What's Next In Marketing

Vampires, HBO, And Word Of Mouth Excellence

A few weeks back I wrote a post about the brilliant campaign put together to help launch HBO's new series "True Blood". The campaign was done by NY based Campfire, which also created my favorite campaign of the past few years, Audi's "Art of the heist".

http://whatsnext.typepad.com/whats_next_in_marketing/2008/07/blair-witch-art-of-the-heist-now-hbos-true-blood-whats-next-with-campfire.html
AdAge has posted a nice video about the campaign. It outlines, once again, how powerful Word-of-Mouth can be, and how agencies need to continue to think outside of the traditional media box.

http://adage.com/video/article?article_id=130345

If Your Brand/Company Says It Will They May Not Believe It: Why Word Of Mouth Is More Important Than Ever

We're working with a couple of companies right now that are in industries that have horrible consumer confidence issues. Mistrust. Fear. Total lack of loyalty.

And in many of these cases our clients are asking us to develop a brand positioning that will not only differentiate them in what are mostly commodity categories, but at will also help them to win back consumer confidence and loyalty.

I think this is a mistake and a missed opportunity for some of these brands to take advantage of building a "Groundswell".

(See terrific Forester book on topic:

http://whatsnext.typepad.com/whats_next_in_marketing/2008/05/whats-next-forr.html

Paul Isakson has a terrific post on his blog about how Jet Blues "Happy Jetting" campaign is really "Happy BS".

http://paulisakson.typepad.com/planning/2008/08/jetblues-happy.html

It's a really good example of how a company can not expect consumers to believe that they have changed without having the consumers themselves be the one's to make this happen.

Jet Blue's shallow attempt at leveraging the fact that they are providing pillows and blankets for $7 (and you get to keep them!!) is a way to differentiate. Unfortunately, what it does is further perpetuate the mistrust consumers have for airlines as it makes Jet Blue, once the darling of the business, look like another greedy operator.

I strongly believe that companies/brands can not tell consumers that they have changed or improved their offering unless:

1. They have a killer app/customer service offering/innovative product to introduce to the market. Consumers are too savvy these days to fall for the pillow and blanket shit.

2. The company let's those who already are advocates of the brand (employees and current customers) tell the market how terrific they are.

These brand advocates are already in place. They already have positive feelings about the brand. they are likely willing to spread the good word if you engage them. This has been proven time and time again. So give them the ammo they need to help build your brand.

One of the companies we are working with has 100,000 employees and 15M customers. What if half of these people referred just one new customer? Win.

So before you or your client decide to invest millions in creative and implementing a big TV campaign that helps "build the brand", think through whether or not that message will be well received. And if there are other, more powerful, more efficient (WOM) ways of achieving the same goal.

Word Of Mouth: By Hugh MacLeod

http://twitter.com/gapingvoid/statuses/809361163

Amen

What's Next: Forrester's "Groundswell"

I think I've mentioned before that I always keep two books on my nightstand. One for business and one for pleasure.

My pleasure book right now is the new Philip Roth novel, "Exit Ghost", which is just okay.

I loved his last novel, "The Plot Against America". Brilliant.

http://www.amazon.com/Plot-Against-America-Philip-Roth/dp/1400079497/ref=pd_bbs_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1210270411&sr=8-3

The business book I'm reading is called "Groundswell", which was written by two Forrester analysts, Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff.

http://www.forrester.com/Groundswell/index.html

It's got a bit too much "sell" in the first few chapters for my taste, but if you are interested in Social Media/Word of Mouth marketing, it is a fantastic primer for What's Next, and what you should be paying attention to. 

What's Next: The Opportunity for a Billion People to Help Build Your Brand

Community and Social networking continue to grow in importance.

A nice piece on the Forrester Marketing blog about the three ingredients a brand needs to keep in mind in order to be successful. Pulled from a speech given by Gurval Caer, President and CEO.

http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2007/11/15/barcelona-consumer-forum-session-notes/

What's Next Is Often What's Forgotten

Over the past few years you couldn't have a conversation about marketing without including "Buzz", or "Word Of Mouth".

Yet I often hear about campaigns that have broken that did not have a component that would engage consumers in a way that would put them in the position of wanting to "spread the word."

I think part of this is because companies often feel like they can't measure most WOM. And yes, a bit of it is a leap of faith and not quantifiable, but there are more and more technologies now in place that allow you to track the success of a WOM effort.

I've been using and promoting BuzzMetrics for years (www.buzzmetrics.com). And BzzAgent certainly has put together a wonderful WOM network that is also highly trackable (www.bzzagent.com).

And here's another cool app: Seer, which is an application developed by VML, one of the sister agencies of my firm Y&R. Seer was developed to see what influential bloggers are saying about a product or service.

Check it out here: http://www.vml.com/what_ET-1.aspx?serviceID=ET&subID=1

So no excuses. WOM should be a part of any plans for your next campaign.

The Hidden Influencers: The Power Of Power Users In Social Networking

The MySpace, YouTube, blogging, etc., phenoms have allowed anyone to have a voice in the marketplace. Someone once said that it's no longer about 15 minutes of fame, it's about someone being famous with 15 people.

In the Web 2.0 world, individuals have the ability to not only have a voice, but to effect change in many different ways.

In a similar vein, now there appears to be a new trend in Social Networking where there are small groups of users that wield much larger spheres of influence.

http://www.marketingvox.com/archives/2007/04/16/the-hidden-influencers-of-digg/

To find the key influencer's, the Wall Street Journal analyzed more than 25,000 submissions across six major sites. At Digg, which has 900,000 registered users, 30 people were responsible for submitting one-third of postings on the home page.

As marketers look to use Word-Of-Mouth (WOM) through social networks, and other channels, understanding who these folks are will be critically important.

NIN: Nine Inch Nails, A New Album, And A Brilliant Marketing Campaign

In 1994 I attended the Woodstock Music Festival. I was with a really good friend of mine and a few other guys, and got to see some of my favorite groups (Crosby, Stills, and Nash (CSN), Aerosmith, and a very young and barely known Greenday, among others). It was also, very, very, very wet. Like the show in 69', it poured almost the entire first night.

I didn't know a lot about Nine Inch Nails, or their front man Trent Reznor, but when they came on stage for their set with the entire band completely covered in mud, I was mesmerized. they proceeded to put on a great show.

Since then I've followed Trent's efforts from the fringe. Lately I had heard a lot of buzz within the Word Of Mouth community about his new album, YEAR ZERO, and how the band had found a way to release it in a highly unique manner, leveraging WOM tactics, the web, and several other highly creative and imaginative tactics.

Some of the work was done by this amazing firm called Entertainment42 (www.entertainment42.com), which is making quite a name for itself in the WOM and entertainment world.

Someone has posted a complete summary of the launch of the record and how NIN went about it (with Entertainment42's help). A great read about a terrific campaign (although Reznor would be pissed if he knew I was calling it a "campaign").

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Zero_%28album%29

What's Next Is Being Honest With Your Target

Another phony blog. Another idiotic decision.

Sony Confesses To Creating 'Flog,' Shutters Comments

http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.san&s=52541&Nid=25844&p=289720

I'm often amazed when I read about large, publicly traded companies that are caught cooking the books. I'm amazed at the pure arrogance of their thinking that they can get away with misleading the public, the government, and their shareholders.

The same holds true for the marketing practices of a company. Why would any consumer want to have a relationship (or buy the products of) with a brand that lies to them? I wouldn't.

It's real simple. When starting a blog or any other initiative, just tell the truth. And if that's not straightforward enough for you, here is the Word Of Mouth Associations Code Of Ethics page. Read it.

http://www.womma.org/codeofethics.htm

The Power Of Viral

Here's a great viral video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNF_P281Uu4) of Matt Harding dancing a jig at famous spots throughout the globe.

Found it at http://threeminds.organic.com/.

It's interesting that Stride Gum sponsored the trip, and that Stride Gum had the guts to allow consumers to figure out the connection to the vide.

But's what's more impressive are the number of views on YouTube:

Views: 941566

Comments: 5496

Almost one million views. Phew. That's the power of viral.