August 22, 2007
Brands Recruit Word-of-Mouth Ambassadors
By Tom Ryan
While word-of-mouth is always a great way to build brand exposure, some are questioning their value if the recommendations are driven by free gifts.
In a new word-of-mouth marketing strategy, companies enlist consumers they know like their products, and instead of money the agents receive free gifts. The hope, according to the Los Angeles Times, is that the free gifts provide enough incentive to get the agents to talk up the brands to families, friends, and anyone else they run into in the course of the day.
In most cases, participants are screened for their word-of-mouth abilities and even supplied with marketing tips.
Under Staple’s Speak Easy program, for instance, questionnaires are sent to active members of its frequent shopper program asking if they would like to receive free products and if they regularly tell family and friends about them. Participants receive a free bundle of products every four weeks that includes a few bulleted talking points to use when casually plugging the products. For instance, a Rollerball pen recently came with the phrases “specially formulated pigmented ink which helps prevent against check fraud” and “nice, smooth write.”
At Procter & Gamble, 725,000 unpaid “connectors” receive coupons for products in the mail to share with friends, or sometimes the product itself. P&G said its connectors, selected through a rigorous screening process, typically speak to about 25 people a day, rather than the five or six the average person converses with.
P&G’s word-of-mouth marketing particularly looks for instances of “disruptive equilibrium,” or when something out of the ordinary happens to encourage consumers to talk to one another. For example, Dawn Direct Foam was sent only to connector moms along with literature touting its ability to get kids to help with the dishes.
“A conversation would go, ‘My darn children aren’t doing their chores,’” Steve Knox, chief executive of Procter & Gamble’s word-of-mouth division, called Tremor, told the Los Angeles Times, and then the connector mom would reply that Dawn Direct Foam made her kids volunteer for housework. The campaign led to a 50 percent increase in the product’s sales, and helped bonding with participants too.
“Moms talk to each other if they believe they have a piece of information that is helping their friend,” Mr. Knox said.
The free gifts may appear to skirt a ruling by the Federal Trade Commission in December that declared it deceptive to employ people as marketers without disclosing the relationship to consumers. The ruling came after a rash of paid “influencers” were infiltrating blog sites attempting to sway opinions on brands. A P&G spokesman said part of the reason they don’t require connectors to reveal their affiliation is because they’re free to say positive or negative things about the products.
Kelly O’Keefe, a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University’s Adcenter, said enlisting people who were genuinely excited about products was an improvement over previous word-of-mouth tactics that were just monetary transactions. Then, companies would do things like pay people to sit at a bar, order a drink, and tell others how great it was.
“It’s human nature to talk about things that excite us,” he said.
But some consumer advocates say full disclosure should be required even in gift-giving cases.
“We worry about the insertion of a marketing theme into interpersonal relations,” Robert Weissman, managing director at Commercial Alert, told the Los Angeles Times. “Don’t transform everyday interactions into veiled commercial messages.”
Discussion Questions: What do you think of the marketing potential of word-of-mouth campaigns where the “influencer” receives free gifts? Do you see any ethical issues around the practice?
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Discussion Questions
Poll
Viral marketing has emerged as a powerful tactic for the 21st century. The internet has been the primary source. The use of social networks to spread marketing messages is not new. Marketers have long used clubs, interest groups, the PTA, the Girl Scouts, etc. to promote or sell products.
The key issue is to avoid the false flag of turning friends and neighbors into paid advertisers. Otherwise, it won’t be long before your neighbor has commercial signs on their car and in their yard.
Word-of-mouth can be a very powerful tool for CPG companies and private label products, as well as retailers. Just look at Trader Joe’s. The quintessential word-of-mouth marketer.
The cost of free samples for low-price items is negligible compared to the potential positive publicity. Many brands give away millions of free samples anyway.
Pity the poll question didn’t pick up on the ethical issues and viewpoints mentioned. Maybe the freebies mean that technically connectors are not being paid but once people who are being told about the wonders of a product realise that their so-called friends have been given samples that they haven’t, how long do you think it will take until they stop believing in their friends’ credibility and sincerity? This may work for a time but sooner or later it is going to backfire on the manufacturers who think they’re being clever.
Look at the trajectory of Zappos. Although there is some marketing spend, a major component of their strategy is on repeat business and word of mouth from delighted customers.
Distributied computing makes this work. The power of broadcasting is moving to smaller units. There were always Word-of-Mouth Ambassadors but it used to be much harder for companies to determine who they were and, just as importantly, if they had changed their minds.
It’s an old principle. Influencers used to be in the media and they got perks for a proper mention. One could check by reviewing recordings of the programs. It has just moved down a notch (as well as the value of perks).
It gets multiplied because people start to feel that if they become clever product boosters, even without being paid, they might get discovered.
People are smart though and as there are more of them, these influencers will start to be systematically spotted and ostracized.
Let’s reduce the emphasis on the brand loyalist who speaks of her/his brand, or brands to people for some nominal pay. There is nothing wrong with ‘word of mouth’ advertising, or such a brand endorsement tool. No CPG entity is going to jeopardize its brand equity and loyal shopper base by utilizing such a marketing tool, without a proper screening process of these people!
The person who will be recruited is: 1) a brand loyalist; and 2) an individual that knows the brand and its products’ benefits–because she/he uses it, or them.
It is an excellent means to bring about an endorsement of the brand.
Such ‘word of mouth’ programs have propelled many brands like Ben & Jerry’s, Samuel Adams beer, and other beverages. When the very first grocery store demonstrations surfaced, my brand groups insisted on the demonstrator being a loyal user. But, times have changed, except for this new “word of mouth” CPG event. Hmmmmmmmmm
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Viral marketing has emerged as a powerful tactic for the 21st century. The internet has been the primary source. The use of social networks to spread marketing messages is not new. Marketers have long used clubs, interest groups, the PTA, the Girl Scouts, etc. to promote or sell products.
The key issue is to avoid the false flag of turning friends and neighbors into paid advertisers. Otherwise, it won’t be long before your neighbor has commercial signs on their car and in their yard.
Word-of-mouth can be a very powerful tool for CPG companies and private label products, as well as retailers. Just look at Trader Joe’s. The quintessential word-of-mouth marketer.
The cost of free samples for low-price items is negligible compared to the potential positive publicity. Many brands give away millions of free samples anyway.
Pity the poll question didn’t pick up on the ethical issues and viewpoints mentioned. Maybe the freebies mean that technically connectors are not being paid but once people who are being told about the wonders of a product realise that their so-called friends have been given samples that they haven’t, how long do you think it will take until they stop believing in their friends’ credibility and sincerity? This may work for a time but sooner or later it is going to backfire on the manufacturers who think they’re being clever.
Look at the trajectory of Zappos. Although there is some marketing spend, a major component of their strategy is on repeat business and word of mouth from delighted customers.
Distributied computing makes this work. The power of broadcasting is moving to smaller units. There were always Word-of-Mouth Ambassadors but it used to be much harder for companies to determine who they were and, just as importantly, if they had changed their minds.
It’s an old principle. Influencers used to be in the media and they got perks for a proper mention. One could check by reviewing recordings of the programs. It has just moved down a notch (as well as the value of perks).
It gets multiplied because people start to feel that if they become clever product boosters, even without being paid, they might get discovered.
People are smart though and as there are more of them, these influencers will start to be systematically spotted and ostracized.
Let’s reduce the emphasis on the brand loyalist who speaks of her/his brand, or brands to people for some nominal pay. There is nothing wrong with ‘word of mouth’ advertising, or such a brand endorsement tool. No CPG entity is going to jeopardize its brand equity and loyal shopper base by utilizing such a marketing tool, without a proper screening process of these people!
The person who will be recruited is: 1) a brand loyalist; and 2) an individual that knows the brand and its products’ benefits–because she/he uses it, or them.
It is an excellent means to bring about an endorsement of the brand.
Such ‘word of mouth’ programs have propelled many brands like Ben & Jerry’s, Samuel Adams beer, and other beverages. When the very first grocery store demonstrations surfaced, my brand groups insisted on the demonstrator being a loyal user. But, times have changed, except for this new “word of mouth” CPG event. Hmmmmmmmmm