The BIG Kahuna

Readers of my blog know (in my humble opinion)?I’ve been critical of word of mouth marketing companies as I think most of them miss the boat on branding. I see lots of gimmicks and smoke and mirrors. Then I came across this post:

Keller Fay/OMD Study Finds Offline Word of Mouth More Positive and Credible than Online Buzz

Here’s a quote:

On average, there are 3.5 billion word of mouth conversations that occur daily in the U.S. Offline WOM accounts for 92% of conversations (75% face to face; 17% by phone), and email, IM/text messaging and chatroom/blogs account for 7%.

What does this research tell us? I perceive it as word of mouth marketing?is directly tied to and dependent on how one feels about a brand. The more positive you feel about a brand the more one talks. And according to this research people are talking offline.

How do you get people to feel a certain way? Well a remarkable product or service is a good start. And of course proper positioning and brand identity development are crucial. You need to differentiate your company or product and focus. Apple products are not for everyone for a reason. They do a great job of excluding people and selling into their core target market. I am not an Apple brand ambassador. I own an old iPod, that’s it. But my graphic/web designers all use Mac’s and would NEVER switch to a PC, ever. they are part of the Apple cult.

So if you’re considering word of mouth marketing remember one thing. It’s part of branding, treat it as such.

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This entry was posted on Friday, September 5th, 2008 at 8:19 am and is filed under Branding Champions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.