Two Cents from an Agency Exec
Believe it or not, I actually am friendly with someone who does WOM marketing, and this person read SPSII and sent me some interesting feedback. To protect this individual’s identity, I’ll call my industry buddy “Agency Exec” or AE.
AE says, "I have 2 fake accounts on BzzAgent, Tremor and [a colleague] has 2 on Tremor and VocalPoint. there's absolutely no verification that competitors, old men, etc, aren't duping their ‘sophisticated’ forms to sign up."
Yep, AE, I’ve got a BzzAgent account, too. And no, I don’t actually engage in their campaigns; I have it for research purposes. I’m well aware that some marketers are skeptical of the validity of WOM agency models like these that seed products to people who may not be who they claim to be. I guess what it comes down to is that most marketers are still in the experimentation stage when it comes to using these types of services. If they get the return on investment they’re hoping for, I suppose they’ll continue putting money into WOM.
Another comment AE made:
There’s no doubt that WOM is one of the big over-hyped trends in marketing these days. But recent trends like viral, WOM, the use of Consumer Generated Media (CGM) and other related marketing tactics seem to reflect a broader shift away from top-down advertising towards involving the consumer in actually participating in the brand promotion. When MySpace and YouTube get trumped by some other latest and greatest, chances are that same general idea will be there.
AE says, "I have 2 fake accounts on BzzAgent, Tremor and [a colleague] has 2 on Tremor and VocalPoint. there's absolutely no verification that competitors, old men, etc, aren't duping their ‘sophisticated’ forms to sign up."
Yep, AE, I’ve got a BzzAgent account, too. And no, I don’t actually engage in their campaigns; I have it for research purposes. I’m well aware that some marketers are skeptical of the validity of WOM agency models like these that seed products to people who may not be who they claim to be. I guess what it comes down to is that most marketers are still in the experimentation stage when it comes to using these types of services. If they get the return on investment they’re hoping for, I suppose they’ll continue putting money into WOM.
Another comment AE made:
word of mouth marketing isn't evil. consumer generated content/media isn't a bad thing. there are two words that summarize the crux of this whole problem with companies trying to misguidedly seize it: subservient chicken.
EVERY company we dealt with for at LEAST a year after it came out wanted to make the next Burger King subservient chicken website. bad fit or not, they wanted ideas on ‘viral’. hell, we still get that thrown into RFPs. right now it's YouTube, last month it was MySpace. they're all sheep marketers, and very few actually ‘get it’."
There’s no doubt that WOM is one of the big over-hyped trends in marketing these days. But recent trends like viral, WOM, the use of Consumer Generated Media (CGM) and other related marketing tactics seem to reflect a broader shift away from top-down advertising towards involving the consumer in actually participating in the brand promotion. When MySpace and YouTube get trumped by some other latest and greatest, chances are that same general idea will be there.
posted by Kate Kaye at 11:42 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home