Word-of-Mouth communications (MC, unit 1)

Why use WoM?
Some campaigns seek WoM communication as it provides higher levels of credibility (and can be relatively free of media and production costs)

In fashion again?
The rise of the internet has given WoM new impetus. The mass of communities exchanging opinions all the time on myspace, bebo and facebook provide huge opportunities for marketers.

Terminology
WoM marketing can also be known as 'buzz marketing' or 'viral'. Whilst they're both WoM techniques, Buzz suggests that the extent that discussion of a subject or brand is compelling and exciting, viral is self-propagating and tends to refer to online marketing techniques that seek to exploit pre-existing social networks.
There's a thin line between some WoM campaigns and 'stealth marketing', any practice designed to deceive people about the involvement of marketers in a communication (see football example below).

Ethics

Besides the ethics codes of Womma or the Viral and Buzz Marketing Association (neither of which it is compulsory to join), the buzz marketing industry in Britain is almost totally unregulated. Stealth marketing, when it occurs, appears to be in breach of several articles of the Committee of Advertising Practice Code, such as 6.1: "Marketers should not exploit the credulity, lack of knowledge or inexperience of consumers"; or 22.1: "Marketers . . . should ensure that marketing communications are designed and presented in such a way that it is clear they are marketing communications." But it remains rather hazy whether the Advertising Standards Authority or the Office of Fair Trading actually cover these practices.

(Leo Benedict, Guardian, 2007)

How to stimulate WoM?
(Dichter 1966) a) Product interest - pleasurable or unfavourable b) Message interest - outstanding or controversial c) Self-interest - status and prestige d) Other interest - other's feelings

Examples:

• Tremor is a marketing service - powered by Procter & Gamble - that develops teen word-of-mouth marketing programs. It recruits teens to help develop exciting and relevant product ideas and marketing programs that teens want to talk about.
• Benedict refers to a premiership football club who increased subscriptions to their text messaging service by hiring actors to visit bars and clubs around the ground, saying that one of their mates had been sacked from work because he kept on getting these text messages and talking to everyone about it, and his boss had had enough and given him the boot. So they were going round with this petition trying to get his job back 'They'd have a mobile phone in their pocket, and they'd show them how it worked. 'What's the harm in that?' they'd say. And they could have these conversations with lots of people - that was the beauty of it. Two people could spend maybe 20 minutes or half an hour in each pub, working the whole pub. We did it at two home games and reckon we got about 4,000 people on the petition in total.' (Sneeze Marketing Agency)

To read:
Tom Himpe, a senior strategist at Naked Communications and author of 'Advertising Is Dead, Long Live Advertising!'