UCT Unilever Institute of Strategic Marketing

UCT Unilever Institute of Strategic Marketing: "The UCT Unilever Institute for Strategic Marketing will be introducing the results of their latest groundbreaking research project, the Wildfire Index, during a series of seminars in Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town early in May.

A world first, the Wildfire Index is the product of an extensive independent research study conducted Research Surveys. Heralded as a breakthrough new marketing tool, the Index has been created specifically for the South African market and provides marketers with a practical tool for identifying and communicating with their brand ambassadors or 'igniters'. For the first time companies will also be able to measure the talk value of their brands.

Recognising the shift away from conventional marketing - and the shift from consumer to prosumer - the researchers on this cutting-edge project examined the power of 'word of mouth' and its impact on brands."

What if brand websites were the best drivers and proofs of Engagement?

What if brand websites were the best drivers and proofs of Engagement?: "We really applaude the leading initiative of the Advertising Research Foundation in its efforts to move the advertising industry to finally pay better attention to “consumer empowerment”, and the need to better value media and marketing in their abilities not only to distribute “contacts” but also, and more importantly, to engage consumers. "

Millward Brown starts corporate blog

Millward Brown starts corporate blog: "The real reason for setting up this blog comes back to a basic principle of marketing communication: choose the communication channel most relevant to your objective and your target audience. For us the objective is to share our point of view on topics relevant to our clients. We want to engage with the thought leaders in the marketing world, learn from them and, hopefully, contribute some new and different thoughts to the debate."

Ads to Augment Word of Mouth on Lip Balm“Iconic” Carmex to launch new flavors, lines; will advertise

Ads to Augment Word of Mouth on Lip Balm: “Iconic” Carmex to launch new flavors, lines; will advertise: "The balm's strong brand heritage and recommendations from doctors have helped it stay strong, said Anna Wang, a consultant with Kline & Co. Pharmacists have voted Carmex their No. 1 recommended lip remedy for the past eight years in trade magazine Pharmacy Times. 'What's interesting about them is they don't really do much advertising. They rely more on word of mouth,' Wang said."

Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog: Seven rules for corporate blogging

Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog: Seven rules for corporate blogging: "Microsoft's Robert Scoble, who cowrote a book on corporate blogging called Naked Conversations, now seems intent on turning himself into a case study for why companies shouldn't blog."

Email is dead, long live conversations

Email is dead, long live conversations: "The message is clear -- engage me in a conversation, don't just yell at me. There, I've had my rant, now I'm going back to reading Naked Conversations."

You Need Answers? - Yahoo! Buzz Log

You Need Answers? - Yahoo! Buzz Log: "Ah, the quest for knowledge. It causes scientists to slog through the jungle and peer at petri dishes. It leads philosophers and theologians to ponder serious questions, like 'what is the meaning of life.' It's why we put up with Alex Trebek. But when people really want to get answers to life's pesky questions, they turn to the Search box. "

Interestingly, at number three of the "What is...?" charts is: "What is a blog?", suggesting quite a few people don't know what they are...but are keen to find out.

How to Convince Your Boss to Launch a Word-of-Mouth Marketing Campaign: 4 Steps

How to Convince Your Boss to Launch a Word-of-Mouth Marketing Campaign: 4 Steps: "If you're working for a Fortune 1000, you may find your biggest word-of-mouth marketing challenge is building consensus that word-of-mouth is worth doing at all. Your ideas could be shot down by internal politics and naysayers. "

Bazaarvoice Integrates ''The Ultimate Question(TM)'' Into Its Customer Ratings & Reviews Solution: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance

Bazaarvoice Integrates ''The Ultimate Question(TM)'' Into Its Customer Ratings & Reviews Solution: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance: "Bazaarvoice, an innovator in helping brands use online word of mouth to build their businesses, today introduced Net Promoter, a new feature designed to extend the strategic impact of on-site ratings and reviews for customer-centric organizations. Immediately available free of charge to clients, Net Promoter allows Bazaarvoice clients to easily ask every reviewer The Ultimate Question(TM): 'Would you recommend this company to a friend?' Responses are collected and analyzed by Bazaarvoice alongside review data, giving brands precise insight into the satisfaction levels of their most influential online customers."

RED HERRING | Marketing’s Latest Buzz

RED HERRING Marketing’s Latest Buzz: "Just as the world’s governments have slowly learned to turn their electronic ears toward Internet chatter in hopes of detecting early signs of a conspiracy, companies are listening to the growing online din of consumers offering their views on everything from trans-fat to Trans-Ams. In marketing lingo, it’s known as consumer-generated media (CGM)."

Bush Use Blogs Spread the Good Word

Bush Use Blogs Spread the Good Word: "According to Wizbang President Bush during an audience Q&A encouraged supporters of the war to use blogs and word of mouth to spread good news about Iraq... "

Tucson Weekly : Music : Blog Break

Tucson Weekly : Music : Blog Break: "The story it turned into is one about how word of mouth, file sharing and Internet blogs actually can do the work of a record label, street team and publicist combined. "

Are we measuring the wrong one number?

Are we measuring the wrong one number?: "Essentially, my issue with Reichheld and Marsden et al is that they seem to argue that advocacy is an end in itself. To my mind, person-to-person recommendations are a beneficial side-effect of a positive relationship between a brand and its consumers. It's fantastic when people spontaneously endorse brands they love, but most of the time, we should be focussing on long-term brand building that fosters real engagement (mutual value), and see the advocacy as a secondary benefit."

Negative Word of Mouth More Powerful

Negative Word of Mouth More Powerful: "Are you still nonchalent when it comes to tracking negative consumer-generated media?

Do you think it doesn't effect your company? A new study will likely change your mind.

According to the Customer Dissatisfaction Study, released today, more than 50% of American shoppers say a negative shopping experience of a friend or co-worker will prevent them from setting foot in a store altogether. "

MediaGuardian.co.uk | New media | Blogging was the perfect fit for me

MediaGuardian.co.uk New media Blogging was the perfect fit for me: "with an experienced blogger to guide me, I started my blog, EnglishCut.com. I just wrote about what I knew. I wrote about tailoring, I wrote about Savile Row, I wrote about my competition and my friends in the business. I just told the truth.

Well, to make a long story short, it worked. Within a couple of months between one and 2,000 people were reading it a day. And business became very brisk, I am delighted to report."

Can Marketers Control CGM? Should They?

Can Marketers Control CGM? Should They?: "Probably not, but there's clear evidence in the momentous march to so-called engagement -- one of the top themes at this week's packed Advertising Research Foundation (ARF) conference -- that marketers are at least trying to open up the conversation."

Blogging Is the New Viral Marketing

Blogging Is the New Viral Marketing: "“Link baiting” is a rather inelegant term for publishing content on a blog that is so newsworthy, interesting, funny, or shocking that other bloggers and publishers link to it en masse, causing that particular blog post to spread virally all over the Internet. Small businesses and entrepreneurs have figured out that creating this type of content is more valuable than advertising. And it’s free."

Craigslist, the newspaper 'killer', sets its sights on UK

Craigslist, the newspaper 'killer', sets its sights on UK: "Newspaper proprietors and employees should get nervous. Craigslist, the classified advertising website known as the 'killer' of newspapers in the US, predicted yesterday it will see exponential growth in the UK...Craigslist does not advertise its services as it has no marketing budget and instead relies on word of mouth"

Micro Persuasion: Chevy Open Sources Its Ad

Micro Persuasion: Chevy Open Sources Its Ad: "Adrants reports that Chevy has teamed with The Apprentice to launch a consumer-generated advertising contest for the 2007 Chevy Tahoe. It was heavily featured in the show. Chevy set up a site where consumers can click and drag commercial components together to create an ad. "

Now the little guy is the true pit bull of journalism

Now the little guy is the true pit bull of journalism: (via http://myownpublicworld.blogspot.com/) "...blogs offer real people an equal footing in terms of creating media in a way that should keep the mainstream media (and others) honest, but I'm not sure I see that there are any real technological advantages that the traditional media owners can't exploit to improve what they offer to readers. Go on ... disagree with me."

BBC NEWS - Super surfers oust couch potatoes

BBC NEWS - Super surfers oust couch potatoes: "Browsing the internet has overtaken watching TV as the nation's favourite leisure activity, says a new report. "

Edelman News

Edelman News: "Global opinion leaders say their most credible source of information about a company is now “a person like me,” which has risen dramatically to surpass doctors and academic experts for the first time, according to the seventh annual Edelman Trust Barometer, a survey of nearly 2,000 opinion leaders in 11 countries. In the U.S., trust in “a person like me” increased from 20% in 2003 to 68% today. Opinion leaders also consider rank-and-file employees more credible spokespersons than corporate CEOs (42% vs. 28% in the U.S.). "

Take Note of your Customer Care

Take Note of your Customer Care : "Portals such as http://3g.co.uk become central discussion points for many customers to vent frustration at poor service, poor products or just plain poor phones. A good strategy to get to know your customer better is to skim read the conversation threads and look at what is getting the most attention (you never know it might be the latest way to get free calls for prepaid customers)."

Eavesdropping Becomes Latest Marketing Craze

Eavesdropping Becomes Latest Marketing Craze: "When I see one cover story about a new technology, it may catch my attention. But when I see two, I know that I'm seeing the hippest trend since the Slingbox.
The cover of BusinessWeek last month said that the vast amount of unstructured data available on the Internet will change the way market research will be conducted. Then this month the technology quarterly section of the Economist (you will need a subscription to read this article) said the same thing."

NY Times Gets Stealth Marketing Wrong

NY Times Gets Stealth Marketing Wrong: (via Cymfony's Marketing Insight): "A New York Times article titled 'For Tobacco, Stealth Marketing Is the Norm' is dead wrong. The marketing tactics cited are legitimate and pragmatic, even innovative given the constraints on tobacco marketing. They don't match WOMMA's definition of stealth marketing: tactics that attempt to hide the marketer's identity and fool the consumer. The Word of Mouth Marketing industry needs to keep this definition sharp to avoid confusion and keep the focus on the illegitimate practices that could undermine consumer trust. "

The rise of the creative consumer - Economist

The rise of the creative consumer - Economist: (via http://www.consumerempowerment.com/) "LAST November, engineers in the healthcare division of General Electric (GE) unveiled something called the “LightSpeed VCT”, a scanner that can create a startlingly good three-dimensional image of a beating heart. This spring Staples, an American office-supplies retailer, will stock its shelves with a gadget called a “wordlock”, a padlock that uses words instead of numbers. In Munich, meanwhile, engineers at BMW have begun prototyping telematics (combining computing and telecoms) and online services for a new generation of luxury cars. The connection? In each case, the firm's customers have played a big part (GE, BMW) or the leading role (Staples) in designing the product."

Blog buzz helps companies catch trends

Blog buzz helps companies catch trends: "ConAgra Foods got an early warning from chatter on the Internet that the low-carb craze was fading. The huge food company, based in Omaha, Neb., seized the chance to promote an alternative menu — its Healthy Choice soups, entrees and lunch meats."

Tapping the blogosphere for market research

Tapping the blogosphere for market research: "Last fall, a leading paint maker discovered the power of the blogosphere. The company, which asked not to be identified, makes a popular brand of paint primers but had recently launched a summerlong campaign to introduce a full line of paints. It was an aggressive new initiative into a competitive market. The company wanted to know if its message was hitting home."

Jack Trout Fishes for a Hook

Jack Trout Fishes for a Hook: "Marketing today is much more like sailing than driving. Your boat is the brand. If you point your boat in the right direction, follow the winds/currents and steer, you will get the boat to go where you want it. Marketers should become the wind, but accept that they're at the mercy of the currents and weather. Word of mouth marketing, when done right, is the wind. "

Meet the Super Connectors: A New Generation of Techies Drive Teen Culture According to GenWorld Teen Study: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance

Meet the Super Connectors: A New Generation of Techies Drive Teen Culture According to GenWorld Teen Study: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance: "CHICAGO, March 9 /PRNewswire/ -- Technology isn't just for geeks anymore. Among teens worldwide, a new technology-savvy social-networking teen has emerged -- the SuperConnector.

As access and technological proficiency increased over the past decade, the profile of the most wired teens has changed dramatically, according to the 13-nation GenWorld Teen Study of 3,322 teens recently conducted by Energy BBDO (www.energyBBDO.com)."

Ashley Cole as a test case

Ashley Cole as a test case: (via: http://myownpublicworld.blogspot.com/) "It's an interesting case of new and old media meeting. There doesn't seem to have been a massive 'frenzy' of chat about the story online: Blogpulse shows a peak of 14 posts (searching for 'Ashley Cole') on Feb 20th, though this then rose again to 25 posts on the day that court case was announced. From another point of view, there's little doubt that without the reach of the internet, any photo that revealed Cole as the subject of the story would never have got any significant circulation."

Is Word Of Mouth All It's Cracked Up To Be? - Forbes.com

Is Word Of Mouth All It's Cracked Up To Be? - Forbes.com: "First of all, world-of-mouth isn't new much less 'the next big thing' that WOMMA declares. A third-party endorsement of your product has always been the Holy Grail. It's more believable. In prior days, we used to try and find the 'early adapters' for a product. We figured they had big mouths and loved to tell their friends and neighbors about their new widget."

Bloggers lure blog watchers

Bloggers lure blog watchers: "Candy Tang writes her blog (online diary) almost every day to share experiences and feelings with readers. Tang, 26, regards it a pleasure but someone may be 'watching' her blogs daily for commercial opportunities.
The 'blog watch' service providers collect people's comments and opinions on select topics such as various brands of products and services, including Nokia or Sony, on the blogs or BBS (online forum) and sell reports to the owners of the brands. "

Blink and you'll miss it - the mascara sold every five seconds

Blink and you'll miss it - the mascara sold every five seconds: "'There's been a lot of advertising surrounding it but it's also been word of mouth.
'We get a lot of ladies coming in and telling us how pleased they are with the product and they're telling friends who come in and want to buy it for themselves."