Well, the very wise Dr Paul Mardsen once said that buzz, viral and word of mouth are all the same thing, namely network enhanced word of mouth or what the Japanese call 'Kuchi-Komi'.
If you want to talk of nuances then:
... viral has tended to be used by those dealing with online networks
... buzz by those who exploit media networks (PR-ability)
... and WOMM by those who harness traditional social networks.
But it's all network-enhanced word of mouth. Simple!
Andy's assertion seems almost Kant-like in its moral certainty. This is fascinating given that all the scientific research relating to attribution theory and the like would seem to suggest otherwise, i.e. incentivised word of mouth is not credible and therefore not effective. Perhaps this is cultural because you can call someone a good salesman in the US without there being any sense of irony or sarcasm.
But it's the Kant-like moral certainty surrounding disclosure which interests me because business in general seems to be more Utilitarian, i.e. morality is based on its consequences not on any categorical imperative.
Maybe we shouldn
Well, if not scary there's something a bit weird about a women licking some brown sticky stuff she's found on the road. Guess it takes all sorts. I'm also reminded about a story from the Scottish comedian Billy Connolly who managed to get some Vegemite (Marmite for Australians) on his sheets while having breakfast in bed while travelling in Australia. Obviously, having a brown stain on his sheets was bad enough but you can imagine the look of disgust by the person from room service when they came to collect the plates to find Billy Connolly licking the brown stain off his sheets. Somehow pointing to the empty Vegemite container didn
What's the relationship between Maverick and the Viral Awards and the so-called Viral Chart ?
They are the most nominated company on the Viral Awards and the only company to have work featured on the Viral Chart, which doesn't make it much of a chart.
Maverick have been nominated for 7 'Viral Awards':
2 for the Mazda - Smooth Parking, which was created in conjunction with DMC, as acknowledged by Campaign Mag when they awarded it the best Viral Campaign of 2003.
1 for IFAW - Blood on your hands, which as IFAW point out on their web site was an idea developed by their advertising agency Velocity Advertising with the final edit created by Lateral
4 awards fro BSM - Cruise and Pot Noodles - Precious, which are test ads therefore can't really be considered viral.
I freely admit to never having been a big fan of these awards ever since they were launched together with the Viral Chart by Asa Bailey as what can only be describe as a glorified wet t-shirt competition (see here).
So it's been quite amazing to see the list of people sign up to be judges and sponsors for these awards, not least given that it's the users who are judge, jury and often executioners of viral material. As such the opinion of industry 'experts' is by and larger, if not completely, irrelevant.
However, if someone is going to be issuing awards for viral campaigns they could at least make sure that the material was actually viral and also give credit where it
Some great advice from author and consultant Jackie Huba to BzzAgents in response to the NYT article and backlash:
Church of the Customer - Six ideas for BzzAgent
thanx to Dabitch
In terms of my take, I wonder how new Word of Mouth Marketing is. I think Dabitch mentioned that Tupperware parties are in the same ballpark and I guess some would argue that so are pyramid schemes. I feel more comfortable in the overtly branded space myself although I know that this isn't eveyone's cup of tea or coffee.,
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Erm ... I think Copywhore maybe American because the citing of Kant et al is called irony.
Erm ... also not sure where she/he gets this idea that Word of Mouth Marketing is about paying people to spread the word.
The real point is that much advertising no longer works now and there are a whole load of reasons why like ad clutter, media fragmentation, ad avoidance, mistrust, etc, etc.
What has been shown is that recommendations rates are the only metric that can be pegged to business growth.
However, natural word of mouth may not be enough to help brands cut through the clutter. So brands need to help amplify and accelerate word of mouth and despite CopyWhore's assertion there's a whole host of techniques that can be employed to improve advocacy and the most effective ones do not involve any form of bribery. In fact, good advertising has a part to play, so it's not a question of Advertisng versus Word of Mouth but about developing marketing strategies (not just marketing communication campaigns) that optimise advocacy.
If that
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