Later this month, hundreds of corporate and ad agency executives will come together for what will likely be the first conference devoted to word-of-mouth marketing.
That a conference is being held on such a topic -- not to mention that there are now multiple trade associations for word-of-mouth marketing and its cousin, viral advertising -- is testament to the rapid growth and success of these forms of advertising, which until recently were the province of a very few maverick practitioners.
"Every company we've spoken to already has somebody working on this," said Andy Sernovitz, CEO of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association, or WOMMA. "It's called different things -- viral, buzz, customer satisfaction. But in the four months since we started, we've got 60 corporate members, and 3,000 people on our mailing list."
Call it what you like, marketers of all kinds have been increasingly looking for ways to take advantage of the speed at which information moves today and the power that can come from people passing on their impressions, recommendations or referrals of products or services.
One of the chief reasons a hotshot like Guy Kawasaki -- who created the concept of product evangelists -- and executives from companies like Tribe Networks, Target, the Lego Group, Edelman and others are planning to attend the Word of Mouth Marketing Summit is to learn how to capitalize on the new techniques that everyone is talking about.
For example, most net junkies who saw Subservient Chicken last year probably, in spite of themselves, passed along the Burger King-sponsored gimmick, in which a person in a bad chicken costume performed nearly any (family-appropriate) command. It amassed tens of millions of hits.
Another site, freeiPods.com, got lots of attention for promising free iPods to users who signed up, agreed to receive marketing and were willing to get friends involved.
And Richard Branson made headlines by appearing to jump naked into New York's Times Square to promote his company's new cell-phone service.
But regardless of how much attention these types of efforts got, industry experts caution that not all attention is created equal. And they want to educate their peers about how to maximize positive buzz and eliminate the negative.
Sernovitz said WOMMA was formed with three goals in mind: to propagate ethical guidelines for word-of-mouth marketers, to establish industry measurements and to teach best practices so marketers can learn how to do it.
"You don't hide the fact that you're working for something," said Sernovitz, referring to WOMMA's ethical guidelines and the fact that many marketers are tempted to deceive would-be marketing targets. "You don't ask people to say things they don't believe ... (and) you never impersonate anyone, so marketers can't pretend to impersonate a teenager in a chat room."
To Dave Balter, CEO of BzzAgent, a leading industry firm, honesty is central to the survival of word-of-mouth marketing and viral advertising.
"When you're deceived by another consumer, when it's through someone who's been paid or planted, it's upsetting," Balter said. "You think you're talking to a friend, and then it turns out that they got $20 to shill to you. In the end, it will destroy the medium."
But done right, industry insiders say, these forms of advertising can pay off in a huge way.
Asa Bailey, who runs the U.K.-based Viral Advertising Association, said a smart viral-advertising campaign, such as Subservient Chicken, can net 10 times the exposure of a traditional campaign. But a good deal of thought has to go into it.
"It has to have some kind of wow factor," Bailey cautioned. "A viral ad has to have a connection to the consumer. It has to make you laugh, make you cry, has to make you think (or) it has to say something. It's not so much about just banging on the product."
The point? Bailey said the goal is for consumers to be so engaged by a message that they pass it on.
"They will reward you," he said, "by wanting to give that experience to someone else."
Balter explained that making a good impression is vital.
He said his company's research found that a quarter of all communications between people involved some discussion of a product or service. And that, he said, demonstrates the power of word of mouth.
"You're not trying to create anything," he said. "It's already there.... Word of mouth is that pure. They're not doing anything else besides talking about a product."
