a time in the fall when I read about Stephen Colbert encouraging viewers to go to Wikipedia make ridiculous changes. He suggested they edit entries for elephants to state that the elephant population had tripled in the past six months--he didn't know if this was true, but thanks to "wikiality," if you make something up and get people to agree with or believe you, it becomes true. And a lot of people did it. He went on to claim that he didn't believe George Washington had slaves, and changed the George Washington Wikipedia article to make it a "fact" (Colbert's account has since been blocked).

I know we've all been taught that Wikipedia is not a credible source to use for research, especially academic in nature, and it's unfortunate that it has to be that way. I do sometimes use Wikipedia to look things up quickly, it often shows up at the top of the returns of my Google searches, and I know it can only become more influential. It can be a great source of information and it's cool to think that the information is fluid and can be easily changed--but that's also it's biggest downfall. Changing the format and making it more difficult to change the listings would sort of ruin the entire idea. It will be interesting to see how CGM and WOM will have to evolve to combat errors like these.

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

Blogger, Journalist, or Activist? Where is the line drawn?

2007-04-16T20:14:00.000-04:00

On Friday, April 3rd, Josh Wolf, a video blogger, was released from a prison in California where he was held for a record breaking 7.5 months for refusing to give a federal court his video tape of the protests in San Francisco at the WTO’s G8 conference. This scandal is particularly aligned with word of mouth because Wolf is requesting to be protected by privacy laws granted to journalists. This is causing some controversy among journalists, many of whom do not consider him a journalist simply because he is a blogger. So the question is: what signifies a journalist as opposed to a blogger? Is it because they are paid? Is it because they are employed by a well-known or credited publishing venue? On his own personal blog, Wolf states:
Many have suggested I am not a journalist because I have personal views about my subject matter; others have argued that I don’t qualify for journalistic protections because I am not employed as a journalist by a corporation. How would a “journalist with a press pass” have responded to such a demand by the federal government? (http://joshwolf.net/blog/).
I think this is an important issue because it deals with transparency, the identity of bloggers, and whether or not the court system in America needs to change its understanding of what journalism is now that we have channels like blogs or video diaries. An interesting point is that the court system did not outright deny Wolf his rights as a journalist, they merely tried to work around it by placing the trial in a federal court, where this protection law does not hold. In his blog, Wolf demands a call to action for Congress to pass a federal shield law comparable to the law in California which protects these journalists. I think it will be interesting to see if Wolf and the contributors to his blog will push for this agenda and if they will succeed. I can’t think of another instance where consumer generated media was the driver behind an amendment to a law or a creation of one. Maybe someone can comment if they do know of an example where this took place.
Another important part of this story is the opinion of one journalist who, along with other journalists, is critical of Wolf. They collectively question whether there needs to be a distinction between a political activist who also runs a personal blog and a professional journalist. Kevin Sites, a journalist from Yahoo! news, asked Wolf to pick which he would consider himself, an activist or a journalist. Wolf’s response was, "My role is to uncover the truth to deliver to the public. That is my number one accountability" (http://hotzone.yahoo.com/b/hotzone/blogs28294). So, do we take his word for it? Or does this mark the end of the role of a journalist and the beginning of citizen marketer journalists?

Works Cited
Wolf, Josh. “On a Journalist’s Duty to the Public.” Online Posting. 9 April 2007. The Revolution Will Be Televised blog. http://joshwolf.net/blog/.

Sites, Kevin. “Journalist or Activist.” Yahoo News 3 April 2007. http://hotzone.yahoo.com/b/hotzone/blogs28294

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

Everything Advertising

2007-04-14T17:46:00.000-04:00

--> The other day, I was assigned a reading in my Theories of Communication class, “Higher Education, Inc.: Training Students to Be Consumers.” (Giroux,H. (2003). The Abandoned Generation: Democracy Beyond the Culture of Fear. ) The article was a critique on the increased commercialization that is occurring in society. The majority of the article discussed what the author sees as a growing concern, the commercialization of higher education. In creating evidence for his concern, he provided readers with a story that occurred in 2001, involving two college students, Luke and Chris. Some of you may already be familiar with this story. But in 2001, Chris Barrett and Luke McCabe created a website,http://chrisandluke.com/, offering themselves to companies as “billboards”, hoping that a company would sponsor them and in turn pay their way through college. First USA took them up on their offer, and the students lived and breathed everything First USA. Naturally, this being the first attempt of this sort, First USA and the boys gained massive exposure, and were featured in several magazines. While the author of this article saw this as the epitome of what is wrong with the market culture in the United States, I think it stands as evidence for everything this class preaches. The most basic connection can be made in the success of creating a link between a business and real faces. While Womma is based more on creating success through word of mouth, and thus bases its success on people trusting a person they know over that of a corporate voice, at least in a local sense, these boys acted as a form of word of mouth within the people they interacted with. This also reiterates what Dr.Carl has discussed from day one, that one of the reasons Word-of-mouth is necessary and successful is because of the ever pervasive presence of advertising. Companies are doing anything and everything they can to stand out among all the clutter that advertising has created. Just like Word-of-Mouth, First USA was looking for a novel approach for getting their name out. The author was disturbed by what he deemed a bleak future for higher education, and raised many valid points that displayed that many colleges are taking some presumptuous steps to mold the college experience into one that is based on the corporate world, and leaving little for those with opposing interests. The article is worth looking at, it is definitely written by a man with a strong opinion, and don’t get me wrong in thinking that I agree with everything he had to say, he tends to get carried away at times in painting a depressing future for us. However it was interesting, and served as a great display of the growing pervasiveness of advertising, and the need for a novel approach in order for a company to even crack through the clutter.
Tags: WOM word of mouth Word-of-Mouth Marketing buzz marketing viral marketing marketing communication Northeastern University

Class 25 Agenda: Designing WOM Program Presentations to Client

2007-04-10T10:05:00.000-04:00

Learning Objective(s):

To display knowledge of how WOMM principles can be leveraged in an organized WOMM program design
To apply persuasive speaking skills when presenting to a client

Readings for This Class:

No Reading

Content & Activities:

Client Presentations

Blue Group
Red Group

To Do (for next class):

No Reading
Celebration/Field trip to JP Licks.

1618 Tremont St
One Brigham Circle
Boston MA 02120
617-566-6676

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

I insist, no really I insist!

2007-04-07T11:29:00.000-04:00

-->When consumers participate on a corporate discussion board concerning topics about the company or a particular product, company’s traditionally harvest comments with positive remarks, and tend to rebuttal or delete negative commentary. In some rare cases a company will not get involved and leave the negative comments within the messaging string so that the discussion boards remains authentic.

As consumers are becoming more educated about WOM, they become more defensive and particular about the sources where they trust WOM and the places they don’t. Corporations are beginning to realize the importance of consumer-generated material, and the qualms of these consumers. They are becoming more aware and responsive to building channels where consumers can communicate their sense of concern or excitement about certain topics. Efforts to preserving a comfortable and trustworthy environment within these discussion boards remain in the company’s best interest.

It is obvious how negative comments within a message board can affect a company’s success. However, it is important to manage negative comments as well as managing overly positive comments in order to preserve the perceived integrity of the discussion board. An overly positive comment from a genuine consumer might be perceived by the greater population as one that was derived from and internal corporate source. This realization might cause a backlash against a discussion board due to the perception of being involved in a stealth initiative. Consumers are more likely to trust discussion boards that cast a neutral balance of positives and negatives. The effect of overly positive comments threatens corporation’s discussion boards integrity and it is important for companies to manage these strings of dialog in order to preserve the validity of a source.
Tags: WOM word of mouth Word-of-Mouth Marketing buzz marketing viral marketing marketing communication Northeastern University

Class 24 Agenda: Workshop DWOMP Presentations

2007-04-06T14:14:00.001-04:00

Learning Objective(s):

To fall and make mistakes and learn from them regarding presentations to clients
To develop conversational, extemporaneous, and passionate speaking skills when talking about the proposal

Readings for This Class:

No Reading

Content & Activities:

Mock Client Presentations (students should have printed out blank PDF outline)

“Competing” group will wait outside.
Groups will receive 20 minutes to present with 10 minute Q&A. 20 minutes of feedback.
Groups

Red Group
Blue Group

To Do (for next class):

No Reading
Presentations:

Blue Group
Red Group

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

Class 23 Agenda: Workshop DWOMP Proposal

2007-04-03T14:08:00.000-04:00

Learning Objective(s):

To learn from other groups on how they are approaching their designing WOM marketing program assignment
To understand persuasive appeals in writing proposals

Readings for This Class:

None.

Content & Activities:

Instructor Meetings with Groups to debrief proposal drafts.
Discussion about building a case for action in project proposals

To Do (for next class):

Prepare presentation. Dress rehearsal on Friday’s class (same room).

Classroom Change for Tuesday’s class: 272 F West Village

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

WOM; Being Mother Nature

2007-04-01T20:13:00.000-04:00

-->When it comes to skiing, WOM remains an extremely powerful influencer. I often completely build my entire skiing weekend plans around a single WOM episode, involving a suggestion from an individual. The All-East-Pass has provided me with a unique flexibility allowing me to ski five great mountains within New England for one fixed price. Every weekend I persevere to travel to one of these five options to accumulate the most benefit for my initial investment. However, I frequently find myself traveling to other mountains as a result of single conversations with other skiing enthusiasts. Despite the additional costs of lift tickets associated with skiing resorts that are not included on my pass, I hardly ever question the integrity of a fellow skier’s recommendation. Moreover, I have yet to have a bad experience at a mountain, which was specifically recommended by another skier. Keep in mind; most of these recommendations derive from individuals whom I have no prior relationship with, which emphasizes the strength of the suggestion. So why is it that WOM is so effective in driving skiers to different mountains? Is it that every diehard skier desires to remain “in the know” and they all take the lead of a suggestion to articulate this? Or could it be that the skier community has such a tight clandestine relationship with each individual in the community demonstrating harmonious interests with everyone in the community, and out of trust, only the legitimate recommendations are spoken. Could WOM take on the personality of both “credibility” and “influencer.” I challenge the class or any other blog viewers to come up with an industry, which reflects such a powerful influence of WOM.
Tags: WOM word of mouth Word-of-Mouth Marketing buzz marketing viral marketing marketing communication Northeastern University

Timing The Spark

2007-04-01T18:37:00.000-04:00

--> Whoa, they are on fire! Matchstick knows what’s going on when it comes to positioning a campaign within particular time frames. Specific case studies demonstrate that there are advantages and disadvantages to igniting a WOM campaign before, during, and after a new product launch. The advantage to initiating a word of mouth campaign before the actual product launch is the ability to provide opportunities to generate buzz, purely based upon exclusivity. I had the pleasure of exploring an example of this tactic with a Matchstick representative, dealing with the Chrysler 300C launch. The campaign allowed 105 influencers the access to drive the car for a short period of time in order to generate buzz about the new launch. Due to the nature of the automobile industry, Matchstick was forced into launching the campaign before the actual launch of the car. However, the buzz generated around the car more then surpassed both Matchstick and Crysler’s expectations.

The benefits to launching a campaign during a product launch are the ability to leverage the excitement of the launch with the campaign, integrating the buzz to drive further success. This tactic embalms the consumer with messaging from every direction so that the greatest volume of consumers is reached. A campaign, which is started after a product launch, allows for measure of initial consumer response of the product. Campaigns can then align with the consensus response of a product, capturing the greatest potential of involvement.
Tags: WOM word of mouth Word-of-Mouth Marketing buzz marketing viral marketing marketing communication Northeastern University

Class 21 Agenda: Workshop DWOMP Process

2007-03-27T14:15:00.000-04:00

Learning Objective(s):

To learn from other groups on how they are approaching their designing WOM marketing program assignment
To understand persuasive appeals in writing proposals

Readings for This Class:

None.

Content & Activities:

Instructor Meetings with Groups.
Discussion about building a case for action in project proposals

To Do (for next class):

· No class on Friday (canceled due to presidential inauguration).

· E-mail me first draft of DWOMP proposal. for Friday, March 30^th.

· Next class is Tuesday, April 3.

o Prepare outline for presentation.

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

Reflection On Jodi Long's Visit To Class

2007-03-25T23:41:00.000-04:00

On Tuesday, our class had Jodi Long as our guest speaker on the topic of "Integrating WOM Into the Media Plan." Jodi is a media professional with over 20 years of experience. A large chunk of that time she was involved with CBS in general management of radio stations as well as a national promotion group. She has also done local and national sales management as well as account management in cross-media planning.

I asked her to speak to our class because of the depth of her industry experience and passion in this space. She gave an extremely informative presentation on what it would take to get WOM into the media plan. What I liked most about her talk, and why it was perfect for this class that blends the study of organizational communication, marketing, and media, was that she talked about the organizational decision-making that goes into the media planning and buying process. She layed out, in extensive and entertaining detail, the relationship between the brand client, the ad agency and media buying firm.

I want to summarize some of the key stages but not get into all the details for each one.

Starting with media planning she discussed how the media budgets, goals, and objectives are set annually (making it extremely difficult for WOM components to get into the plan if you're timing isn't right). The Agency then prepares the media plan and the important thing here is that inertia is the guiding principle. That is, if you want to make a change you have to justify it; thus, the burden of proof is not in justifying that the old plan makes sense for this year, but the burden is on justifying why this year something should be done differently.

The approved plan is then passed to the buyers. Jodi explained the "avail" process, which is like a Request for Proposal (RFP), but in this context is specifically an opportunity to pitch business with specific criteria. The avail is sent to traditional media outlets and then the negotiations begin. A key point here is that WOM marketing companies are not getting the avail since they aren't yet consistently on the radar.

The media playing field right now is dominated by the primary choices of TV, cable, Radio (broadcast and satellite), out of home (like billboards, transit, taxi tops), print (newspaper and magazines), direct mail (free-standing inserts [FSI] and custom campaigns), and interactive (online search, email blasts, etc.; mobile might also be included in here). The key point here is that WOM doesn't have a place at the table, yet. [[MY OWN COMMENTARY HERE: Some people might argue that, depending on how you define WOM, you might be leveraging WOM principles but still using traditional outlets in doing so (for example, you might be designing your traditional ads to generate talk value or using your ads to highlight the specific features built into products and services that are designed to elicit certain types of social activity, like engaging in consumer-to-consumer WOM. Others would argue that, while WOM strategies should figure into the planning process from the beginning, it should not be considered a media channel]].

A very interesting point that Jodi made is that existing media channels all "own" something. For example, TV owns reach. Radio owns frequency. Magazine owns branding. News owns sales (for example, coupons). At this point, I asked what WOM could own. And we agreed that one way to sell WOM is to say that WOM owns "credibility."

Jodi then talked about the role of media sales representatives, and the media buy (lots of details here I won't cover due to space).

Then, Jodi went into specific advice she would offer WOM marketing companies if they want to get into the game. She talked about how agencies are very protective of "their" clients and are not keen on having someone else enter the mix, so a WOM company has to be politically astute.

Also, she provided the top five reasons why new media, in general, but also specific to WOM, are not purchased.

#5: No accepted standard for deliverables and cost (ROI models don't exist and there are limited industry-standard metrics)
#4: It's hard to determine how much to spend to acheive an agenda like penetrating a market
#3: Lots of inertia in business. People feel safe with TV and print.
#2: Funding comes from mass media. It's difficult to compare costs analysis because WOM is not a mass medium.
#1: It's an extremely intricate and complex sales process (there's a high turnover rate of CMOs and market managers), with big workloads and short deadlines.

Jodi also provided the class with suggestions about what WOM companies could do to try and overcome each of these obstacles. I won't post them all here -- if you want to find out you can hire her, or take the class at Northeastern :-)

Thanks Jodi for an outstanding and highly informative class!

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

The Power of Internet Buzz: Always

2007-03-20T12:16:00.000-04:00

Just today I was checking my email and received a forward from a friend. Now, let it be known that I am not a fan of forwards and they normally end up in the recycling bin, but this title piqued my interest.

The email was a forward of a letter to Proctor & Gamble, which may or may not be fictitious, written by blogger Wendi Aarons. In this letter she writes to P&G brand manager James Thatcher about the Always Maxi Pads brand and its current campaign slogan, “Have a Happy Period”. Serious or not, the letter is humorous and appeals to many women. Internet technologies allowed this letter to be spread and it was passed along virally through emails, posted on message boards, blogged about and even printed and brought into offices.

According to Technorati, when I searched the term “Wendi Aarons” there were little to no posts found prior to the past 30 days. This suggests she is not a blogger with known authority. Within the last 30 days, this letter was first posted to Mcsweeneys.net where it was viewed by many people. Unfortunately I was unable to locate the original letter post in the archives at this website. As you can see from the graph below generated by blogpulse, conversations involving “Always Maxi Pads” (and presumably the marketing campaign) have increased accordingly. [There are quite a few spikes in the P&G line, though, most recently the increased chatter is about their pet food recall].

Whether or not this letter was actually sent to P&G becomes of second concern. What this open letter has started is a brand conversation about Always Maxi Pads and Proctor and Gamble. And its not positive. It will be interesting to see if this involves into something more, and if P&G (who as guest speaker Ed Keller said last week P&G recognizes we live in a WOM era and understands “the consumer is boss” according to their pronouncement) will shift any of their brand strategies for Always.

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

CGM + Nick Lachey = Success?

2007-03-19T21:21:00.000-04:00

Now that companies are realizing the value and potential success of consumer generated campaigns, it seems that everyone is jumping on the bandwagon and offering consumers the ability to create their own ad campaigns. And why not? Not only is it cost efficient, but it also alleiviates the pressure on corporate America to figure out how to relate to their customers (and we all know how well that tends to work). However, now with so many online CGM contests, the bigger question becomes how to make your campaign stand out. The answer: use a multi-faceted approach to gain publicity.

In early September, 2006, Snickers introduced their "Satisfaction Sing-Off" contest, in which fans of the candy bar were asked to create an original song that celebrates the way they feel satisfied with Snickers. The only guidelines were that the contestants must integrate the four Snickers ingredients into the song- peanuts, caramel, nougat, and chocolate. They could post their entries on YouTube, which would then be narrowed down to 10 semifinalists by a panel of judges. Once the 10 were selected, consumers were given the chance to vote for their top 3 favorites who would get a trip to Los Angeles for the finals. At the House of Blues in L.A., they would perform their songs in front of another panel of judges and the winner would receive $25,000.

Sounds like a typical CGM campaign, right? Well, on top of it all, Snickers decided to add celebrity spokesperson Nick Lachey into the mix, giving him final judging rights for the contest and playing off of his celebrity status to increase media interest. Results? The contest was covered on Entertainment Tonight, E!, MTV, Extra, People Magazine, 17 top ten radio station markets and more than 40 entertainment and music websites and blogs. Additionally, more than 80,000 people visited the Snickers Satisfies website while 100 video entries were posted on YouTube. The event posed to be a model for the integration of consumer generated media and the more traditional marketing tactic of celebrity spokesmanship.

Was this the most successful CGM campaign ever? No, not necessarily. However, it does prove that companies are trying to take advantage of the CGM trend, but are aware of the difficulty and risk involved in relying singularly on a consumer generated media campaign to take off and produce the results they are looking for. In this case, it was a mix of drawing attention through celebrity status, giving the consumers the power to relay their messages through video, and finally allowing them to vote for their favorites, that resulted in success.

Why did I choose to analyze this case? Mainly because my friend Mike was the winner, using only his fabulous ukulele skills, a sock mask and a towel cape to impress his peers and, of course, Nick Lachey. Check out the winning video.

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

Politicians Realize Importance of CGM sites

2007-03-19T21:13:00.000-04:00

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On March 1st, the Associated Press released an article, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17397560/, that discussed the recent effort YouTube has made in attempts to increase voter education. While Politicians have made their way on to YouTube in the past, whether it be against their will or not, the website is now purposively collaborating with politicians encouraging them to take full advantage of the exposure YouTube creates. Candidates will have their own ‘channels’ where viewers will be able to post comments to which the candidates can respond. Now, instead of having to deal with the embarrassing and negative videos that often get posted on YouTube, candidates can decide what they would like to show people. Regardless of your political standing, I think we can all respect the candidates’ newfound acknowledgement of viewers individual concerns. While participation for some may be out of necessity, ensuring their position amongst their opponents, this does not dismiss the fact that “the viewer” or in this case the voter is finally being acknowledged as that of a voice worth listening. This open dialogue is undoubtedly risky, and gives voters the freedom to say just about anything they please. I think we can all imagine the negative feedback that could develop around politics. According to the article political candidates are even creating their own profiles on MySpace. The significance of this effort is unbelievable, when I came across the article I couldn’t believe candidates would agree to be a part of something where voters can comment without restriction. Although, participating on CGM sites that encourage viewer feedback pose high risks and decrease candidates control, the exposure and respect gained from participating on these sites has proven to outweigh this. I think that this is a great idea and I cannot wait to see the effects. Anything that encourages people to vote and increases people’s awareness of the political world is a positive thing in my eyes. I know too many people my age who don’t take voting seriously, and I think appealing to such popular sites as MySpace and YouTube with atleast serve as a reminder of its importance, if nothing else.Tags: WOM word of mouth Word-of-Mouth Marketing buzz marketing viral marketing marketing communication Northeastern University

Reflections on Ed Keller's (The Keller Fay Group) Visit to Class

2007-03-19T08:21:00.000-04:00

On Friday we had Ed Keller from the Keller Fay Group come in to talk with us about the services his company provides and how companies are restructuring their operations to leverage WOM principles. Last summer we had his partner, Brad Fay, visit the class.

We felt very fortunate to have him talk as it's clear his knowledge of WOM and the market research industry is expansive. As I was reading his bio to the class I was wondering how he manages to accomplish everything. He is a board member of the Advertising Research Foundation, president of the Market Research Council, and is President and Director of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association. And last year we served together, along with Jonathan Carson, as co-chairs of WOMMA's Research and Metrics Council.

Ed began his talk by explaining how Keller Fay wanted to take well-tested research methodologies of diary-based, day after recall that had been used for many years in the advertising industry and apply them to consumer-to-consumer WOM conversations. Starting in April 2006 they launched their TalkTrack™ service which collects reports of people's WOM episodes at the rate of 3,000 reports per month from a demographically representative sample of the U.S. (disclosure: I worked with them early on as a consultant in the design and pilot phases). One of the more interesting findings to date is just the sheer volume of conversation that take place. According to their research, the U.S. population generates approximately 3.5 billion brand-related conversations every day.

They are also tracking the contributions of what they call "Conversation Catalysts™." These are people who are actively engaged in WOM (as evidenced by how they make recommendations across multiple categories of marketing-relevant topics), and have the largest and most diverse social networks (WOMMA members can download a copy of their recent report, which Ed referenced in class).

One other point I'll mention from Ed's talk is how they are tracking Net Advocacy. Net Advocacy is a measure of the volume of positive and negative WOM. The methodology of computing Net Advocacy is similar to the Net Promoter Score™, but instead of using likelihood to recommend, it is computed using volume and polarity/valence (positive, negative, neutral, and mixed). The Net Advocacy formula is as follows:

Net Advocacy = % PWOM - (% NWOM + % Mixed WOM)

Like NPS, the neutral WOM doesn't figure in to the calculation, but unlike NPS, which doesn't have a "mixed" category (both positive and negative WOM), "mixed" is added to the negative category and then that combined amount is subtracted from the percentage of positive WOM.

So, let's say 50% of a firm's WOM is mostly positive, while 10% is neutral, 10% is negative, and 30% is mixed. Their Net Advocacy score would be:

50 - (10 + 30) = 10

And like NPS, a firm's net advocacy score can be negative, positive, or zero.

Ed explained that a firm could monitor their Net Advocacy score over time as an indicator of how well the company is doing in the conversations of consumers. It will be interesting to see if Net Advocacy is tied to key performance metrics and/or correlated with market share.

At the end of Ed's talk I facilitated a discussion about how companies are organizing for WOM. Ed cited the example of Intuit as one company who has been doing a great deal in organizing to leverage WOM principles, especially with the communities that form around their products and services (a point that we also heard Jackie Huba make in her talk). Ed also indicated that when he presents to companies he has far fewer "background" slides (in comparison to a year ago) about why WOM is important to companies. Most companies now already get that point and they want to move quickly about how to learn from consumer conversations and whether or not, and how, to engage consumers.

Thanks Ed for a great class visit! It was a cold and windy day with an impending snow storm so we appreciate your time and trip to Beantown!

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

Bad Thing But Good Management

2007-03-16T19:12:00.000-04:00

Earlier ago before spring break, I came across an article from PromoMagazine on listing ways to handle crisis and showing the timeline of Turner Broadcasting handling the Boston Bomb Scare incident. While the incident has created chaos and might possibly lead to negative WOM, I personally was quite impressed by the way Turner Broadcasting handled the incident. Let alone the nature of the incident and the issue on guerrilla marketing (i.e. whether the types of WOM marketing the campaign used was constructive or destructive or if further regulations guerrilla marketing is needed), in my opinion, their way to handle the incident was effective. The timeline showed in the article that the same day of the incident occurred, Turner Broadcasting put concern on the incident and within 24 hours Turner Broadcasting took full responsibility of the incident. Also, there was an apology from Turner CEO, Phil Kent, the day after. The article showed several ways to handle damage control: implement the crisis communication plan, respond to the crisis quickly, accept the responsibility, and demonstrate empathy. This is similar to one of our guest speaker, Jackie Huba, discussed with the class that the first thing to do when a complaint is made or crisis happened is acknowledgment and be prepared to respond. The reading that we have “Naked Conversation” also mentioned that “responding quickly saves lives” and can “save millions of dollars and preserve a company’s reputation.” Responding to a crisis at a blink speed, in one way or another, might hold down the spread of negative WOM and put a lid on a crisis, in comparison to deny, ignore or hide the communication.

Besides, in my opinion, I found the apology from Turner CEO is an effectively communicated message to the public. I remember from an organizational communication class, I learned that there are five criteria (including timeliness, clarity, accuracy, pertinence, and credibility) need to be met when sending a communicated message effectively to the public, and I found that the apology seems to meet the criteria.

Despite the Boston bomb scare incident itself was bad and created chaos, it always helps if the organization responds quickly and is truthful and honest to admit what they know and what they don’t know. At least this way the organization shows the public that they care about what is going on, regretted what they have done, and take care of the consequences. This is also what we have mentioned in class that a negative WOM might possibly end up turning into a positive WOM if the complaint/ issue is sincerely being taken care of. Or even though a negative WOM might not turn into a positive WOM, the number of negative WOM would probably not add up.
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Tags: WOM word of mouth Word-of-Mouth Marketing buzz marketing viral marketing marketing communication Northeastern University

Class 19 Agenda: Integrating WOM Into the Media Plan

2007-03-16T11:36:00.000-04:00

Learning Objective(s):

To understand how companies engage in media planning efforts
To determine ways for companies to integrate WOM into their media planning efforts

Readings for This Class:

None.

Content & Activities:

Guest Lecture: Jodi Long, Consultant

Jodi Long is a media professional with over 20 years of experience including 14 years in general management and sales management. Her background with CBS includes general management of Radio stations and a national Promotion Group. She also has experience in local and national sales management as well as account management in cross-media planning and strategy. She has a BS in Communications and Marketing from Syracuse University.

To Do (for next class):

· No class on Friday (we substituted this class for Jackie Huba’s guest visit).

· Next class is Tuesday, Match 27. The first draft of your DWOMP proposal is due Friday, March 30^th.

· Continue work on your DWOMP projects.

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

Class 18: Organizing WOM: Company Roles, Structure, and Resource Allocation

2007-03-16T11:14:00.000-04:00

Learning Objective(s):

To understand the importance of understanding existing WOM about your organization, brand, product, or service
To articulate the opportunities and limitations of tracking WOM through single-source, survey-based measurement
How to apply market research insights from everyday WOM conversations to strategic WOM marketing programs

Readings for This Class:

Single-Source WOM Measurement: Bringing Together Senders & Receivers; Inputs & Outputs. Ed Keller & Brad Fay. 2006. Pages 31-41 (Bb). See Class 6 on Blackboard for this reading.

Content & Activities:

Guest Lecture: Ed Keller, CEO, The Keller Fay Group [link to bio: http://www.kellerfay.com/management.php]

Ed Keller has worked for twenty-five years in marketing and media research, consulting with clients in the corporate, media, agency and not-for-profit sectors. Ed previously served as CEO of renowned market research firm, RoperASW (and its successor companies), and prior to that, served as the company's president and COO.
Known as "one of the most recognized names in word of mouth" Ed lectures at the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication and speaks frequently to business audiences on word of mouth marketing. He is a board member of the Advertising Research Foundation, serves as president of the Market Research Council, and is President and Director of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA).
The publication of Keller's book, The Influentials, co-authored by Jon Berry, has been called the "seminal moment in the development of word of mouth." Offering a ground-breaking look at the 10% of consumers who, by word of mouth recommendations, profoundly impact how the other 90% vote, make purchases, invest their money and choose their lifestyles, the book has been featured in leading publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, Fortune, Fast Company, Smart Money, Ad Age, Adweek and BrandWeek.

To Do (for next class):

· Continue progress on your DWOMP projects.

· Readings:

o None.

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

Dealing With Negative WOM on the Airwaves

2007-03-16T00:03:00.000-04:00

Earlier this week, we discussed the management of negative Word of Mouth. Despite the conversation mostly being about dealing with WOM on the internet, I found myself thinking a lot about the topic while listening to WFAN’s Mike and the Mad Dog radio program later that day. There is very little that generates negative Word of Mouth quite like the talk radio circuit. The show’s theme is New York sports, but the concept could readily be applied to a number of different topics.

As the two hosts, Mike Francesa and Chris Russo, railed on about their latest targets (today it was the MAAC basketball conference and New York Yankee superstar Alex Rodriguez), I couldn’t help but think back to an incident on the show from last October. On that day, the Yankees had just been eliminated from the playoffs and were, naturally, the main topic of the show. Francesa and Russo talked for hours about what an embarrassment it was that the team had been eliminated and, more particularly, how infuriated they were with comments by pitcher Cory Lidle that they felt criticized manager Joe Torre. They insulted him for a large portion of the show, questioning his dedication to the team and ridiculing his character. Many of the calls during this segment supported the hosts’ attacks on Lidle. This sort of occurrence is quite commonplace on the web. People in messageboards are constantly slamming companies or celebrities that they have a problem with. Oftentimes, others piggyback on what someone says until the entire forum has a hostile view of the situation. However, talk radio offers a completely different dynamic with different problems and different solutions.

For one, the response is controlled. The producers of the show (and the hosts themselves) are able to control who calls into the show. If they want to paint a topic in a certain light, all they have to do is put callers on air who agree with them and neglect callers who do not (or only granting air-time to the most belligerent and unintelligent segment of these fans). This puts the program in control of what WOM gets out to the public and what doesn’t, swaying the popular opinion on the topic. In this case, the callers who made it on-air for Mike and the Mad Dog were in support of their opinion while those who dissented were not given air-time or were cut off prematurely. By making it appear as though everyone shares the opinion through filtering WOM, the show can sway neutral listeners to their point of view.

Conversely, the radio also gives the subject of the attacks an opportunity to respond that does not carry the same risks as an internet-based response would. On the internet, those responding to attacks have to worry about being perceived at invasive or fake. On the radio, a response isn’t just tolerated, it’s almost expected. Before the show ended, Lidle called up the station to defend himself, saying that he care’s very much about his team, that he respects Joe Torre, and that he is simply trying to have a nice day with his family and enjoy his life. (Lidle would ironically and tragically die in a plane crash two days later.)

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

A Case Study on Building Morale

2007-03-15T11:38:00.000-04:00

Last night I was reading an article on building employee empowerment in a hospital in Florida. The hospital had some of the lowest rates of employee and patient satisfaction; therefore, the administration decided to implement a new program to build morale, and thus improve satisfaction among employees and patients. This immediately reminded me of our current project with the university. The hospital used various strategies (although they were not labeled as such) like implementing reward and incentive programs, creating rituals and ceremonies, and perhaps most significantly, identifying influencers and leveraging the Hawthorne effect. The hospital administration asked for employee suggestions and feedback and said that nearly 7,000 of these suggestions were implemented (not just submitted) every year. The article provided some good ideas for building morale, and were obviously successful since the hospital is now ranked in the top 1% of patient satisfaction in the U.S. In addition, the health center has also been named one of the 100 best companies to work for by Fortune magazine for three years running.

While reading the article, I found myself scribbling notes about word-of-mouth techniques and principles as if it was an article for this class. It was a pretty interesting case study to look at since it relates closely to our project, so if anyone wants to check it out, let me know!

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

Class 17 Agenda: How To Manage Negative WOM

2007-03-13T16:11:00.000-04:00

Learning Objective(s):

To understand the amplification effect for online WOM
To learn ways to track and monitor online WOM
To identify methods of effective outreach and relationship building with online influencers
To identify proactive and reactive strategies to address negative WOM

Readings for This Class:

· ThisCompanySucks.com: The use of the Internet in negative consumer-to-consumer articulations. Ainsworth Anthony Bailey. 2004. Pages 1-15. (Bb)

· Chapter 13: Blogging in a Crisis. Robert Scoble & Shel Israel. 2006. Pages 197-208. (NC)

· Suggested Reading: Chapter 7: The Weird Value of Negativity. Dave Balter & John Butman. 2005. Pages 141-164. (Bb)

Content & Activities:

· Debrief WOM Istanbul trip and WOMM conference.

· Discuss research for project

· How to Handle Negative WOM

Research on negative WOM and how many people are told.
But in the age of the internet consumers have more opportunities to have their voices amplified. Bailey discussed the use of corporate complaint websites. According to Harrison-Walker’s content analysis of the United Airlines complaint site, the top complaints were employee rudeness, employee incompetence, receiving misinformation from employees and baggage handling (see Bailey, p. 173).
Only 28% had visited a corporate website (sample was 158 undergraduates) but when visiting a site, 70% of the people browsed comments while 47% read them in detail.
Criteria to use in determining if and how to respond to NWOM (Jim Nail’s presentation). Three criteria include:

How core is the issue to your brand, reputation, and business?
Is the post influential? (Jim provided various quantitative and qualitative ways to assess this).
Are comments defending you? How well are they making your case?

Cases:

Kryptonite bike lock
Fiskateers intervention

Application Activity

Provide students with a concrete example of NWOM and have them work through if and how they should respond.

To Do (for next class):

· After next class, there will be no new readings.

· You should email your client on your status.

· Readings

o Single-Source WOM Measurement: Bringing Together Senders & Receivers; Inputs & Outputs. Ed Keller & Brad Fay. 2006. Pages 31-41 (Bb). See Class 6 on Blackboard for this reading.

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

The Value of Reading... And Ice Cream

2007-03-13T09:30:00.000-04:00

We're just returning from spring break today. Before we left, and as a way of encouraging students to show up on the Friday before the long vacation (many students schedule flights too close to class time), I told all students who showed up to class that there would be a special surprise. Of course, this created an information void and students began speculating on what the surprise was.

One student thought there would be some type of treat or food item, like ice cream, (probably banking on the knowledge that the most common way of motivating college students is through free food).

But much to my dismay, another student speculated that it would be something to read. I must be getting a reputation for assigning lots of reading!

Anyhow, on Friday, everyone showed up (sans one whom I later found out had travel plans) hoping for ice cream. I had to acknowledge that I didn't have ice cream for them, but that they were very smart (or I'm very predictable -- probably both!) in guessing I would be giving them something to read.

It turns out a few months ago Andy Sernovitz, past-CEO of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association had a number of pre-press copies of his book (Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking) that had a typo on the cover. He sent an email asking those academics on the WOMMA advisory board if we wanted copies for our students. So, I took him up on his offer.

I suggested students read through it as they are thinking about designing their own WOM marketing programs for their client as part of our current class project. I let them know that I found some of his frameworks very helpful to determine essential elements of successful WOM marketing programs. For example, Andy writes about the Five Ts (all business books seem to have some useful mnemonic device so here's Andy's):

* Talkers: Find people who will talk about you
* Topics: Give people a reason to talk
* Tools: Help the message spread faster and farther
* Taking Part: Join the conversation
* Tracking: Measure and understand what people are saying

In class thus far we have discussed all of these principles and the academic research suggesting their relevance to WOM marketing programs (though, admittedly, what it takes me a long time to say, Andy can say much more succintly!).

Students, or others, who have read Andy's book are welcome to comment to this post.

Thanks Andy!

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

Establishing a Human Voice to Maintain Credibility

2007-03-11T18:52:00.000-04:00

Governor Deval Patrick utilized podcasts in the beginning of his term to give him a human quality that is rarely associated with people in positions of power. Throughout his campaign, he maintained an open relationship with his supporters through consumer generated media. The grassroots nature of his campaign gave him credibility as a genuine person instead of as an authoritative member of the establishment. According to an article in the Boston Globe from Saturday March 10th entitled “Patrick’s ratings on podcasts dip”, the popularity of his podcasts has declined since he first entered office. In his first podcast, he drew in 3,312 viewers by “offer[ing] a folksy greeting and self-effacing anecdotes about his adjustment to State House life”. Conversely, in his podcast a month later he mechanically restated his speech about his fiscal plan for 2008 and attracted a mere 532 viewers. Between these two podcasts there were criticisms in regards to some of Patrick’s decisions, including the highly publicized phone call to Citigroup.

This example speaks to the fact that credibility and trust must exist if a prominent figure or organization wants to utilize consumer generated media to connect with consumers or supporters. The Cluetrain Manifesto states that organizations must adopt a human voice to communicate with their audience; therefore, the transparency of Patrick’s campaign coupled with his image as a “real person” attracted more people to his podcasts and exposed more people to his message. However, because his image has been tarnished and his podcasts have adopted a more mechanical tone, people are less interested in listening to his message. I would suggest that if Governor Patrick had maintained his image of a charismatic, yet vulnerable change agent, his podcast ratings would not have dropped so significantly, if at all.

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

Class 16 Agenda: Living in a Branded Society: Societal and Ethical Effects of WOM

2007-03-02T16:09:00.000-05:00

Learning Objective(s):

Distinguish between ethical and unethical WOM practices;

Readings for This Class:

· Sales Pitch Society II. Kate Kaye. 2006. Pages 1-42. (Bb)

· Suggested Reading: Live Buzz Marketing. Justin Foxton. 2006. Pages 24-46. (CM)

· Suggested Reading: To Tell Or Not To Tell? Assessing the Practical Effects of Disclosure for Word-of-Mouth Marketing Agents and Their Conversational Partners. Walter J. Carl. 2006. Pages 1-34. (Bb)

· Suggested Reading: Stealth Marketing: How To Reach Consumers Surreptitiously. Andrew M. Kaikati and Jack G. Kaikati. 2004. California Management Review, 46(4), pp. 6-22. (Bb)

Content & Activities:

· Debrief Dave Balter’s visit

· Review findings of To Tell Or Not To Tell? report

· Discuss Kate Kaye’s piece on Sales Pitch Society II

· Group meeting time

To Do (for next class):

· EWOMP Paper Revisions Due for Tuesday after spring break

· Should have update on research done thus far for client project

· Readings

o Thiscompanysucks.com! The Use of the Internet in Negative Consumer-to-Consumer Articulations. Ainsworth Anthony Bailey. Journal of Marketing Communications, 10, 169-182. 2004. (Bb)

o Chapter 13 of Naked Conversations: Blogging in a Crisis. Robert Scoble & Shel Israel. 2006. Pages 197-208. (Bb)

o Suggested Reading: Chapter 7: The Weird Value of Negativity. Dave Balter & John Butman. 2005. Pages 141-164. (Bb)

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

Ethics of WOMM

2007-03-01T09:42:00.000-05:00

Dave Balter of BzzAgent had some concrete ideas about the word-of-mouth marketing industry, and I feel somewhat more grounded in the ethics surrounding word-of-mouth and what companies who are interested in word-of-mouth campaigns should be aware of. It seems as if the idea of generating and tracking word-of-mouth is a new business model and therefore the accepted business principles and ethics aren’t clear to many companies like Sony Ericsson and Canon, who both participated in stealth marketing campaigns. Dave brought a difficult ethical question to class today – should consumers who are generating media be paid for their efforts? I tend to agree with his answer. No. We’ve studied some word-of-mouth marketing campaigns where the companies used cash incentives with some of its opinion leaders and others who were given products. So where is the line drawn? It does seem to be a quick and easy solution for creating word-of-mouth, when it really should be the other way around; a company creates a great product and consumers feel compelled to generate media or word-of-mouth about it. At its core, consumer generated media should be just what it claims to be, consumers generating media through their own motivation. Online communities share a level of trust with one another, and developed forums are more known for adding accurate data than opinions, and if that relationship and trust is marginalized, the marketer cannot hope to keep this online space pure. I think the idea that the “only magic pill for WOM is making a great product” is a perfect way to help marketers and companies understand that word-of-mouth will not spread unless you start with a great product. This makes me wonder about the growth of word-of-mouth marketing companies. Can they grow to be as big as the advertising industry that creates commercials and advertisements for any kind of business with any kind of product? Word-of-mouth marketing companies may never get that big, because word-of-mouth is concentrated to products that are perceived as unique (or distinct/innovative), funny, interesting, or something people share in common with their social networks. -->
Tags: WOM word of mouth Word-of-Mouth Marketing buzz marketing viral marketing marketing communication Northeastern University

BzzAgent Dave

2007-02-27T22:19:00.000-05:00

Today we were fortunate to have the Big Bee himself, Dave Balter, CEO of BzzAgent. Dave was a big hit last summer when he came to class and he didn't disappoint this time either.

Dave shared some new aspects of his presentation including Five Rules of Word of Mouth and Four Tips for Companies Who Want WOM. The five rules are:

1. Don't sacrifice your brand for entertainment. (Dave's point was that some brands seem to be doing anything they can to get noticed even if it has really nothing to do with the brand).
2. Consumers will do what they want with your brand. (The point here being that companies have to loosen the reigns of control over the brand).
3. Buzz doesn't always equal WOM. (The point here is be careful of doing campaigns that just get people talking about the campaign itself rather than the product or service).
4. Don't lie, steal, cheat, or deceive. (Obviously this is a point about being ethical when implementing WOM initiatives).
5. The only magic pill for WOM is to make a great product. (All good WOM starts with a great product or service experience).

Dave summarized his talk by providing four tips for companies who want to have good WOM. These are:

1. Make a product worth talking about.
2. Let people experience it.
3. Give tools so they can share their views effectively.
4. Get out of their way (let people do what they do best when they have a great experience -- tell others).

Dave does a great job illustrating these points with compelling stories and examples.

There were a number of other issues we discussed but I'll leave it to my students to raise them.

Thanks Dave for a great visit!

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

Class 15 Agenda: WOM As Media Channel?

2007-02-27T16:06:00.000-05:00

Learning Objective(s):

To understand how WOM fits as part of a larger media plan
To consider the pros and cons of WOM as a “media channel”

Readings for This Class:

o Chapter 6: Word-of-Mouth Storytelling. Dave Balter & John Butman. 2005. Pages 115-133. (Bb)

o Suggested Reading: Firm-Created Word-of-Mouth Communication: A Field-Based Quasi-Experiment. David Godes & Dina Mayzlin. 2004. HBS Marketing Research Papers No. 04-03. http://ssrn.com/abstract_id=569361 (Bb)

o Suggested Reading: Quantifying the Ripple: Word-of-Mouth and Advertising Effectiveness. John E. Hogan, Katherine N. Lemon, & Barak Libai. 2004. Journal of Advertising Research, (September), 271-280. (Bb)

o Suggested Reading: Grapevine: Chapter 5: The Myth of the Influentials. Dave Balter & John Butman. Pages 91-111. (Bb)

Content:

Guest Speaker: Dave Balter, CEO, BzzAgent, Inc.

Activities:

Guest Speaker: Dave Balter, CEO, BzzAgent, Inc. (aka, BzzAgent Dave)

Bio: CEO Dave Balter founded BzzAgent in 2002. Since that time, his company has provided word-of-mouth media services for dozens of Fortune 500 companies and has been featured in The New York Times Sunday Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist and on National Public Radio.
A co-founder and current board member of The Word of Mouth Marketing Association, Balter is an international speaker on the topic of word-of-mouth marketing. He has presented for corporations, associations and non-profit groups throughout the U.S., Europe and Asia. He co-authored Grapevine: The New Art of Word-of-Mouth Marketing, which has become one of the industry's most recognized business titles.
Dubbed a "serial entrepreneur" by The Boston Globe, Balter built and sold two promotional agencies prior to forming BzzAgent. He was named to the "40 Under 40" list by The Boston Business Journal in 2006 as well as by Advertising Specialty Institute in 2001. Women's Wear Daily named him one of the "Top 7 Individuals Changing the Face of Beauty" in 2001.
His commitment to corporate transparency has resulted in five innovative blogs, which were profiled in an extensive Inc. Magazine feature and later earned an Award of Excellence from the Society of New Communications research. Balter earned a B.A. in Psychology from Skidmore College and aspires to build the world's largest rock garden.

To Do (for next class):

· Readings

o Sales Pitch Society II. Kate Kaye. 2006. Pages 1-42. (Bb)

o Suggested Reading: Live Buzz Marketing. Justin Foxton. 2006. Pages 24-46. (CM)

o Suggested Reading: To Tell Or Not To Tell? Assessing the Practical Effects of Disclosure for Word-of-Mouth Marketing Agents and Their Conversational Partners. Walter J. Carl. 2006. Pages 1-34. (Bb)

o Suggested Reading: Stealth Marketing: How To Reach Consumers Surreptitiously. Andrew M. Kaikati and Jack G. Kaikati. 2004. California Management Review, 46(4), pp. 6-22. (Bb)

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

Class 14 Agenda: Designing Organized WOM Program for Client

2007-02-23T10:21:00.000-05:00

Learning Objective(s):

Compare and contrast five stages of a research-based consulting engagement
Identify key questions for clients at each various phases
Identify roles and relationships between client and consultant

Readings for This Class:

None

Content & Activities:

Five-stage framework for research-based consulting engagements:

Identify problem/issue/question
Data collection
Data analysis
Data interpretation
Data translation

DWOMP Assignment

Form groups (Red & Blue Teams)

To Do (for next class):

Make initial contact with client contact person.
Readings

o Grapevine: Chapter 6: Word-of-Mouth Storytelling. Dave Balter & John Butman. 2005. Pages 115-133. (Bb)

o Suggested Reading: Grapevine: Chapter 5: The Myth of the Influentials. Dave Balter & John Butman. Pages 91-111. (Bb)

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

Citzen Marketer Jackie Huba on Citizen Marketers

2007-02-23T07:56:00.000-05:00

Our class was very fortunate yesterday to have citizen marketer guru Jackie Huba visit our class. Jackie and Ben McConnell, her co-author, are on tour discussing their new book Citizen Marketers: When People Are the Message. We were stop #8 on their tour and read the entire book as part of the required readings. Jackie and I met through our participation in WOMMA and at WOMMA events (I am a member of the Academic Advisory Board and she is a member of the Governing Board of Directors).

Jackie is an extremely gracious and knowledgeable person. For this special event we mutually agreed not to have any PowerPoint slides and had a dynamic discussion that lasted over an hour and a half where we covered topics ranging from how payment and/or incentives may or may not affect the credibility of the contributions of citizen marketers to companies' reservations about social media to how effective participation with social media can give a firm competitive advantage. (I should note that Jackie is equally dynamic when presenting with slides as I've had the chance to see her present at two or three WOMMA conferences).

She believes the true power in social media lies in its ability to foster long-term loyalty and advocacy between companies and customers. While shorter-term campaigns that accomplish strategically important goals have their place in the mix, she feels that ultimately social media and the contributions of citizen marketers is a long-term process of engagement and dialogue. This is what lies behind, at least in part, the following statement in their book: "Social media is the antidote to campaign-based thinking" (p. 172).

Another fascinating part of our discussion was how companies should respond to the contributions of citizen marketers. I set the context for the question by giving the example of how McDonald's has responded to the contributions of McChronicles (a blog that was discussed in the Citizen Marketers book). I then asked Jackie if there were any guidelines she could offer companies about if and how to respond. She said that each case comes with its own set of opportunities and constraints but that there were at least two principles that could be generalized.

First, find out if you have citizen marketers and what they are saying and doing (most companies are surprised to learn of their advocates and detractors actively working for or against their brands).

Second, if you do (and you probably do!), consider reaching out to them, say that you saw their contributions (for example, it may be a blog or podcast), thank them for their contributions, and ask them if there's anything the company can do to help them with their efforts (or, to address concerns if there are detracting comments). Sometimes the company may not be able to help the citizen marketers in the way they might want (certain legal matters might restrict them), but some times they can. And sometimes the citizen marketer expects nothing.

For example, according to my brief e-mail interview with the author of the McChronicles blog at the end of January, the author responds to my question of what type of response he is looking for from the company, if any. He writes:

I expect nothing. I hope only that the voice of the faceless, average fast-food consumer is heard. I feel that what we want is simple - delivery on the promise. We don't go to McDonald's for tire balancing or for exceptional table service. They have never promised either. What we want is Quality (in the realm of fast-food), Service (in the realm of fast-food), Cleanliness (in the realm of known and standard sanitary practices), and Value (when compared to all the competition). Why? Becasue QSCV is McDonald's mantra - they taught us to expect this. (Thanks to McChronicles for allowing me to post this excerpt on our class blog!)

I think this is precisely Jackie's point about social media. Any social media efforts have to be part of a broader effort of long-term loyalty and advocacy which is fundamentally about a social contract between companies and consumers (and other stakeholders I might add, such as community members affected by what the company does). By the way, her two points about different ways of engaging in customer conversations fit very nicely into an informal model I've been developing, with the help of others, about different levels of engagement and involvement with social media.

Well, Jackie certainly delivered on her brand promise as an engaging and delightful person to converse with about citizen marketers and social media. I'm sure all of the other stops on her tour will have an equally compelling experience. Thanks so much Jackie and you're welcome back any time!

By the way, I also want to say that I was very proud of my students who continue to come to class prepared with excellent questions and comments that allowed for an engaging discussion.

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Tags: WOM word of mouth Word-of-Mouth Marketing buzz marketing viral marketing marketing communication Northeastern University Citizen Marketers

Class 13.5 Agenda: Special Session on Citizen Marketers: When People Are the Message

2007-02-20T10:15:00.000-05:00

Learning Objective(s):

· Identify factors contributing to the recent resurgence in WOM;

· Articulate how WOM is both a set of activities and a larger philosophy.

· Identify ways companies have responded to and/or worked with citizen marketers in the age of conversational marketing.

Readings for This Class:

Citizen Marketers: When People Are the Message. Ben McConnell & Jackie Huba. 2007. Pages 135-175 (Chapter 7 & Conclusion; CIT)

Content & Activities:

Guest Lecture: Jackie Huba, Co-Author, Business Advisor, Secretary for WOMMA

Bio: Jackie Huba is the co-author of "Creating Customer Evangelists: How Loyal Customers Become a Volunteer Sales Force." The New York Times has called the book "the new mantra for entrepreneurial success." For the past three years, "Creating Customer Evangelists" has been a worldwide phenomenon; the book has been translated into six languages.
As a business advisor, Jackie has worked with Disney, Microsoft, Ulta, Whirlpool, Discovery Education, Campbell Soup Company and others.
For the past five years, Jackie has been researching the effects of word of mouth on customer loyalty and how that translates into customer evangelism.
Forbes has called Jackie's work "the word of mouth gospel" and recently U.S. News & World Report featured her work in a 3-page spread.

To Do (for next class):

Print out Designing WOM Program assignment sheet
No Readings

None
Complete WOM Episode Survey #2 for Friday’s class.

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

Class 12 Agenda: Practitioner Perspective: A Client’s View On Selecting WOM Marketing Companies

2007-02-16T10:03:00.000-05:00

Class 12 Agenda: Practitioner Perspective: A Client’s View On Selecting WOM Marketing Companies

Learning Objective(s):

To identify key phases of consulting engagement
To learn what is involved in selecting a WOM service provider from the client’s perspective

Readings for This Class:

· A Note to New Consultants. Bruce Henderson. 1970s. Pages 1-3. (Bb)

· How to manage connected marketing. Martin Oetting. 2006. Pages 232-266. (Bb)

Content & Activities:

Complete two EWOMP case presentations
Basic Consulting Framework
Presentation of what’s involved from a client perspective in selecting a WOM program service provider

Brian Kenny – VP of Marketing & Communications
Ann Comer – Associate Director, Marketing Programs
Alyssa Meritt – Associate Director of Interactive Marketing

To Do (for next class):

No Readings

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

Class 11 Agenda: Evaluating WOM Programs

2007-02-13T10:00:00.000-05:00

Learning Objective(s):

To explain an organized WOM program in light of the WOMMA Terminology Framework
To articulate how an organized WOMM program leverages WOM principles
To apply lessons learned from evaluating a company’s organized WOMM program to designing one’s own WOMM program

Readings for This Class:

No Readings

Content:

Student presentations

Activities:

Presentation order:

Matchstick – Chrysler 300C
M80 – Sony Mylo
BzzAgent – Dunkin’ Donuts

For Friday presentations:

Brains on Fire – Fiskateers
Ammo Marketing – Lonely Planet

To Do (for next class):

· Readings:

o A Note to New Consultants. Bruce Henderson. 1970s. Pages 1-3. (Bb)

o How to manage connected marketing. Martin Oetting. 2006. Pages 232-266. (Bb)

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

Class 10 Agenda: Programs & Techniques: Blogging & Communities

2007-02-09T14:30:00.000-05:00

10; Programs & Techniques: Blogging & Communities

Learning Objective(s):

To understand three different approaches to how companies are using blogs and three different levels of involvement.
To articulate objectives that can be accomplished through blogging.
To identify the pros and cons of gaining customer insight through blogs and customer communities

Readings for This Class:

Blog Marketing. Andrew Corcoran, Paul Marsden, Thomas Zorbach, & Bernd Röthlingshöfer. 2006. Pages 148-158. (CM)
Understanding Blogs and Private Communities. Communispace White Paper. 2005. Pages 1-8 (Bb)
What Companies Gain from Listening: The Effect of Community Membership on Members’ Attitudes and Behavior in Relation to the Sponsoring Company. Communispace White Paper. 2006. Pages 1-11 (Bb)

Content & Activities:

Discuss what should be emphasized in the presentations.
Finish up from last class: Measuring Advocacy and Net Promoter Score

Industry Measurement of Loyalty and Advocacy: Net Promoter Score as an Organizational Discipline.

Overview of NPS
How companies are integrating the process into organizations
Critiques of the NPS

PowerPoint: Blogging and Communities

Approaches to blog marketing (from Connected Marketing book)

Blogvertorials – extension of classic PR, “blogger outreach”

Example: Nokia – Nokia seeded its new camera phone with a number of cutting-edge bloggers in Finland. They didn’t ask the bloggers to write about the phones but many bloggers did. It generated a lot of traffic to the Nokia website.
Example: Dr. Pepper and Raging Cow (what not to do) – Dr Pepper offered a number of young bloggers incentives to discuss their new milk-flavored product called “Ragin Cow”. Dr Pepper asked the bloggers not to mention that they briefed the bloggers about this but the word got out, which led to tremendous outrage.
Example: Wal-Mart

Business blogs (aka, corporate blogs)

Example: Stonyfield Farm – uses blogs to create interest around lifestyle issues surrounding their product: The Bovine Bugle (a blog about Jonathan Gates and his organic dairy farm in Vermont) and Baby Babble (a places for parents to meet up rant, offer, and seek advice…).

Faux blogs – a form of stealth marketing

Example: Sega – Beta 7 – an advertising agency created a fake blog authored by an imaginary videogame tester called Beta 7. The new ESPN 2K4 game was sent to the blogger where Beta 7 posted a review. The review stated that it was extreme that it triggered blackouts and fits of violence. To prevent the software from reaching the stores Beta 7 launched an online campaign to ban the software – all a ruse to stimulate sales.
Example: McDonald’s Lincoln Fry campaign – this featured an imaginary individual who found a fry shaped like Abraham Lincoln. The blog got over 2 million hits and was linked to a McDonald’s Superbowl commercial. When it was found out to be a fake blog the ad spots got even more press.

Sponsored and Paid Blogs – paid blog programs controversial in the blogging world

Coca Cola and Torino Conversations (sponsored blog)
Marqui Pay Bloggers Program
PayPerPost

Objectives for blogging: (“From interruption to engagement, from control to collaboration”)

Generating interest – Stonyfield Farms
Drive action/sales – Treonauts.com
Create goodwill – Microsoft’s Scobleizer
Establish expertise – English Cut blog (Thomas Mahon, Savile row tailor from London)
Customer dialogue – FastCompany, a business publication, invites readers to suggest ideas for stories
Employee dialogue – Variety “Have You Heard” collaborative blog; it’s designed to keep employees up on the latest industry trends

Levels of involvement with online WOM.

“Monitoring” is a somewhat passive strategy (done without a spirit of engagement; goal is more for “intelligence”-gathering and control)
“Listening” is a more active approach (done with a spirit of engagement; often a precursor to dialogue)
“Joining in” is even more active and involves participating in ongoing discussions and/or creating a space for those conversations to take place. (Sometimes this is not appropriate if it’s perceives as being invasive; sometimes you need to be invited in).

To Do (for next class):

Readings:

None

Activities

All groups need to turn in their papers.
Prepare for presentations

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

WOM produces new perspective on family pursuit

2007-02-07T20:44:00.000-05:00

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This past summer my mother called a family meeting at which she proposed a product that she had been working on for quite some time. Her new product is still being polished and although my stance on the future success of this product is currently undecided, I am supportive and can’t disclose the details of her endeavor. Fortunately for her, my enrollment in this class came at just the right time. While my mom’s idea was thoroughly designed and seemed modern, practical, and yet unique enough to propagate interest, her target demographic-college students- seemed impractical. My initial reaction concerned getting the attention of college students. While considering traditional marketing strategies, all I could do was refute every proposition with the notion that, “We’re too busy. We have enough to worry about. We just don’t care.”
However, after a few class sessions it suddenly became clear to me, that once we consider marketing strategies that breach the parameters of traditional strategies, college students are one of the most ideal demographics to undertake. We are the most connected, we are the bloggers, and we are the ones who know how to use the newest technology. Or at least teens are, according to www.pewinternet.org, who report that 57% of teens that use the Internet are considered content creators. And by the time my mothers idea materializes these teens will be the college students. Why couldn’t I see this? A concept that seems utterly commonsensical after a few class sessions, I’m reminded is novel; one of the first techniques that acknowledge the consumer and appeal to them on their territory.
My support for my mother is no longer a mere act of parental respect. I am excited and look forward to disproving my brothers and sisters outright lack of support for my mother on the basis that her goal is unrealistic and too broad. We are currently strategizing ways to reach the parents of college students. So far we’ve contacted the head of the fundraising department at a college who has agreed to work with us after hearing my mother’s idea. Working with the school allowed us access to all the students’ addresses and so far we’ve approached people as a “fundraiser.” We will be sending people a sample of the product as well as an opportunity for feedback. My mother has a lot of work to do, but I’m encouraging her to think about sites such as Facebook and Myspace. I will be taking advantage of my role as a student, and partaking in some WOM for the product. I look forward to comparing results.Tags: WOM word of mouth Word-of-Mouth Marketing buzz marketing viral marketing marketing communication Northeastern University

Class 9 Agenda: Programs & Techniques: Cultivating Loyalty & Advocacy

2007-02-06T09:35:00.000-05:00

Learning Objective(s):

Identify six tenets of customer evangelism
Apply six tenets to case study analysis
To identify opportunities of challenges of the Net Promoter Score as a
metric for measuring loyalty and advocacy

Readings for This Class:

The Customer Evangelism Manifesto. Ben McConnell & Jackie Huba. 2003. Pages 1-20. (Bb)
Chapter 12: The New Mavericks of Marketing. Ben McConnell & Jackie Huba. 2003. Pages 123-138. (Bb)
The One Number You Need to Grow. Frederick Reicheld. Harvard Business Review. 2003. Pages 1-10. (Bb).

Content & Activities:

Finish up from last class: Activity on Creating Your Own Product Seeding Program
Power Point:

Practitioner Framework for Cultivating Loyalty and Advocacy: Six tenets of customer evangelism
Industry Measurement of Loyalty and Advocacy: Net Promoter Score as an Organizational Discipline.

Overview of NPS
How companies are integrating the process into organizations
Critiques of the NPS

To Do (for next class):

Readings:

Blog Marketing. Andrew Corcoran, Paul Marsden, Thomas Zorbach, & Bernd Röthlingshöfer. 2006. Pages 148-158. (CM)
Understanding Blogs and Private Communities. Communispace White Paper. 2005. Pages 1-8 (Bb)
What Companies Gain from Listening: The Effect of Community Membership on Members’ Attitudes and Behavior in Relation to the Sponsoring Company. Communispace White Paper. 2006. Pages 1-11 (Bb)

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A Maze of WOM

2007-02-06T00:23:00.000-05:00

In class, we’ve discussed the importance of generating positive WOM and avoiding negative WOM. The idea seems to be pretty self-explanatory: you want everyone to hear all the great things about your product and you would prefer to keep thoughts of your product’s worthlessness from ever seeing the light of day. This concept, however, overlooks the very important factor of taste.

It is extremely hard, if not impossible, to quantify positive and negative WOM when the matter of taste comes into play. Certainly, it is often easy to discern whether the speaker is displaying a positive reaction towards a product, but I don’t see any way to determine whether or not that means the influence that particular thought has is necessarily in agreement with the thought itself.

This idea was brought to my attention through the otherwise innocuous events of my weekend. On Saturday, my girlfriend and I went to see the movie, Pan’s Labyrinth after receiving a positive WOM recommendation from a friend of mine. Or, I should say, a recommendation that my friend considered a positive one. He described Pan as a riveting foreign movie that mixes fantasy with a period/war film with beautiful special effects. This would certainly fall under the characterization of positive WOM, right? But, what if I hated movies that have sub-titles? What if I hate fantasy, or war films? What if I want my movies to be entirely driven by the actors, not by surreal computer effects? Sure, my friend liked the movie and his recommendation would be documented as a positive WOM exchange, but when dealing with the matter of taste, we consider it a black and white issue. There is room for interpretation by each individual member of the audience as to whether this WOM fits into their own personal taste.

As for the film itself, I enjoyed it. My girlfriend, on the other hand, was turned off by the graphic, gratuitous violence, saying she couldn’t even watch half the scenes without feeling nauseous. After hearing her dour review, my roommate exclaimed, “Awesome! I’m definitely going to see that one!”

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

Don't be a Stumbling Block!

2007-02-06T00:15:00.001-05:00

Long time ago I received a forwarding email regarding a study that was done on WOM. The study showed that irritated costumers are five times more likely to spread the word to their friends than a store representative and would most likely tell four friends on average. It reflected a typical human nature - human beings are more likely to spread the negative experience than positive’s; and this is also what we have talked about in the beginning of the class that people need to vent and would like to warn others (which most likely people do that out of vengeance…) voluntarily based on negative experience.

Speaking of negative experience of WOM, this reminded me a terrible experience that I had almost four months ago. To keep the story in a nutshell: I was literally dragged to a presentation by a so-called “friend” (he didn’t tell me that he was bringing me to a presentation; he only said it would be a surprise…and it happened around my birthday so I thought he would probably bring me to somewhere good....). I was asked to join a company which sells phone plan service and to pay USD$390 in order to become a "certified consultant" which helps to spread the word out. What I could gain from the company is, if there is a deal done then I would earn commission from the deal. To keep it short, I later on did spread the word out. But rather than helping to sell the phone plan, I was actually venting this horrible experience to my friends about how the company actually deceived people to join by asking its “employees” to keep the representation mysterious until their friends are actually there. The phone plan service per se is not a bad product; however, the techniques that the company employs to spread the WOM have some serious problems. From my point of view, the company is in fact taking advantage of the relationships between friends and made people (like me) feel violated by that. It has not only ruined a friendship but also held me back from engaging any other "authentic" marketing events because of this uncomfortable experience.

The WOM marketing this company engages is no different from stealth marketing. I couldn’t say that this company is doomed to be an unsuccessful one, but I strongly believe its unethical WOM tactic would, to some extents, prevent its growth to its highest potential. Companies should not forget that the growths of their businesses are determined by what their customers say about them. Being honest always wins customers because customers are delighted when the company/ service/ product is true to itself. If companies employ unethical practices, they are not only putting their own businesses into jeopardy but also are putting stumbling blocks in front of others who are true to their customers.

The study mentioned above is conducted by the Verde Group from Canada.

P.S I hold myself from not putting the name of that company up here so bad =[ Ask me in person if you want to know more detail about it! =)

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

Lemonade Diet and WOM

2007-02-05T19:42:00.000-05:00

I was watching the news tonight and it so happened to have a segment on Beyonce's new diet fad: the Lemonade diet. The woman reporter had mentioned that through Word of Mouth, this diet has become quite popular ...amongst whom? Well, that is what I wondered. The broadcast was vague on which audiences this particular diet appealed to. "Beyonce Diet - Behind the Scenes of Beyonce's Diet Plan." - is the name of the article to Beyonce's 20 pound drop trick.

The woman reporter then ventured to say something to the likes of, "Well, this new Lemonade diet drops pounds quickly, but is it safe?" -- The classic question that any healthy human being can answer themselves: "Of course not, it's a liquid diet; no protein, etc."

It irked me how a credible source on the same newscast (I believe she was a doctor/nutritionist) listed the negative points to the diet; she described some side effects that occur while on the diet: irritability and fatigue. This goes to show how much power and authority a famous star has; to the point where people do something they know is bad for their body anyway, but if Beyonce of all people tries it out, so should you! Talk about famous-person testimonial for a fad that no one in their right mind would try out if some ordinary person were to come out with some other "fruity liquid diet."

So what does this have to do with Word of Mouth? It simply shows how conversation is merely created to reel in the everyday person. We learned in class about WOM Creationists -- with the Forehead marketing and Paris Hilton and Carl's Jr. Well, here we go! There's more talk about Beyonce and her new movie (which is also another form of advertisement), than the actual diet. Beyonce is drinking lemonade for ten days and losing 20 pounds, let's all line up and do the same! But, look here, negative WOM comes into play when the news has a segment saying it's not healthy for you.

Intersting how there is a two-in-one occurence going on. Beyonce and her diet vs. Beyonce and her new movie. I wonder if there was more positive WOM for the diet or for the movie. By the looks of it, I don't feel neither succeeded all too well.

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

Class 8 Agenda: Programs & Techniques: Influencers & Product Seeding

2007-02-02T15:21:00.000-05:00

08; Programs & Techniques: Influencers & Product Seeding

Learning Objective(s):

To articulate two WOM principles to explain the effectiveness of seeding trials
To identify multiple ways of identifying influencers

Readings for This Class:

The Influentials: Introduction. Ed Keller & Jon Berry. Pages 1-25. (Bb)
Seed to spread: how seeding trials ignite epidemics of demand. Marsden. 2006. Pages 3-23. (CM or Bb)

Content & Activities:

Take questions from our past two guest lectures on:

Monitoring and tracking WOM

DIY solutions of tracking online WOM
Survey-based versus online CGM tracking

Viral and buzz marketing

Generating buzz versus cultivating advocacy

PowerPoint: Presentation and Activity on Influencer Marketing and Product Seeding

To Do (for next class):

Readings:

The Customer Evangelism Manifesto. Ben McConnell & Jackie Huba. 2003. Pages 1-20. (Bb)
Chapter 12: The New Mavericks of Marketing. Ben McConnell & Jackie Huba. 2003. Pages 123-138. (Bb)
The One Number You Need to Grow. Frederick Reicheld. Harvard Business Review. 2003. Pages 1-10. (Bb).
Suggested Reading: Creating Brand Advocates. Steve Rusticus. 2006. Pages 47-58. (CM)
Suggested Reading: Advocacy Drives Growth. London School of Economics. Brand Strategy. 2005. Pages 1-9 (Bb)
Suggested Reading: Executive Summary of “A Longitudinal Examination of ‘Net Promoter’ on Firm Growth.” Tim Keiningham, Bruce Cooil, Tor Wallin Andreassen, & Lerzan Aksoy. 2006. Pages 1-6 (Bb)

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

Reflections on Steve Curran's Visit To Class (Pod Design)

2007-02-02T09:24:00.000-05:00

Steve Curran from Pod Design came into speak with our class on viral marketing and branded entertainment. This is the second time Steve has visited the class and this time he brought with him Jessica Morris, Pod's Online Communication Specialist.

Steve went over a number of very cool campaigns he has worked on for clients like Warner Brothers, A&E, Atlantic Records, Peerflix, etc.). He creates"conversation pieces," which often take the form of online games, branded sites, or other online user "experiences" that lead people to have conversations about the brand.

There are two aspects of their visit that I wanted to comment on. First, Steve gave us a nice overview of the pros and cons for using branded games (what they did for ProTrade Mascot Kombat), branded web toys (what they did for Rumor Has It), and branded video (a good example of this, though not done by PodDesign, is the series of Diet Coke and Mentos videos that were originally CGM and then became branded).

For games, the pros are that it's fairly easy to identify who will play them since there are established gaming communities. However, some people have a block about playing a "game" so not everyone does.

For web toys, an advantage is that they are not perceived as a game and thus they have a chance to break through to a wider audience. However, they can be harder to seed because there aren't necessarily established communities.

Branded video is accessible to an even wider audience but the main disadvantage is that it's a very cluttered, competitive landscape.

Pod has also done more community- and microsite-oriented programs for clients, including Beacon Street Girls and Tweeter Mobile.

The second thing I wanted to comment on is Jessica's work. She talked about how she seeds various games in online venues. There are a number of methods including the use of tagging services (like Digg and del.icio.us), directory websites (that specialize in gaming), forums (that are particular to the campaign), bloggers, social networking sites, etc. She has found that this is a lot of public relations work in the truest relational sense of the term: it's about being transparent with intentions and forming relationships with the people involved with the sites (especially for directory websites and bloggers). In some cases the sites themselves seek out her and PodDesign to find the latest content for their users.

This was another great class visit -- Steve, you're 2 for 2 now! :-)

Thanks to both Steve and Jessica for joining us!

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Tags: WOM word of mouth Word-of-Mouth Marketing buzz marketing viral marketing marketing communication Northeastern University Pod Design

Product Seeding and Customer Evangelism

2007-02-01T22:28:00.000-05:00

Seeding trials and how that process creates customer evangelism is something that I found to be very similar to our group project. We are evaluating a campaign done by BzzAgent, which is a word-of-mouth marketing company that prides itself on assembling opinion leaders. BzzAgent is quick to prove how these opinion leaders have a positive impact on the further sale of the brand. BzzAgent develops strong marketing relationships with them in order to seed products. This product seeding is done much like the cases looked at in Marsden’s article, such as asking for feedback on the product or suggestions for change. I don’t want to give too much away, but they also go to great lengths to weed out who they call “pests” or people who are not customer evangelists, but rather people looking to get in on a free deal.
It’s astounding to me how many people product seeding can reach through consumer generated media in comparison to the number of people companies affect through the traditional method of study (not to mention the huge budgets and amount of time spent.) The idea Marsden presents that the more traditional market research techniques are a whole lot of research and not a lot of marketing may be shortsighted. Although the initial phases are solely focused on the research, market researchers spend their time analyzing trends from that research and creating marketing efforts around those trends. I would argue that seeding trials is a more advanced form of market research in that is has the capability to span over many more people, is more pervasive in segments where the product is popular (or unpopular) and does so in a faster and more efficient way.

Bibliography

Seed to spread: how seeding trials ignite epidemics of demand. Marsden. 2006. Pages 3-23.
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Tags: WOM word of mouth Word-of-Mouth Marketing buzz marketing viral marketing marketing communication Northeastern University

Turner - Possible Negative implications for WOM

2007-01-31T17:02:00.000-05:00

As most of you may know, the bomb scares that happened in 9 locations around Boston today were attributed to an advertising campaign for Turner Broadcasting (as reported by Channel 5 news). In a poor attempt to form buzz around an Adult swim cartoon program Aqua Team Hunger Force, Turner communications strategically placed devices in various T stops around the Boston area. Because there was no introduction to the device, or any explicit description of the device, it was seen as suspicious and caused a media frenzy.

This sequence of events shows the delicate nature of advertising a product without providing any additional information. A mysterious device in a subway station, especially given the terrorist plots that took place in London, is an obvious risk to public safety. Companies should therefore examine their marketing initiatives and explore the potential risks before launching a campaign on unsuspecting consumers. As a result of the negative word of mouth around this company and it's failed product placement attempt, the concept of word of mouth marketing could be under scrutiny. Had Turner communications disclosed that they were placing devices in public places, or at least notified MBTA security, they could have avoided this debacle all together. This unfortunate marketing campaign is not going to fair well in the eyes of the already cynical consumer and further underscores the value of disclosure for WOM campaigns.

Rough times for Turner Broadcasting.

photo was obtained from Boston.com

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

Microsoft's Vista Marketing Campaign

2007-01-30T17:15:00.000-05:00

Microsoft's $500 million ad campaign for Vista is attempting to bring "global 'wow' reaction" according to an article posted on AdAge.com yesterday. It is being questioned as to why such a large budget has been given to market a product which will soon be found on practically every PC from here on out.

Perhaps the most interesting and relevant part of the article is that the campaign, "The Wow starts now" is supposed to produce 6.6 billion impressions in the first few months. It "encompasses an online consumer-participation promotion themed 'Show us your wow' (the winner gets a trip around the world), sponsored webisodes at Clearification.com featuring 'Daily Show' comedian Demitri Martin and an alternate-reality game called "Vanishing Point" that moves between online and offline." Other advertising techniques include an invitation-only party in Times Square hosted by Bill Gates, a human billboard featuring 16 dancers, and TV ads featuring LeBron James.

It seems uncertain whether "The Wow starts now" will deliver its desired results, but it is interesting that Microsoft has decided to include consumer participation into the campaign. The TV ads are likely to receive the most attention, and according to Advertising Age, it won't all be positive word of mouth that swarms the blogosphere.
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Tags: WOM word of mouth Word-of-Mouth Marketing buzz marketing viral marketing marketing communication Northeastern University

Class 7 Agenda: Programs & Techniques: Buzz & Viral Marketing

2007-01-30T16:22:00.000-05:00

07; Programs & Techniques: Buzz & Viral Marketing

Learning Objective(s):

To distinguish WOM, buzz, and viral marketing communication
To distinguish between generating buzz and cultivating advocacy
To identify the differences between “better targeting” of a message and “connected marketing” (see p. 139)
To understand principles behind viral marketing
To understand how viral marketing campaigns are executed
To identify and leverage a “hot button” issue

Readings for This Class:

· Viral Marketing. Justin Kirby. Pages 87-106 (CM)

· Changing the Game. Steve Curran. 2006. Pages 129-147. (CM)

· Suggested Reading: Online opinion leaders: a predictive guide for viral marketing campaigns. Idil Cakim. 2006. Pages 107-118. (CM)

Content & Activities:

Guest Lecture: Steve Curran & Jessica Morris, Pod Design

Bio: Steve is the founder and creative director at Pod Design. His viral marketing campaigns have won numerous awards including Marketing Sherpa’s Best Viral Ad of 2006 Award for is Paparazzi campaign for Peerflix, the peer-to-peer DVD trading site. His work has also been talked about in the NY Times, WSJ, Adweek, Brandweek, CNN Money and NBC News. Before Pod he was co-founder and creative director at e-tractions, a Boston based online promotions company. As VP/Creative Director of Gametek he was responsible for a number of best-selling titles for Nintendo, Sega, Sony and Playstation. He is also the author of two books on motion graphics and convergence design.
Bio: Jessica Morris has a background in public relations and new media technology. Her master’s degree is in Public Relations from Boston University and she specializes in online communication and its effect on today’s marketing techniques.

To Do (for next class):

Readings:

The Influentials: Introduction. Ed Keller & Jon Berry. Pages 1-25. (Bb)
Seed to spread: how seeding trials ignite epidemics of demand. Marsden. 2006. Pages 3-23. (CM or Bb)
Suggested Reading: People Who Influence People: Opinion Leaders in Marketing. Gabriel Weimann. 1994. Pages 109-138. (Bb)
Suggested Reading: People Who Influence People: Criticism and Modifications. Gabriel Weimann. 1994. Pages 239-254. (Bb)
Suggested Reading: The Influentials: Developing an Influential Strategy. Ed Keller & Jon Berry. Pages 279-340. (Bb)

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

Reflection on Jim Nail's Visit to Class (Cymfony)

2007-01-29T17:37:00.001-05:00

On Friday our class had the opportunity to hear Jim Nail, Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer, from Cymfony. The students really enjoyed Jim's guest lecture last summer and so I was sure to invite him back again.

This time around I had him in to speak about monitoring and tracking WOM, which is one of the first class periods where we're going into detail about WOM program principles and measurement. Whether you're tracking WOM in whatever venues it occurs (face-to-face, phone, e-mail, blogs, chat rooms, usenet groups, discussion forums, online communities, etc.) it's important for organizations to understand the existing WOM that is already going on about them.

To set some context for the students, Jim started off with contrasting models of Influence 1.0 and Influence 2.0 to show the impact that social media is having on how we traditionally understand the influence process between organizations and audiences (in many ways, organizations are now becoming the audiences of what people say about them). He then discussed a number of examples of how social media tools give individuals and smaller groups an amplified voice and also how they interact with more traditional mainstream media sources.

There were a couple aspects that I found really beneficial for my students:

1. The goals companies having for monitoring and tracking social media. These include tracking buzz, issues/reputation management, competitive insight and consumer understanding, crisis detection and prevention, awareness of developing trends, and monitoring employee activity (the last one is a bit "Big Brother" and shows, to me, the control aspect that can still dominate some organizations).

2. The advantages and disadvantages of social media analysis versus more traditional market research techniques. He identified a number of challenges that more traditional survey research is now facing, including response bias, the ease with which people can avoid surveys, opinion fatigue resulting in lower response rates, and the danger of polling the same people again and again. The advantages he identified of social media analysis were that it was observational (unaffected by a researcher's presence), access to direct consumer language that is not filtered, and it was available in real-time. Even though his company's business model clearly favors social media analysis he did a nice job to talk about the advantages of more traditional quantitative and qualitative approaches, including ethnography, as forms of market research. He also identified a couple challenges that social media analysis faces -- representativeness and identifying speakers -- and how these challenges are confronted by companies like Cymfony, Nielsen BuzzMetrics, Brandimensions and other players in this space.

At this point I'll let my students comment on what they took away from Jim's guest lecture. Students posed some good questions so maybe they can share what they asked and what Jim's response was.

To Jim, thanks so much for coming in again this year. I really appreciate the care you took in customizing a presentation just for the class and covering so much ground in such a short time!

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

Class 6 Agenda: Monitoring and Tracking WOM

2007-01-26T17:30:00.000-05:00

06; Programs & Techniques: Monitoring & Tracking WOM

Learning Objectives:

• To understand the importance of understanding existing WOM about your organization,
• To understand the importance of understanding existing WOM about your organization,
brand, product, or service
• To articulate the opportunities and limitations of tracking WOM in online, consumer-generated
venues
• To articulate the opportunities and limitations of tracking WOM through single-source,
survey-based measurement

Readings:

1. The Forrester Wave™: Brand Monitoring, Q3 2006. Peter Kim. 2006. Pages 1-14. (Bb)

2. Consumer Opinions & Trends Report: A Blue Christmas for Blu-ray. Cymfony. 2006. Pages 1-5. (Bb)

3. Single-Source WOM Measurement: Bringing Together Senders & Receivers; Inputs & Outputs. Ed Keller & Brad Fay. 2006. Pages 31-41 (Bb).Content & Activities:

• Guest Lecture: Jim Nail, Chief Marketing & Strategy Officer, Cymfony; Board of Directors for WOMMA

Bio: Jim Nail has an extensive background in integrated marketing through his 25-year career that spans online marketing, market research, brand advertising and direct marketing. Jim was an analyst at Forrester for eight years, focusing on how marketing strategies and tactics must adapt to technology-driven changes in consumer media consumption habits. His research addressed best practices in integrated marketing with a focus on how online media can augment the impact of television, print and other traditional marketing tools. Prior to joining Forrester, he helped launch Web advertising network AdSmart, where he served as director of marketing. He spent 15 years planning and managing integrated marketing campaigns at leading advertising agencies including Ogilvy & Mather Direct, Draft Worldwide, Bates USA and Hill Holliday. Jim is a frequent participant in marketing conferences and executive forums and has been published and quoted extensively in top-tier and online media.

To Do (for next class):

o Readings:

- Viral Marketing. Justin Kirby. Pages 87-106 (CM)
- Changing the Game. Steve Curran. 2006. Pages 129-147. (CM)
- Suggested Reading: Online opinion leaders: a predictive guide for viral marketing campaigns. Idil Cakim. 2006. Pages 107-118. (CM)

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

"Citizen Marketer" Happy Slip to Mac: "You're Beautiful"

2007-01-26T07:58:00.000-05:00

The latest citizen marketer video that's making its way around the net and through social networks is Happy Slip's "Mac Beautiful" music video.

The young woman who made this video is named Christine and her screen name is "Happy Slip" (great story about how she came up with this screen name). According to her site, she uses her videos as a means of personal expression. Based on a quick scan of the rest of the videos on her site this seems to be her first video that is centered around a brand. Though, perhaps more accurately, the video is centered around her wishes and desires, and the brand happens to be the object of her affection.

OK, two points I'd like to make about this related to our class:

First, let's apply this to our reading of Citizen Marketers and their typology of citizen marketers: filters, fanatics, facilitators, and firecrackers. It seems that this video fall in the tradition of George Masters' work with the iPod, who the authors identify as a "firecracker" ("the one-hit wonders of citizen marketers"; p. 17). These folks

"typically attract considerable attention because they have created a song, animation, video, or novelty that generates a lot of interest but tends to die out quickly as the creators go on with their other work" (p. 17).

However, Happy Slip is also a passionate fan of the Mac. But does this make her a "fanatic" in the Citizen Marketer typology? I would argue no because she's not really maintaining a whole site completely devoted to Apple. Instead, consider someone like Asif Alibhai, a student living in London, whose WatchMacTV.com site catalogs every piece of Apple Computer video advertising ever created (thus making him both a "fanatic" and "filter"). Maybe someone can visit his site to see if Happy Slip's video makes it there (does Asif have a section just for consumer generated videos rather than those produced by the company?).

And this leads me to my second point. Is the way you classify a citizen marketer (or the activities of a citizen marketer) consequential to how a company should respond to the citizen marketer's contributions? For example, should Apple respond differently to Happy Slip than they do to Asif Alibhai?

It's clear that both Asif and Happy Slip are big fans of Apple, both are using social media as means of personal expression, and both are paying Apple a huge compliment. But it seems that one has more of a commitment to acting as a filter about the brand (Asif), whereas another has a commitment to expressing her personality and desire (which may just happen to be about a particular brand). And maybe also consider how do you think each may want Apple to respond, if at all?

What do you all think? Maybe we should think about all the different ways Apple could respond? I'll also invite Happy Slip and Asif to contribute their views if they so desire.

Hat tip: Pete Blackshaw's CGM blog

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

Thanks, Director Mitch

2007-01-25T19:20:00.001-05:00

-->It's always interesting to me when you learn about something new and suddenly that thing seems to start showing up in all these other elements of your life (I know there's a word for this, and I'm hoping someone will leave a comment to tell me what it is!). For example, if I learn the meaning of a new word I'll start noticing that word being used all over the place.

That being said, we were just asked in my Consultation Skills class to do research and write a report on a consulting firm that we were interested in learning more about. During my research, I came upon a blog called "The Window Manager" that mentioned the firm I'd selected. The blog is run by a man going by the name of "Director Mitch," and the post that I was interested in was written in April of 2004 about his experience in taking a class that was given by this particular consulting firm. The purpose of the class was to prepare the participants for things like televised interviews and dealing with the press. Director Mitch wrote that the class began with mock interviews conducted by "hostile reporters" in real television studios and in front of rolling cameras, and that they revealed how much the participants had to learn about things like handling difficult questions. Director Mitch went on to write that despite the humiliation of the initial interview, the class was great and he ended up learning a lot. He concluded by recommending that anyone given the opportunity to take the class should do it.

I don't know how many people read this man's blog, and it was just a brief notation in a journal-style format, so it wasn't anything like the fantaticsim we've been reading about in Citizen Marketers. I just thought it was interesting that taking this class has really been the first time that I'd thought much about blogs or word of mouth as a marketing tool and how powerful they both can be, yet they turned out to be things that I was able to use as a sort of unusual resource for a class of a totally different nature.
Tags: WOM word of mouth Word-of-Mouth Marketing buzz marketing viral marketing marketing communication Northeastern University

WOM impact on brand conversions, is it growing?

2007-01-25T13:00:00.000-05:00

Tuesday in class we discussed outcomes of WOM, one result being brand conversions. A study conducted by Katz and Lazarsfeld in 1955 found that WOM was 7x more effective in branding switching than newspaper or magazine ads. Additionally, Day found WOM 9x more effective than ads in converting negative or neutral attitudes to positive attitudes. It is obvious from these results that WOM has a profound impact on consumers relative to other media forms. But how much of this has changed over the past 50 years?

I would argue that the effectiveness of word of mouth has greatly increased. In a world where everything is saleable, we are inundated with media messages. The consumer has learned (or tried) to ignore this ad clutter. We have become ad skeptics, not just because of the volume of advertisements but also because of the values they are being paired with brands.

Advertisements have changed drastically from fact/product based to more value based. With the increase in brands that sell similar products, companies must distinguish their product from another by marketing its associated ideals. Through this, we sometimes loose the original intent of the product. Thus a recommendation from a friend or trusted person would be far more influential than a traditional advertisement.

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

Cluetrain Manifesto and the Language of the 18th Century French Court

2007-01-24T22:29:00.000-05:00

A few classes ago we were talking about the 95 Theses of the Cluetrain Manifesto and the reference to the language of the 18th century French court.

In just a few more years, the current homogenized "voice" of business -- the sound of mission statements and brochures -- will seem as contrived and artificial as the language of the 18th century French court.

In order to do some background research on the reference I asked Dr. Gregory Brown, a faculty member at UNLV who teaches a class on French Cultural History in the 18th Century. In an e-mail reply, he said that the reference to the language of the course "is clearly referring to the highly scripted nature of many social interactions among the king, queen and their courtiers."

He went on to say that the classic work in this area is Norbert Elias' Court Society, which is based "primarily on sources from the 17th century rather than the 18th, but the points are more or less valid." He added that might be especially interesting to us "since Elias (writing in the 1930s) makes comparisons of 17th-century courtiers to 'modern businessmen' in terms of their interactions."

He also suggested we could read his book where he also writes a bit about the French court.

Thanks Dr. Brown!

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

Class 5 Agenda: Overview of WOM Programs & Techniques

2007-01-23T10:07:00.000-05:00

Learning Objective(s):

To distinguish among various techniques of WOM marketing
To articulate advantages and disadvantages of “generating buzz” and “brand advocacy”

Readings for This Class:

WOM 101. Word of Mouth Marketing Association. 2005. (Bb)
Introduction and Summary. Paul Marsden. 2006. Pages xv – xxxv. (CM)

Content & Activities:

Finish overview of WOM principles PowerPoint

Resume with WOMUnit section

Discuss class readings

WOM101.

Discuss organic versus amplified
Types of WOMM; go over each one and discuss examples

Connected Marketing introduction

Product advocacy, not campaign buzz, is what drives growth (or is at least correlated with growth) (p. xxvi of CM)
To decide whether or not a product or service is appropriate for a WOMM campaign think about whether or not it’s worth recommending. (CM)
Create something remarkable (CM)
CGM leaves a “digital trail” which makes it easier to measure. For example, CGM can be used to track the effects of other elements of the marketing plan (p. 10)
MoveOn.org create-a-campaign v. Chevy Tahoe ad
Monitoring CGM:

Identify who’s speaking
Identify and flag key issues
Deepen relationship marketing efforts

Guest Speaker: Kate Flanagan (NU Advising case)

Apply various techniques of WOM marketing to facilitate WOM about meeting for academic advising

To Do (for next class):

Readings:

1. The Forrester Wave™: Brand Monitoring, Q3 2006. Peter Kim. 2006. Pages 1-14. (Bb)

2. Consumer Opinions & Trends Report: A Blue Christmas for Blu-ray. Cymfony. 2006. Pages 1-5. (Bb)

3. Single-Source WOM Measurement: Bringing Together Senders & Receivers; Inputs & Outputs. Ed Keller & Brad Fay. 2006. Pages 31-41 (Bb).

4. Suggested Reading: Buzz Monitoring. Pete Snyder. 2006. Pages 119-128. (CM).

5. Suggested Reading: Consumer Generated Media (CGM) 101: Word-of-Mouth In the Age of the Web-Fortified Consumer. Pete Blackshaw and Mike Nazarro. 2004. (Bb)

6. Suggested Reading: Using Online Conversations to Study Word-of-Mouth Communication. David Godes & Dina Mayzlin. Marketing Science. 2004. Pages 1-17. (Bb)

7. Suggested Reading: Utilizing the WOMMA Framework to Build a Syndicated Buzz Tracking Product. Jonathan Carson. 2005. Pages 71-76. (Bb)

8. Suggested Reading: What Motivates People to Review a Product Online. Chrysanthos Dellarocas & Ritu Narayan. 2002. Pages 77-86. (Bb)

9. Suggested Reading: The Effect of Word of Mouth on Sales: Online Book Reviews. Judith Chevalier & Nina Mayzlin. 2005. Pages 1-30. (Bb)

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

Class 4 Agenda: Overview of WOM Programs & Techniques

2007-01-23T09:58:00.000-05:00

Learning Objective(s):

Trace the history of academic and popular press ideas that inform the current WOM, buzz, and viral marketing industry.
Identify various models of WOM used in academic research and industry practice.

Readings for This Class:

Word of Mouth: What We Really Know – And Don’t. Greg Nyilasy. 2006. Pages 161-184. (CM).
Word of Mouth Marketing Association Terminology Framework. WOMMA. 2005. (Bb)

Content:

PowerPoint: Brief academic history of WOM research
Elements of WOMMA Terminology Framework

Activities:

[Finish up with student-generated questions about Citizen Marketers].
Get update on organized WOMM programs
Get update on Blogger and Bloglines registration
Lecture on academic history of WOM research, organized by elements of WOMMA Terminology Framework

To Do (for next class):

Continue research on your organized WOMM programs
Readings:

WOM 101. Word of Mouth Marketing Association. 2005. (Bb)
Introduction and Summary. Paul Marsden. 2006. Pages xv – xxxv. (CM)
Suggested Reading: Word-of-Mouth Marketing Priorities for 2006. Peter Kim & Charlene Li. 2006. (Bb)

We’ll have Kate Flanagan come in to work with us on an activity to develop a WOM program for advising students at NU.

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

Class 3 Agenda: Citizen Marketers in the Age of Conversational Marketing, Part II

2007-01-23T09:51:00.000-05:00

Learning Objective(s):

· Identify factors contributing to the recent resurgence in WOM;

· Articulate how WOM is both a set of activities and a larger philosophy.

Readings for This Class:

· Citizen Marketers: When People Are the Message. Ben McConnell & Jackie Huba. 2007. Pages 97-134 (Chapters 5-6; CIT)

Content:

PowerPoint on Citizen Marketers:

Introduction (7 pages): Overview
Chapter 1 (1-30): Filters, Fanatics, Facilitators, and Firecrackers
Chapter 2 (31-50): The 1 Percenters (also has explanation for choice of term “citizens” versus “consumers” – Ancient Greece and politeia [community of citizens, constitution, form of government, and way of life])
Chapter 3 (51-70): The Democratization of Everything – tension between democratization and control. Pathfinder.com, Cubs, Six Apart’s Movable Type, U.S. Gov’t transparency; Web 2.0 (“creating collaborative Web experiences when information is shared multilaterally”; Mashups (p. 57); Social media; Ray Kurzweil (“the speed, capacity, bandwidth, and overall power of computers and electronic gadgets has begun to double every year” (Moore’s law suggested every 18 months the number of transistors that could fit on a chip would double); Kuhn and paradigm shift; broadband saturation;
Chapter 4 (71-96): Everyone Is a Publisher; Everyone Is a Broadcaster; short overview of media history: Acta Diurna, printing press: blogs, podcasts, RSS, TiVo case study, MySpace & You Tube
Chapter 5 (97-120): Hobbies and Altruism; Surge case study (Karcovack and Coca-Cola); citizen marketers crave a sense of ownership of the brand; hobbies, productive leisure, disguised affirmation (p. 108), market helping behavior (109), motivations to engage in market-helping behaviors (altruism, personal relevance, common good, and status, 110-115); “America’s Funniest Home Videos” and “the sophisticated delivery of stupidity”; millenials (born after 1982) and pop culture
Chapter 6 (121-134): The Power of One; case studies: Apple iPod and the meme; Comcast and the spread of a meme; Target (introduces “astroturfing”), Diet Coke and Mentos; Flickr and the “interestingness algorithm”; “the act of consumption is itself becoming an act of production” (p. 134).

Activities:

Assign Blog Participation

Explain Bloglines account

Assign WOM Diary

Sign-up for 4-digit IDs.

Discuss citizen marketers – students generate discussion topics based on questions and comments prepared for class.

To Do (for next class):

Continue research on your organized WOMM programs
Readings:

Word of Mouth: What We Really Know – And Don’t. Greg Nyilasy. 2006. Pages 161-184. (CM).
Word of Mouth Marketing Association Terminology Framework. WOMMA. 2005. (Bb)
Suggested Reading: What’s All the Buzz About? Everyday Communication and the Relational Basis of Word-of-Mouth and Buzz Marketing Practices. Walter J. Carl. Management Communication Quarterly, 19(4), 601-634. 2006. (Bb)
Suggested Reading: Word-of-Mouth: Understanding and Managing Referral Marketing. Francis Buttle. Journal of Strategic Marketing, 6, 241-254. 1998. (Bb).
Suggested Reading: Social Hubs: A Valuable Segmentation Construct in the Word-of-Mouth Consumer Network. Andrea C. Wojnicki. 2004. Advances in Consumer Research, 31, 521-522. (Bb)

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

Course Blogging Guidelines

2007-01-15T13:22:00.000-05:00

In tomorrow's class I'll be assigning the blogging participation assignment. Below are the guidelines that I propose we use for the course:

Course Blogging Guidelines

1. This blog is a space to carry on conversations regarding our course and course-related concepts. Thus, all posts and comments should be related to students’ experiences with the course and its content. One exception: exam questions should not be posted on the blog. And just like in-class discussions, and unlike some other blogs, it’s not just a place to “express yourself” for the sake of expressing yourself (of course, feel free to have your own blog where you do this).

2. Think before you write and say something interesting and relevant. Your posts will be publicly accessible for a long time, so your contributions to the blog should be well-thought out and relevant to those interested in learning more about organizational communication and word-of-mouth marketing.

3. Provide links to other interesting web-based materials. This is one of the benefits of web logs so take advantage of it.

4. Posts and commentary should be respectful of other’s views and you should not attempt to defame, discriminate, or embarrass others (this includes fellow classmates, guest speakers, instructors from other courses, or any other sentient being). You are personally responsible for the contents of your posts.

5. Respect people’s wishes not to have information included on the class blog. This applies to fellow classmates, guest speakers, and clients. For example, we will have a number of guest speakers in the class who may share information with us that they might not otherwise share so that we have a greater understanding of their company and industry. The guest speaker may request that certain information not be shared on the class blog and thus it would not be appropriate to include that information. Further, we will also be working with actual clients in this class and the projects may involve confidential or proprietary information. This information should not be shared on the class blog either unless explicit permission is granted by the client. If you have any questions, please contact Dr. Carl.

6. All blogging activity should be in accord with Northeastern University’s Appropriate Use policy. This comes down to not doing anything that is criminal, causes harm to others, or anything else that you should have learned you weren’t supposed to do in kindergarten.

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

Class 2 Agenda: Citizen Marketers in the Age of Conversational Marketing, Part I

2007-01-12T08:22:00.000-05:00

02; Citizen Marketers in the Age of Conversational Marketing, Part I

Learning Objective(s):

Identify factors contributing to the recent resurgence in WOM;
Articulate how WOM is both a set of activities and a larger philosophy;

Readings for This Class:

95 Theses of the Cluetrain Manifesto
Citizen Marketers: When People Are the Message pp. vii-96 (Introduction and Chapters 1-4)

Content:

Key challenges that face emerging industry
Impact of Cluetrain Manifesto
Role of citizen marketers

Activities:

Discuss Evaluating WOM Program

Form groups based on program interest

Invite class to decide on numbers in each group so that we can cover all five companies
Discuss public/private nature of the information the companies are sharing with us.

Finish Introduction to WOM & CGM PowerPoint lecture

Go over challenges ahead of the industry and emerging visions (WOM Creationists versus WOM Evolutionists)

Discuss class readings

Get Bloglines (or other RSS reader) account

To Do (for next class):

Create Bloglines account

Add class feed

Begin research for Evaluating WOM Program (log into Bb to access resources)
Read:

Citizen Marketers: When People Are the Message. Ben McConnell & Jackie Huba. 2007. Pages 97-134 (Chapters 5-6; CIT)

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

Comment from McChronicles on My Citizen Marketer Post

2007-01-12T07:59:00.000-05:00

I recently posted a review of the book Citizen Marketers: When People Are the Message on WOM Communication Study blog that we'll be discussing in class today. I received a comment from McChronicles about the post (I had mentioned that blog in my post), but it was deleted inadvertently when I re-enabled Haloscan commenting (in my switch from the old version of Blogger to the new version).

Anyway, I re-posted the comment and now want to reply to McChronicles since McChronicles is an anonymous blogger (I wasn't sure how else to get in contact; see page 11 of Citizen Marketers for details):

***
Hi McChronicles,

Thanks for the comment on my blog and for the offer to contribute to the class (which is at http://www.wom-teach.blogspot.com

We'll be discussing the first few chapters of Citizen Marketers today in class so I'll ask the students if they have any questions for you. I have a couple questions for you. Should I send them to you in an e-mail message, or should I post them to my class blog and then have you respond to them as comments to the post?

Thanks!

Walter
Walter Carl | Homepage | 01.12.07 - 8:01 am | #
***

One of my questions concerns how McDonald's has responded to your efforts. What do you think they have done well and what do you think they could do better? What type of response are you looking for from them, if any?

Thank you for reaching out!

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

Class 1 Agenda: An Introduction to Word of Mouth and Consumer Generated Media

2007-01-11T10:28:00.000-05:00

01; An Introduction to Word of Mouth and Consumer Generated Media

Learning Objective(s):

Identify factors contributing to the recent resurgence in WOM;
Articulate how WOM is both a set of activities and a larger philosophy;

Readings for This Class:

None

Content:

Distinguish between WOM and CGM
Why people engage in WOM.

Activities:

Take roll
Take out a sheet of paper. How did you learn about this class? Poll students.

If that person heard it from someone else, how did they learn about it?

Illustrate networks and pass-along.

Why did that person tell you?

Illustrate why we are motivated to engage in WOM.

PPT: An Introduction to WOM & CGM
Pass out syllabus
Go over assignments
Assign Evaluate Organized WOM Program & Company Project

Ammo Marketing – TBA
Brains on Fire – Fiskars' Fiskateers
BzzAgent – Dunkin Donuts Latte Lite
Matchstick – Chrysler 300C
M80 – Sony Mylo

To Do (for next class):

Visit WOMMA website, subscribe to WOMNIBUS, etc.
Reflect on your groups and which program you want to analyze. Visit class blog post.
Read:

95 Theses of the Cluetrain Manifesto
Citizen Marketers: When People Are the Message pp. vii-96 (Introduction and Chapters 1-4)

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

Let's Get It Started! WOM, Buzz, and Viral Marketing Communication at Northeastern University

2007-01-08T15:38:00.000-05:00

I'm excited to announce that the first class of Word of Mouth, Buzz, and Viral Marketing Communication is tomorrow at 9:50 am. I taught this course over the summer of 2006 and we had a wonderful time (be sure to check out the archives for student comments).

Here's a link to the new syllabus for those who want more details about the class.

The class size is smaller this term, around 10 students, so we'll be able to have a lot of great interactions. Students will be blogging again so we invite all the readers to participate through commenting on their posts.

I've kept the main assignments the same with some minor tweaks based on student comments from last time around...

WOM Communication Diary and Reflection Essay
Evaluating Organized Word-of-Mouth Marketing Program and Company
Designing Organized WOM Program (Capstone Assignment)
Course Blog Participation

For the Evaluating Organized Word-of-Mouth marketing Program and Company assignment we'll be partnering with leading firms (and WOMMA member companies) including...

Ammo Marketing
Brains On Fire
BzzAgent
Matchstick
M80

...and we have another all-star line-up of guest speakers...

Jim Nail, Cymfony
Steve Curran & Jessica Morris, PodDesign
Joe Muran, M80
Jackie Huba, Church of the Customer
Dave Balter, BzzAgent

In addition to academic journal articles, news reports, and blog posts, two of the required books for the course include Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba's Citizen Marketers: When People Are the Message and Justin Kirby and Paul Marsden's edited collection Connected Marketing: The Viral, Buzz and Word of Mouth Revolution.

We'll also be working with the folks in Northeastern's Marketing Communications -- Brian Kenny, Alyssa Meritt, and Ann Comer -- as clients for the capstone assignment.

Thanks to the following individuals and companies for allowing us to post some of their content as class readings on our course Blackboard site: Peter Kim of Forrester, Tim Keiningham of Ipsos Loyalty, Brad Fay at The Keller Fay Group, Kate Kaye of Lowbrow Lowdown, Andy Sernovitz (for a special gift that the students don't yet know about), and the Word of Mouth Marketing Association.

Let's get it started!

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

CMNU914: Special Topics in Organizational Communication Word-of-Mouth, Buzz, and Viral Marketing Communication

2006-11-15T13:48:00.000-05:00

Welcome to the class blog for CMNU914: Special Topics in Organizational Communication Word-of-Mouth, Buzz, and Viral Marketing Communication!

In this class, students will learn about the word-of-mouth, buzz, and viral marketing industry through readings of popular press books and academic journal articles, guest lectures from leading industry figures, analysis of existing word-of-mouth, buzz and viral marketing campaigns, analysis of key companies operating in the word-of-mouth space, and learning industry best practices in designing, executing, and measuring organizationally-facilitated attempts to manage word-of-mouth and consumer generated media.

Please feel free to look through some of the prior posts from the last time this course was offered (Summer I, 2006). Also, be sure to check this blog in the future for updates about the class.

If you are a Northeastern student who would like to register for this class, please use the following course registration information:

CMNU914: Special Topics in Organizational Communication, Word-of-Mouth, Buzz, and Viral Marketing Communication

Spring 2007
Key Number 000656
Sequence D (TF 9:50 - 11:30am)

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

CMNU914: We Made It!

2006-07-07T12:01:00.000-04:00

We made it!

We survived what may have been the first academic class specifically devoted to Word-of-Mouth, Buzz, and Viral Marketing Communication (and the brutally intensive, 7-week, 4-days-a-week, 100-minutes-per-session term).

I want to thank all of the students who made this class very special. I know there was a lot of work involved but I've heard from many of you that you found it very rewarding.

I'd also like to thank the companies and amazing individuals who contributed case studies for us to evaluate and their time to talk with each of the student groups:

- Brains on Fire -- Geno Church and Spike Jones
- BzzAgent -- Matt McGlinn
- Church of the Customer -- Jackie Huba and Ben McConnell
- Matchstick -- Matthew Stradiotto
- M80 -- Joe Muran and Dave Neupert

I'd also like to thank our incredible guest speakers, who not only were insightful, but saved the students from just having me in the classroom every day. They are:

- Steve Curran from Pod Design
- Brad Fay from The Keller Fay Group
- Brian Kenny, Alyssa Meritt, and Ann Comer from Northeastern University's Office of Marketing and Communications
- Jim Nail from Cymfony
- Dave Balter from BzzAgent

I would also like to thank the folks from Northeastern University's Office of Marketing and Communications for participating as clients: Brian Kenny, Ann Comer, Alyssa Meritt, and Bianca Whitworth (from NU Athletics).

Finally I'd like to thank my research assistant, Jenn Oles, for her wonderful assistance with the class.

And here are some things I'm taking away from this class and will consider as I teach in again in January 2007 ("Spring" 2007):

- Keep the main projects. Students loved analyzing an actual WOM marketing program and then designing their own. Many commented how they felt empowered that the clients took what they had to say so seriously. Students definitely rose to the occasion!

- Students really enjoyed the guest speakers and the practical experience they had in the industry. It also gave them a good sense of the different career options available to them. They found some speakers and topics more dynamic than others, but always learned something, even if it was what they didn't want to do.

- Students liked the flow and the sequencing of topics. The only exception was that they wondered whether we needed a special class on WOM ethics since we discussed ethical issues all the way throughout the term in the context of different kinds of WOM programs. Their point wasn't that ethics wasn't important, but just that by the time we got to the "ethics" class it was repetitive with material we had already discussed.

- Tone down the readings. There wasn't enough time to get to them all and some of them were repetitive (in an unproductive way). I was able to learn specifically which readings were the most helpful and which were less so, so I'll be able to adjust accordingly the next time around.

- Keep the class blog and continue to require students to post, but don't require so many comments. Also, build in check points for when students should have the blog entries completed by.

- Although we didn't get a lot of outside people commenting on the content of the class blog I did learn that people are reading it. When I go to presentations I'm pleasantly surpirsed when I hear that people are indeed reading it and that they enjoy what the students are thinking about and what we are discussing in class.

- Do more with the Word-of-Mouth Episode and reflection essay (where students reflected on their own word-of-mouth episodes throughout the term). Discuss this earlier in the class and make it more of a diary where students can look back over all of their WOM episodes as they look for patterns (this time around I had students enter them into an online survey but they didn't have access to what they recorded once they submitted the survey).

- They loved the room environment, so be sure to schedule the class in Behrakis again!

- I learned how to incorporate student suggestions from my teaching into my research and thinking about the industry.

- I learned more about Johnny Cupcakes than I care to admit!

- But the most important thing I'm taking away is that students felt they were a part of a new and emerging industry and that they could make valuable contributions to it. I think they sensed my energy, excitement, and passion, as well as those from our guest speakers, and they fed off of it and made it their own.

Thanks again to everyone for an amazing class. I can't wait to teach it again next Spring and make it better than ever!

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

Looking Back

2006-06-26T11:31:00.000-04:00

So, the semester is now over. With the exception of writing final papers, exams, blog posts, etc., of course. I figured I would take this time to reflect on the experience I have had in this class over the last seven weeks, which by the way, has gone by exceptionally quickly.

This class was certainly among the most unique I took in my time here at Northeastern, being the only 'Special Topic' Class I ever took in our department. The unique and ground-breaking nature of the topic combined with Dr. Carl's enthusiasm for the subject matter definitely made it a very valuable learning experience. Among the most valuable highlights to my learning experience in this class were:

The Evaluating Organized WOM Marketing Campaign Assignment: This assignment, which was essentially a very interactive case study, gave our class the opportunity to not only closely study a real-life firm and campaign, but also interact with the professionals in the field who actually designed and implemented the program. For example, in our group's case, M80's Joe Muran was very accessible, helpful, and excited about helping us with our project.
The Developing Organized WOM Marketing Campaign Assignment: This task provided our class with the opportunity to develop a real program for a real client. As far as I'm concerned this is an incredibly valuable learning experience that is so often unique to Northeastern. Combining this type of real-world learning experience with a room full of co-op veterans creates a great opportunity for us to all really put our heads together and develop the best possible product for the client.

Wrapping up, these were just two of the bigger examples of why I found this to be an extremely valuable class. Combining that with some of the suggestions that were generated in class today will make this class (and others like it) some of the best learning experiences for NU students into the future.

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

Reflections

2006-06-26T10:56:00.000-04:00

--> So what does one do in the face of a deadline? Well, in my case, I've decided to reflect on the experiences we have shared as members of this class. Hopefully this post will be valueable despite the stink of procrastination. Here we go...

I'd like to begin by saying that I have truly enjoyed our lectures, readings, and projects. Despite the large workload and truncated semester, I think this has been an incredibly valueable experience. Here is a taste of what I liked best:

-Lectures: Always well-organized, well thought-out, and accesible. Very well done to Dr. Carl and Jen.

-Readings: A lot of them were lengthy, but the content was almost always useful for my own understanding of class topics.

-Projects: The most useful aspect of the course by far. I haven't had more beneficial and applicable work in any of my classes so far.

-Discsussions: The in-class perspectives offered were almost always insightful, with Dr. Carl directing our comments in a way that always led us back to the major topic at hand.

And now for the negative:

-Semester length: We've all said it--this class needs to be offered during a full semester so students can get everything we need to out of materials. Despite this, I think we all managed to come away with new information we can use during our careers.

-There should be more discussion of (and research regarding) the potential WOM has to foster change outside of the consumer products sphere.

I don't really have much more to say about improvements. For a new course about an emerging topic, I think it was very well put together and I know that I gained some very valuable experience. I personally plan on looking into WOM as school ends and the career world approaches.

Thanks again to Dr. Carl and Jen for a great experience. I hope that everyone in class got as much out of our time together as I did, and I hope that other in the field take note of the fact that this topic is one that should be taught in any marketing or communications-focused curriculum. I'm just glad that we got to do it first.
Tags: WOM word of mouth Word-of-Mouth Marketing buzz marketing viral marketing marketing communication

Geico In The Know

2006-06-26T10:45:00.000-04:00

After reading Bek's post on Geico car insurance I took a look at the various commericial links and I have to say that I don't agree with Bek's analysis of the Geico commercials. Furthermore, to answer Bek's final questions on whether Geico doesn't understand WOM or if they simply choose not to use it I would have to say neither. I believe that they fully understand WOM concepts and use them in a way that is both creative and innovative.

The first commercial Bek discusses where the Gecko explains that people trust advertising icons but wouldn't trust "some bloke" telling them to check out Geico does seem to go against WOM practices that we have discussed in class. However, after watching the commercial a few times I realized that he wasn't talking about some person on the street talking about Geico, it is talking about how people don't trust traditional TV advertisment personalities but do "trust" or at least pay attention to major icons which would be buzz marketing. Geico differentiates themselves by useing a gecko instead. Geico is not claiming that people don't trust their fellow consumers they are clearly and correctly identifying that people are loosing faith in mainstream advertising and Geico's solution to this is to address it and use viral marketing (the gecko and humerous ads) to combat this problem.

The second commercial Bek talks about for example with the Gecko and the Lizzard. I can understand how this commercial could be viewed as stealth marketing as the Gecko is telling the lizzard what to say when telling people about word of mouth. However, the lizzard is not a hired individual who is physically going out into the world and telling people these great points about Geico insurance. In my opinion this is an ingenious use of WOM. Geico makes use of both Viral Marketing and Grassroot Marketing. The commercial itself is Viral markeing because of its creative nature it gets people talking about it. Furthermore, instead of being stealth marketing the information the Gecko is telling the Lizzard could be used by customer evagelists to spread the word about Geico's insurance.
The third commercial Bek refers to talks about exclusivity. Bek states that by allowing anyone to go to Geico and get a free quote is not exclusivity as the gecko suggests. However, although anyone can go to Geico to get a free quote the exclusivity the Gecko is refering to is that once you go to get a free quote you become part of an exclusive club to save money on your car insurance. Although Geico does not make access to its quotes exclusive, they claim that being part of the Geico group gives you access to exclusive low rates. In my opinion Geico is making great use of the exclusivity principle in that they are not limiting access but they are limiting their low rates to their members only.

Another way Geico uses WOM is through product seeding. I recently registered a new car and not a week later I received in the mail a mock Geico insurance card with my name and the number to call for a free quote. By mailing out info to new car owners they are reaching the individuals with the highest propensity to purchase or at least look into their product.

Bek made some great observations and Geico is a prime example of a company that makes use of WOMM. In my opinion they fully understand WOMM principles and leverage them in a way that is both entertaining and creative.
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Tags: WOM word of mouth Word-of-Mouth Marketing buzz marketing viral marketing marketing communication

Last Class : (

2006-06-26T10:36:00.000-04:00

Our very last class has now concluded, and I thought it an apt (and necessary, ha, oops) time to reflect in total on what the class has done for me specifically. We talked today about what went well, what didn't, what we learned, and what we found most interesting. I obviously learned a ton about everything word-of-mouth: terminology, metrics, ethics, influentials (or the lack there of), social networks, WOM firms, case studies, blogging, program types, benefits, costs, etc, etc, the list goes on and on.

But I think one of the most interesting things that I took out of the class, was my new found respect and interest in pursuing a career (or at least an internship) in the field of consulting. I had always had a negative view of the profession as I had heard from past and present consultants that it can be rather soul-selling. I understand this a bit more now, but not in a negative light. I understand now how much work goes into consultation projects, how many of your own ideas, your own thoughts, and your own passion. But this does not intimidate me so much. I really like the idea of being able to put so much of yourself and your creativity into your work.

I suppose I'm being a bit sentimental right now, the stress of this class being over and all, and I imagine those in the class that were also taking consultation skills at the same time this semester might have a few things to say to this. But I'm open to it, interested in fact. This class was so interesting to me outright, perhaps that is why I enjoyed the DWOM project as much as I did.

Regardless, if my hypothetical illustrious career in consulting doesn't pan out, I still found this class to be a gem in Northeasterns Communications Department.

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

Taking it to the Next Level

2006-06-26T10:29:00.002-04:00

One of the major principles of WOM is the freedom. In the first class consumers’ need for greater contro was identified as one of the reasons WOM is so hot right now. And it is with this in mind that I write my last blog for the term.
Dr. Carl said that he would post the top three responses to our WOM episode surveys(pdf). Well, in the spirit of this freedom, I am going to post my blog post about the WOM episodes here. Yes, it is not as official as if Dr. Carl had posted it with his approval, but that is a key part of WOM: even people who are not in control of the traditional establishment get a voice. Other people’s responses may have been more thought provoking, but that is another aspect of WOM: idiots get the same right to speak as the informed. So without further ado, here is my blog on my word of mouth episodes:

Throughout the semester, we were tasked with documenting three WOM episodes that we experienced. We would fill out a short survey (with both quantitative and qualitative components) about the episodes. At the end, we are to write a summary of our findings. These were our only real parameters.
The first thing I noticed was the diversity of the conditions surrounding the episodes. One episode was with my best friend at a restaurant, but another was with the man working the register at IHOP. It would be difficult to get a wider emotional difference between two people. I had an episode happen in the afternoon, one at dinner, and one at 3 am, so clearly there is also diversity in the times where these episodes take place. I guess the key take away point from all of this is that WOM episodes can happen anywhere, with anyone, at anytime.
There was one common tie between the three episodes: all three did occur in places of business, so maybe I am more likely to discuss products and services in such a setting.
Another finding was that my episodes were very short. When talking to strangers or acquaintances, the episode only lasted for a minute or two. When talking to my best friend, the episode was longer, about five minutes. However, when you take into account that the entire conversation I had with him was about an hour, the 5 minutes we spent talking about Al Gore’s new movie is really a small period time. So the second take-away point is that WOM episodes seem to be short.
My third observation was a bit more meta. While trying to make observations about my three documented episodes, I had trouble. I realized that it is difficult to generalize one’s WOM behavior by three specific episodes. I estimated that I have 25 WOM episodes a day, so analyzing only three over seven weeks is a very small sample. Dr. Carl explained to me that we were only to use these as a starting point, but I still see a problem with this. It is likely that we focus on WOM episodes that make us seem cool and knowledgeable, and ignore those when someone else made us feel unhip or uninformed. This is a major problem with the self-report approach. I think it is dangerous to summarize one’s WOM interactions based on just three episodes.
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Tags: WOM word of mouth Word-of-Mouth Marketing buzz marketing viral marketing marketing communication

WOMM: Ethics and Normative Potential

2006-06-26T10:14:00.000-04:00

--> As our class moves towards its close, I find myself reflecting on one of the most recent topics we've discussed. Specifically, I'm talking about the ethical concerns voiced by critics like Kate Kay in her piece "Sales Pitch Society II" and others regarding what the corporate world's move towards WOMM means for all of us. The commodification of everyday interactions is an interesting topic of discussion, and it's certainly useful for authors like Kay to play the devil's advocate with any new type of consumer-oriented media. We've also learned about the importance of transparency in maintaining ethically-sound campaigns. I don't think that one could argue against the idea of corporate colonization into everyday life, but it seems clear that WOM (if conduted in an ethical manner) actually has strong potential to undermine the daunting influence of corporations. Furthermore, WOM could be the beginning of the end of an era in which companies spouted marketing messages and products from on-high to be gobbled up by we lowly consumers (think about the difference between a product-seeding campaign and those rediculous and kitchy ads sponsors used to run during programs in the 50s).

There can be no doubt that certain unscrupulous individuals in the business and marketing world will use WOMM in ways that the community at large finds unethical. The beautiful thing about WOM, however, is that it can account for just such a problem--these very companies who practice WOMM in a less-than-ideal way can expect to be held accountable by a public that has obviously grown weary of advertising ploys. What's more, however, is that unlike traditional advertising, WOM has so much potential to fulfill the normative possibilites inherent in peer-to-peer interaction, and (I would argue), of a democratic society as a whole.

Let's look at the basics: the very idea behind WOM is that consumers send messages to one another with little or (hopefully) no direct influence from the company in question. This takes out the source of useless ad-related information that is so pervasive today (namely the company or their ad agency). Moving on, it follows then that the product/service itself is what merits organic word of mouth and the much sought-after high Net Promotor Score. If we, as consumers, take steps to eliminate those companies who engage in unethical WOMM, all we'll be left with is essentially products to judge for ourselves. Those who produce good products at reasonable prices will succeed, and those that don't will fail. The question is begged: As WOM becomes more pervasive, will the general public get just as sick of it as they are of tradtional advertising methods? I would argue that this scenario will not play out like some critics have suggested. Of course, it's up to the industry to ensure that unethical practices don't allow this to happen, but the fact that consumers can theoretically determine (for themselves) what constitues a good product should keep WOMM from suffering this unceremonious fate.

I'd like to take the discussion one step further. What is the potential of WOM in fostering real normative change beyond the world of consumer goods? Will we ever be able to infiltrate the political world with messages about progressive social change? How can we identify "influencers" in the area of (for instance) socio-economic development? I beleive that word-of-mouth's empowering nature lends itself to applications for the greater good of society. We all know that we need, lets say, an alternative fuel source. One day, the oil reserves of the world will run dry and the atmosphere will be even thicker with greenhouse gases. The principles of word-of-mouth should be leveraged to increase awareness and activism around issues like this. I'd love to see a WOMM campaign spurring youth activism, or concern for the environment, or more public attention to the problems of the developing world. The list goes on.

If we can find a way to make WOM work towards remedying some legitimate societal ills, I'm willing to bet that some of the ethical concerns voiced by critics will be put to rest. Here's hoping.
Tags: WOM word of mouth Word-of-Mouth Marketing buzz marketing viral marketing marketing communication

TrueMajority

2006-06-25T21:07:00.000-04:00

TrueMajority was founded by Ben Cohen, Co-founder, Ben and Jerry's. It is a grassroots education and advocacy project of Priorities, Inc., a non-profit, non-partisan, tax-deductible, 501(c)(3) corporation.

One of the few organizations I really admire, TrueMajority has my basic human interest at heart. I can’t help but spread the word for this truly amazing grassroots movment

Their 10 Principles
1. Attack poverty and world hunger as if our life depends on it. It does.
2. Champion the rights of every child, woman & man.
3. End our obstructionism to the world's treaties.
4. Reduce our dependence on oil and lead the world to an age of renewable energy.
5. Close the book on the Cold War and ease the nuclear nightmare.
6. Renounce Star Wars and the militarization of space.
7. Make globalization work for, not against, working people.
8. Ensure equal treatment under law for all.
9. Get money out of politics.
10. Close the gap between rich and poor kids at home.

They also have some great viral flash videos that really demonstrate, in an easy to understand format, the problems facing our country. If you trust in these principals and “oreos” then join and take action

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

2006-06-25T20:27:00.000-04:00

Wikimedia Foundation Inc.

As many of you know Wikipedia is an amazing place to spend hours clicking through windows learning about topics ranging from Internet protocols to where Metroid Prime comes from. Then the question hit me… What is a Wiki?

Where did I go to find the answer? Wikipedia of course and they define a Wiki as:

A wiki (IPA: [ˈwiː.kiː] or [ˈwɪ.kiː] [1]) is a type of website that allows users to add, remove, or otherwise edit and change all content very quickly and easily, sometimes without the need for registration.

This is just another way the web is truly becoming a two-way medium allowing people from all walks of life share their expertise. Wikimedia is a non-profit corporation founded in 2003 their goals are “to maintain and develop free-content, wiki-based projects and to provide the full contents of those projects to the public free of charge”

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

He May Be Able To Talk, But He Doesn't Get Everything..

2006-06-25T19:12:00.001-04:00

My last post talked about comapnies that at least somewhat understand the benefits and power or WOM practices, but I became inspired shortly thereafter to blog about the comapnies that unbelievably just don't get it at all.

I was watching television recently and a Geico commercial came on. I was happy about this as their television ads are quite funny and have become a pop-culture success for the company between their Australian talking gecko and their never-went-extinct angry cavemen. This was a talking gecko ad wherein he was being asked why Geico needed him. He responded that it was because the public trusted "advertising icons." He proceeded to say that if a "some bloke" were to tell a person that they could save money by using Geico insurance, why would anyone believe him? They would believe, however, the trusted gecko. At this point, my ears perked up and stopped what I was doing, incredulous at what I was hearing! Isn't this the entire reason we are taking this class? Because people have a mistrust of organizations and an increasing trust in their peers? Because word of mouth has always been around? Because it is increasingly more effective than traditional advertising as the later becomes more pervasive? I think so! And yet the all wise and trustworthy gecko doesn't.

I'm surprised by this yet at the same time not so much: Geico's advertisers must be pretty savvy as they've managed to launch themselves smack into the middle of popular culture. Thus, I was surprised that they would have had the gecko saying something to discredit the power of word of mouth. But at the same time, I am not taken back by this at all because as we've studied, it seems hard for companies who've relyed so heavily on traditional tv and print advertising to throw it all to the wind and trust Joe Schmo on the street to spread the word.

I went to the Geico website to see if i could find the specific tv ad to link to in this blog and found some interesting things. On their site, Geico's tv commercials are displayed for viewing. I was poking around and found another ad that would have made me scoff with disbelief. This commercial featured the gecko talking to a lizard about how exactly he wanted him to talk to people when telling them about Geico (aka scripting!). This hits right at the heart of a WOM ethical issue surrounding stealth marketing. What I thought of first was BzzAgent and their philosphy of making transparency key, keeping buzz as natural as possible, and never telling agents what to say or even how to say it; a sound ethical stance to me. The Geico commercial was more evidence to me that the company has missed the boat on WOM marketing. (There are also other commercials you can check out on that page that make you wonder about Geico's knowledge of WOM principles.)

And then I watched one of the commercials that talked about exclusivity, a very powerful WOM principle. This commercial talks about making people feel special, as if they're "better than everyone else" for using the Geico website; the advertisers obviously see the value in leveraging this principle. On the other hand, however, neither is the practice of using exclusivity to sell your product. So does Geico understand WOM and choose not to use it? Or do they really just not get it?

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

The Biggest WOM Event Ever

2006-06-25T18:56:00.000-04:00

We have all become very familiar with the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) over the duration of our course. Recently they held the biggest WOM event ever in the history of mankind over in San Francisco. I thought it would a great post to just overview some of the great happenings in WOM marketing that occurred at this conference. The conference was held last week from June 20th-21st, and it featured presentations from leading WOM moguls in the field such as Robert Scobel and Shel Israel (authors of Naked Conversations), Jackie Huba (Creating Customer Evangelists), Ed Keller (The Influentials), and Emmanuel Rosen (Connected Marketing). Also, the event had tons of how - to workshops on building WOM programs along with the many other parts of WOM marketing that we have covered in class. Furthermore, 16 case studies from top companies were presented to illustrate the effectiveness WOM has had in the past year. In addition I thought it was interesting to see that some of the sponsors included, Brains on Fire and Cymphony.

Robert Scobel and Shel Israel lead the much anticipated keynote address, and as you can imagine, they included their two cents about WOM and in particular, blogging. They concluded their presentation by saying, the "dawn of blogging was fostered by the building of the social network and build tools, the Enron backlash, and a dissatisfaction with what they called committee based marketing" (WOMBAT Blog). From reading the WOMBAT, it seems like "The Biggest WOM Event Ever" went pretty well, and it has received a lot of positive feedback. I think WOMMA has served a great purpose to unite professionals using WOM marketing, and help the field to reach higher levels. Also, our own Dr. Carl has certainly had a terrific impact on WOM by teaching this insightful class (among his countless other works). I wish we could have taken the field trip to city by the bay, but regardless we have had some great experiences with the superb speakers that have visited our class and the projects we have completed. Congratulations to all of us!! WAHOOOOOO! Have a great summer everyone!

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

Crabby Old Lady Speaks the Truth

2006-06-25T13:27:00.000-04:00

Originally, I learned about blogs that were used to merely record thoughts, like a diary. Then I learned about corporate blogs. Through our class discussions and blog postings, I have learned about blogs being used to spread buzz among consumers. We have studied the roles of influencers and social networks as well as buzz marketing companies who use online elements such as blogs to launch campaigns. After considering what a blog could do for the buzz of a product, I decided to search and see what's out there. I thought I would find blogs about mostly controversial issues, and I did. However, blogs seem to be flooding over into the product marketing forum. As I searched the blogosphere I stumbled across a blog called "Business Blog Consulting. This blog speaks specifically to how businesses can use blogs to communicate with consumers and market products.

On the blog there is a post called "Beauty Market Blogging" which speaks about how Revlon has made its way onto the blogosphere. A blogger named "Crabby Old Lady" has been described as expressing the the lack of quality cosmetics for older women on a blog called "Time Goes By: What It's Really Like To Get Older." The blog goes on to explain how older women wish to minimize yet products these days are made to enhance. On another post on the "Time Goes By" blog, Crabby Old Lady praises Revlon's Vital Radiance line for providing older women with the type of cosmetics they need. The author of the blog explains that this is very out of character for Crabby Old Lady who seems to do nothing more than criticize and bash products on the blog.

It seems to me as though Crabby Old Lady is a powerful influencer on this "Time Goes By" blog. After learning about buzz and word-of-mouth it would be in companies' best interests to seek out vocal evangelists like Crabby Old Lady and product seed products that are actually good. Once Crabby Old Lady got her hands on the Vital Radiance cosmetic line, she went right to the blog to express herself. The whole idea that she normally criticizes products on the blog made it that much more impressionable that she was saying something good about Revlon. As discussed on the Business Blog Consulting blog, Revlon did the right thing by listening to the consumers' wants and needs and reacting to them. I would also add that businesses should start monitoring blogs during market research to see what consumers want. This phenomenon that businesses may actually start caring what consumers want rather than pushing products at them is taking Word-of-mouth marketing by storm.

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

The Ethics of Social Networks

2006-06-24T23:07:00.000-04:00

As I was surfing the net tonight, I found myself on Yahoo's website. I usually go on to Yahoo to look around for clues in popular culture and the latest news. Some of the stories and news summaries can put me to sleep, however there was one that I saw that caught my eye and made me realize how much it pertains to class and even to my own life. It was about the webpage MySpace, which I know we're talked to death along with Facebook. But c'mon there is just so much to say about these social networks! I mean, these are very new and modern advances, leaving adults and parents very uncomfortable as we live in such an internet dependent period. They don't quite understand what we do on the internet all day. Even more so they don't understand if these sites are safe. Yet this news piece argues that parents felt the same way when rock music came out. The new and unfamiliar can be scary.

However, this is not what the article is about. It touches upon how advertisers love these new social networks because it gives them another outlet to advertise to the youth. We have talked about advertising enough in class to understand the progression that has taken place within the field towards word of mouth. They cited an example which rang very familiar to me, as it should to all of you. It was about how News Corp owns both MySpace and 20th Century Fox and so therefore they posted a profile about the new X-men 3 movie on MySpace. This is just what M80 did for Stewie for the Family Guy promotion. It makes the users of these social networks feel like they are even more connected to the world as a whole, not just to other college students or people their own age.

These social networks are really just second nature to us now, although I am sure there are people who stay away from it as to not jump on the bandwagon. I will say I was once one of them too. If somehow you are a rookie to Facebook, even Sports Illustrated has written up a small instructional guide on how to cruise the site which only allows college kids. It really is crazy to think of how far these sites have come in terms of popularity. MySpace is now second to Yahoo in web sites that are most frequently viewed!

The article also speaks with Shawn Gold, who is the senior vice president of content and marketing for MySpace, and he says that this is where advertisers go to market and to open up the doors for their product or promotion. Due to the fact that we do allow an awful lot of information to be on our profiles for anyone to see, these companies can tap into these databases to better tailor their product to the appropriate audience! This reminds me a little of the conversation we had in class a while ago about if it was ethical for Northeastern staff to be looking at our blogs and commenting on them etc. As always word of mouth marketing has its ethical debate.

However when it comes to profiles such as MySpace, you really are allowing the world to see you, or who you want people to perceive you as. Therefore, I think it's fair game.

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

Smirnoff and WOM

2006-06-24T20:21:00.000-04:00

I recently came home from giving a rather large, intimidating presentation for a certain communications class that will remain nameless, and decided to crack open a cold grape flavored Smirnoff Twsited V drink that was left over from a Cape Cod weekend. I opened the drink and noticed a number and letter code on the inside of the cap. I looked at the bottle and saw that Smirnoff was doing a sweepstakes type give away promotion that needed me to go to the website, enter my code, and see if i was a winner; after all, there was a winner every 60 seconds! So, in an attempt to be mindless and waste some time, I hopped on site. Naturally I had to register a bunch of information, (it was actually a bit of a lenghty and convoluded process), and even more naturally I was NOT a winner. However, I did not remain so downtrodden for long. I found myself very impressed with what the WOM practices they were employing on their website!

I know in class we have looked at real world examples and applications of WOM, but to find an example on my own, employed no less by a company that I am very loyal to, impressed me. I know that Smirnoff has some clever traditonal television advertisers working for them, but I found it interesting that they were exploring new avenues and arenas of the advertising and marketing worlds. Besides this campaign being a buzz building campaign with the neat animated graphics, website features, and cool give-aways, the first thing that really peaked my interest was their option to send the site to any of your friends so they could try to play the game as well; a classic WOMM practice.

They leveraged the principles of exclusivity by a socially conscious and clever (but easily navigated around) feature that does not allow you to enter the site unless you are the legal drinking age of 21 as Smirnoff likes to promote "responsible drinking." You are required to put your birth date in, however you can pick a year that makes you 21 (even if you are not) and enter the site. A noble quest there, but not exactly effective I have a feeling. They use exclusivity again as well as an altruistic effect with a link they have on the same website that says "theres something cool under wraps... be the first to find out!" Once clicking the link, the two aforementioned principles show themselves vibrantly; the site says "We’ve got something super cool in store for you, but for now, it’s gotta be under wraps. But we’re almost ready to let you in on it. Sign up now, and you’ll be the first to know what’s up" and then there is a survey asking your experience with and propensity of drinking Smirnoff Ice.

As I said, I was pleased with all these things. But I think the Smirnoff Ice website is a very good example of companies unwillingness to fully accept and implement WOM principles and practices. While there were some WOM principles, there were not many and Smirnoff obviously still holds their traditional advertising in high esteem as they have a section of their website devoted to their television ads. There were no voting features or surveys pertaining to customer satisfaction, no consumer generated features, no blogs, etc, etc.

At least some companies get WOM partially, however. Kudos Smirnoff. It got me clicking around on your website!

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

The Dark Side

2006-06-24T15:40:00.000-04:00

We have talked about stealth marketing in class from time to time, and it has always been something that has caught my interest. I'm not saying that I plan on switching to the dark side of the force, or following in Darth Vadar's footsteps, but stealth campaigns are just very interesting to me, and I wanted to read some more on the topic. So, I took a look at Andrew and Jack Kaikati's article, Stealth Marketing: How to Reach Consumers. One quote quickly caught my attention; "Stealth marketing attempts to catch people at their most vulnerable by identifying the weak spot in their defensive shields." I thought this quote was a great way to start my journey of learning the sneaky, tactful, and tasteless ways of stealth marketing. The main idea behind stealth marketing is to get influential people talking about a product or service without it appearing to be company - sponsored.

Now, I understand this first impression of stealth marketing is subject to some criticism, but there are many reasons why marketers are turning to these dark ways. Some factors responsible for the increase in stealth marketing include a growing criticism of the advertising industry, fragmented audiences due to thousands of new channels and stations, and the growth of personal television recorders such as TiVo. Due to these limitations affecting traditional advertising, stealth marketing has evolved in the forms of viral techniques, brand pushers, celebrity stealth, bait and tease marketing, video games, and marketing in pop and rap music. Some familiar examples of stealth campaigns include Dr. Pepper's stealth blogging project, Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications camera phone stealth marketing.

Aside from some of these more well known campaigns, many other companies are beginning to integrate more stealth strategies into their marketing mix. Cigarette companies are paying attractive women to hit the bars and try to get other men to have a smoke with them outside so that they can advertise the brand of cigarettes. High profile actors are secretly getting money in their pocket for nonchalantly talking about a brand in public, and even some of today's most prolific music stars are getting paid to shout out brands in their lyrics. In fact, one study from Stealth Marketing: How to Reach Consumers found rap music to overwhelmingly mention Mercedes, Lexus, Gucci, Cadillac, and Burberry in their songs.

However, these strategies aren't always full proof, and they most certainly aren't considered ethically sound. There is possibility for backlash with stealth marketing from consumers who feel cheated, or that their privacy is infringed upon. Other ethical concerns include common trust, invasion of music lover's privacy, video games with excessive violence advertising brands, and the idea of simply messing with people's minds such as using subliminal messages. So my question is, where do you think the line should be drawn for stealth marketing? Is this creative means for marketing all that bad? Yoda, teach me how to live by the force before I hop on the death star.
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Tags: WOM word of mouth Word-of-Mouth Marketing buzz marketing viral marketing marketing communication

Golden Horn

2006-06-21T19:24:00.000-04:00

So we've all seen the effect of WOM in case studies as well as in this blog (Johnny Cupcakes anyone??) I thought I'd just share a little bit of positive WOM in regards to GoldenHorn Cafe. For those of you who may not be aware, Golden Horn is located right next to Campus Tan on the corner of Mass. Ave and Huntington.

Now, how I became obsessed with Golden Horn is actually through a WOM episode. Kennie mentioned Golden Horn on one of our first days of class and it piqued my interest. I've passed by the place so many times and never even thought to stop (in all honesty, I thought it looked kind of sketchy when I first came to Boston). It wasn't until a few days ago that my group members and I were meeting and we decided to go to Golden Horn before meeting one of our other group members at her apartment. I wasn't all that hungry but I wanted to try it out, so I got a strawberry frozen yogurt. Now, I worked at TCBY back in high school, so I know frozen yogurt, but this strawberry frozen yogurt was amazing! It had actual bits of strawberries in it and it was HUGE!!! For not being all that hungry, I was definately stuffed after this cup of frozen yogurt. I've been back several times and each time I've brought a friend and they too love it. So this is my plug for Golden Horn. It is relatively cheap (you get a lot of food for your money), the menu is quite extensive for a cafe, and the food is really very good. I've also had the grilled Chicken panini (#29, for those of you who are already avid lovers) and the Rosted Vegtable pita roll up (#47). And they deliver! So if you happen to be walking by this summer, check it out...you won't be sorry, I promise! -->
Tags: WOM word of mouth Word-of-Mouth Marketing buzz marketing viral marketing marketing communication

The 4th Level of Bloom's: Analysis/Synthesis

2006-06-21T16:36:00.000-04:00

Now don't get too excited over the title to this blog post. I know you are all dying to read what I have to say about the 4th level of Bloom's taxonomy, but I actually want to tie together a little bit about how WOM realtes to the consulting business. On Tuesday, we had a guest speaker come to our Consultation Skills class and talk to us a bit about the consulting business. His name was Dr. Devin Smith, a manager with The Frankel Group, a consulting firm with offices in Cambridge. He touched upon a lot of different subjects; what working as a consultant is like, how time consuming the job can be, what ranks there are in most consulting firms, how much people in the business make. But what really drew my attention was the talk about marketing a consultant firm and its services.

Just like we've learned in our WOM class, word-of mouth was the best way Dr. Smith suggested to market a consulting firm. Someone is often looking for some outside help, brings it up in conversation with a friend, then that person refers you to a firm their company just had success dealing with. The key here is keeping current customers happy. Where have we heard that before? The best thing to do is to stick with the clients who appreciate your services, and continually come back to your company for help. In our consultation class, we've been reading Sue Dewine's, The Consultant's Craft. She too mentions word-of-mouth as being a really effective way for consulting firms to market themselves. She refers to this type of marketing as "indirect marketing". According to Dewine, "the first principle of marketing for consultants is to satisfy current customers." Just like what we've learned in our WOM class, you need to keep current clients happy. Special, VIP treatment can do wonders for an organization. Repeat customers can be social influencers and hopefully consumer loyalits to your company. With a solid group of satisfied customers, positive word-of-mouth will spread quicker than you think.

Now I know it'd be tough to develop a WOM marketing campaign for a consulting firm. I mean think about it, is the consulting business really all that interesting? I guess that depends who you ask, but for most of us probably not. However, this is one of those examples where a company can take advantage of really simple, traditional WOM aspects. There's really no need for product seeding, or an advergame, or a online community with team specialists and viral media players. All a company needs are a few important things: a good product, loyal customers, and people willing to share information about the company with others.

Pulling together information from both the Consultation Skills and the WOM class is no easy task, but it's interesting to see those few times when the two subjects actually relate and intertwine to one another. Anyway, that's my best shot at the 4th level of Bloom's Taxonomy, I hope Professor Dallimore is proud.