The BIG Kahuna

Found this great post over at the Consumerist:

My bets on American Airlines, they suck at everything.

Click on the photo to enlarge.

Lots of companies saying they do Word of Mouth Marketing (WOMM)?nowadays. And they’re all liars. To you and themselves.

When you put together a strategy and tactic to get people talking about a company or its?product it’s not, repeat not real word of mouth marketing. You see true, natural word of mouth marketing happens on its own. It happens out of love for a product or company. It happens because something is truly remarkable.

Every single company saying they do WOMM is really just doing Marketing. Period. Some set up programs that pay bloggers to write about their clients. Some give away free stuff and ask for a report on conversations. But you see, all of it is influenced by motives. If I’m paid to blog can I be truly honest or do I want to keep my paying gig? It’s a thin line.

Here’s an article on the subject

I say to all WOMM companies it’s time to fess up and be honest. The things you do aren’t natural and therefore can’t be called WOMM. Just start calling your company a Marketing firm or Buzz agency. But that would put you in a big competitive category wouldn’t it?

Here are two examples;

BuzzAgent calls themselves a WOMM company. You can?sign up with them on their website to receive “free” stuff from their clients (the advertisers). So I did.? I signed up for the Hornitos Tequila campaign, and got my free kit. Then I’m supposed to go to the BuzzAgent website and report how many “conversations” I had about Hornitios. You know how many I had? ZERO. But I reported?many conversations. Surely they were going to follow-up with me (at least that was the test). Nothing ever happened. BuzzAgent took all my fake conversations and reported those to their client. Now multiply that by how many people participated and what do you have? A big pile of horse shit!

How does BuzzAgent report this bogus data? How do they confirm conversations actually took place? Is there some mysterious honesty statistic that they base their strategy on? Like 88% of people won’t make up bull shit because it’s BuzzAgent?

Bogus all of it.

This is an example of what I consider bad WOMM because you can’t possibly measure it. Not unless you’re willing to give everyone a lie detector test. It’s a land of candy canes and snow flakes.

My next example is Brains on Fire. Another WOMM company. They set up a program for a company called Fiskars called the Fiskateers. This is where several bloggers are PAID to talk about their love for Fiskars. The entire strategy and tactics were created by Brains on Fire. Here’s my take on it;

This is what I consider a good example of WOMM. The program is not real, honest word of mouth obviously because it didn’t ever happen on its own by true brand ambassadors. Brains on Fire thunk it up and executed it. But it prompted others to join the Fiskateer group which ultimately resulted in word of mouth. I call this a “WOMM Nudge”. Nudging is cool especially if you’re honest about it.

But is Brains on Fire a WOMM company? Hell no. They’re a marketing company.

There is no such thing as a Word of Mouth Marketing company. It’s impossible because everything they do is not natural. It’s no different than good traditional advertising is it? You get people talking about a company in hopes of making them customers. Once you interfere (sort of like the Prime Directive on Star Trek – yes I’m a geek) you change things. Things that make it not a natural word of mouth occurrence.

Which is why all WOMM companies are liars.

So Apple screwed up big time huh? You think it’s going to stop people that love Apple from buying the next generation iPhone in 2 years? You know, the one that will probably cost $99.99? Watch this very funny video, then see my suggestions for Apple below.

I love the Apple branding because they’ve been genius. I buy some Apple products but am not a brand ambassador for them. I think owning an Apple iPhone is foolish only because you are stuck with one phone provider…AT & T (yikes). That phone may be the best thing since sliced bread but AT & T, well….they ain’t. At least with another phone you can switch cell providers if they suck, right?

Here’s what I would have done differently with the new iPhone branding?release:

1. Ah, er…How about selling these on the Internet first? I mean aren’t Apple’s core audience online? Don’t they live online? Gamers, graphic artist, students, on and on. Apple could have made a real game of this by hiding Easter Eggs or even making an online scavenger hunt. Then when you complete the task or find whatever it is you’re looking for you get a secret “online code” that can only be used once. How fun and word of mouth spreading would that have been?

2. Number the iPhones like works of art. The first 10,000 are collector editions. Wow, that would have been very cool. And it would have made waiting in those ridiculous long lines worth while for the lucky 10,000. Think of the sales on ebay?

3. Give away a secret prize, shhh-don’t tell anyone. Go back to my suggestion #1, for those that complete the task not only do you get the special “Online Code” but you also get 100 free minutes with the phone when they place the order. Same thing for the people waiting in line. But don’t tell anyone about it. Just give it to all online purchases and day 1 in store purchases. Then let all those people brag about their 100 free minutes to all the other people (like me) who think waiting in line is for knuckleheads.

4. If the iPhone already doesn’t have a blog create one. Have a contest (by developing an iPhone YouTube video). The top 3 videos get to be the exclusive bloggers for the iPhone. Those 3 can write about whatever they want (iPhone related)?knowing that millions will be reading the blog. Wow, that would be cool huh?

But instead Apple just sold their stuff to their minions. Stuff that disappointed because they couldn’t get it working the day they bought it. Stuff that every blogger in the world posted about…negatively. Stuff that people like me laugh at because I don’t wait in foolish lines to buy a product that I could be the day after with no lines.

Apple, get back to your branding?genius. No brand is above pissing off their customers so much that they won’t switch from you.

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Stand out. Be different. Don’t Blend In.

Practice a little of this in your business the next time you want to be everything to everyone.?

I had a 12:30 doctors appointment today. They called yesterday to “remind” me of said appointment. Of course they do that for their own self serving reasons don’t they?

I arrive at my appointment at 12:20 and check in. Nice to see you the woman says. Cool, I sit down and know I’m in for a wait, well, because doctors don’t get it do they?

Why do they make us wait? And then wait more when we finally get to the room? It’s almost like heaven when we reach the room because we know our time is coming soon.

While I was waiting (now for 30 minutes) the guy next to me started cursing to himself. Got up, went to the counter and left. I asked the woman next to me how long she had been waiting. She said an hour and a half.

So I went up to the counter and asked one simple question. Is the doctor running an hour and a half behind? She replied yes. I then asked why I hadn’t been notified prior to my arrival? She said it was too hard to tell how much longer he’d be. Wow, really?

Do doctors just think their customers time is just so meangingless that we can sit and wait 90 minutes prior to even beeing seen?

Here’s what doctors should do:

1. Call or even better text people the day of their visit. They know exactly how far the doctor is behind. For god’s sakes this is so damn easy. Here’s what they could have texted me:

Doctor 90 mintes behind, come at 2pm or call to reschedule. Or for younger folks “doc l8t cya 2 or cl 2 redo”

How long would that take?

They will say they are just too busy to do so. I say hogwash! Lame excuse. Start caring about your patients or lose them to someone that will.

Who’s going to be the brilliant doctor to start this up?

Note: This added today 8-1-08

But wait, the story gets better. Dr. Aubrey Lieberman actually billed my insurance company Blue Cross for a “nurse visit”. Then billed me my co-pay of $15. In my humble opinion this borders on if not all out fraud.

This is one doctor I would avoid like the plague!

Post?your ideas on blogging, word of mouth marketing, marketing, Social media, advertising, and or?branding by entering a comment below. I’m going to be posting a regular link? with these ideas. It’s fun and it will be a great way to see what other people are thinking.

By doing so you will get 1200 people a day checking you and your company out. These are decision making types.

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Furthermore it will be a live, ever changing thing that you yourself could?use to get some great marketing ideas from. ?

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I know you’re busy, but interaction is a great way to promote your company and its products.

Don’t be shy, if enough people participate we could eventually have something worth talking about. And feel free to put in a link to your site for full credit!

I read a post over at Andy Sernovitz’s blog today about how High Point University has hired a Director of?Word of Mouth . Andy says first up:

valet parking, outdoor music, ice cream trucks, hot tubs, and free snacks.

Freshman enrollment has tripled.

What really pains me about these word of mouth guys is that Andy thinks this is good news. Freshman enrollment has tripled alright, for kids that want to hot tub and eat ice cream. And if that’s your target market then kudos, you’ve found them.

What’s High Point’s brand identity? How does this ridiculous word of mouth campaign fit into it? What kinds of potential students will they attract as a result of this? The kind that you as an employer want to hire?

Keep your hot tubs and ice cream. Build your brand identity, whatever the heck that may be. And when you want to do word of mouth marketing make sure that it directly ties into your brand identity or your wasting your money, period!

If they really want to increase enrollment I’d give away Kegs every Saturday night.

Sometimes a company just needs a new name:

Barf Soap, seriously. If you’re selling to English speaking consumers at least consider the name of your product because this name makes me want to ________________!

Dear Mr. Vanilla,

We know you’re afraid to make your business stand out. Being different and unique is scary. Standing for something to someone seems limiting to you, we know.

If you want to be different let us know.

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If you want to blend in and try and be everything to everyone just unsubscribe to this RSS feed or delete us from your favorites. We don’t want to talk to you anyway.

Warmest Christmas wishes,

BIG Kahuna

Voting is a right and a privilege. But why isn’t it mandatory? Millions of Americans don’t vote, some have never voted. Why?

In Massachusetts it’s now illegal to not have health care coverage. Why can’t they make not?voting illegal?? Here’s what I would propose.

Voting (Presidential Election)?is mandatory. More places to vote would be set up. You can choose not to vote for any one candidate but you must go and vote. So on each ballot there would be the candidate’s running and an option for undecided or no vote.

As Americans it’s our duty to vote. We owe it to all those who have given their lives for us to be able to vote.

What do you think? Should we be required (somehow)?to vote?

Has anyone ever watched a complete WNBA game? Are you asking yourself what WNBA stands for? How has this league stayed in existence? Would anyone care if there were no WNBA?

Not me. My answers are no, no, beats me, absolutely not! Is it just so politically correct that we have to have the WNBA?

C’mon fans of the WNBA, now is?the time to speak up.

I’m official folks. My hard work of building up my blog readership and my proven Guruness has finally paid off:

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By the way, this is the correct way to make a “viral” video.

We’re all stretched for time but if you can’t find time to?blog about your business at least once a week then I say you lack one thing…passion. Get passionate about your business or find a new business.