Word Of Mouth Mumbo Jumbo
Here is the problem with word of mouth experts or word of mouth marketing companies. In my opinion they have little to absolutely no knowledge of branding. Here’s a great example from self proclaimed word of mouth marketing guru?Andy Sernovitz, he writes:
A great word of mouth topic has to be interesting, fun, and easy to repeat.? It doesn’t have to be about your product or product features.
In fact, trying to turn your brand message into a word of mouth viral phenomenon will almost always fail–because real people don’t repeat brand messages.
What people like Andy don’t understand (in my humble opinion)?is that a company should be true to it’s brand identity first and foremost. For instance, Nike stayed true to it’s brand identity of performance?when it developed the tagline “Just Do It”, one of if not the most memorable taglines in the history of business. And I’m pretty sure that was quite a word of mouth phenomenon, dare I say it went “viral” as well.
The point is using “fun, gimmicky” efforts to try and spread word of mouth is a big waste of time and money. Hell, Andy will have you selling 10lb candy bars if you listen to him.
Word of mouth marketing just like any other TACTIC should always be on brand and leverage your brand identity. Someone dressed in a gorilla suit passing out lollipops ain’t gonna get er dun.
But just to visually show you the difference between?gimmicky word of mouth and leveraging your brand I give you two examples. Example one is from Andy Sernovitz. Example two is from me, the BIG Kahuna.
Andy Sernovitz demonstrating “A great word of mouth topic has to be interesting, fun, and easy to repeat.? It doesn’t have to be about your product or product features.”
The BIG Kahuna demonstrating the power of delivering on a brand identity:
Vote, which one do you like?
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November 11th, 2008 at 2:32 am
Man do you need to find a new record to play! I get that WOM is a tactic and that i need to work with my brand identity and that you don’t like Andy Sernovitz that much. I don’t agree with everything you write but I quite enjoy reading this blog and getting your fresh perspective on things… but this WOM thing is getting tired…
Teach me about what you do instead of ripping others work down! Take care dude
Thomas
PS Yes Andy’s video sucks and your casevideo is cool
November 11th, 2008 at 10:40 am
thanks for the constructive critisim. I’ve written like 400 posts & maybe 10 are on Andy. it ain’t easy writing as much as I do. email some topics & i’ll work them in. I’m not a “planned” writer. when something fires me up I write.
November 12th, 2008 at 4:33 pm
I want to learn more about how to find the Brand Identity – how do you do it? How do you engage the employees and get everyone behind a new brand… what kind of workshops do you do?
I feel you on the it ain’t easy part and i totally respect that and kudos for being placed as one of the highest rated brand blogs – keep up the good work!
Later
Thomas