Frontiering Talk

People are continuing to talk about brands, and a recent Mediapost  article by Jack Loechner suggests that there are 3.5 billion word of mouth conversations every day in the US alone.

Whilst 90% of these conversations take place offline, that still means that 350 million discussions are happening daily.  Can you afford not to start listening?

Tags: Social Networks, WOM, Word of Mouth

FreeRice is a clever website that donates 10 grams of rice every time you correctly answer an english word defintion. So in principle, you expand your english vocabulary and feed the hungray at the same time.

Perspective: I think “Not for profits” are succeeding in leveraging the demand to help global issues, by both producing engaging sites. The combination of these reasons produce a powerful incentive for people to spread the site through word of mouth / mouse to others.

via CTV.ca

Tags: Frontiering Websites, WOM, Word of Mouth

Cleanscores is a new site which links Google maps with the cleanliness of a restaurant rating.

It’s currently reviewing restaurants in LA and San Francisco and is indicative of a trend towards empowering consumers to rate products and services. I expect to see more and more consumable items being both reviewed and commented online, providing assistance to would-be purchasers.

Tags: Frontiering Products, Word of Mouth

Jockey International has launched a Consumer Generated Content campaign call Jockey Underwars.

Individuals or groups are encouraged to post videos of themselves dancing in their underwear.
The site features head-to-head matches (aka Hot or Not), or dance contests (presumably by category).

“UnderWarriors,” as they’re known, can challenge other participants or just post his or her dance video on the site for all to enjoy.
The main JockeyUnderWars Tournament starts on November 15th, and winners will be selected by Audience voting. You can also provide comments on videos and invite other UnderWarriors to spar again.

Standard social media tools such as “send to your friend”, or inviting your friends to vote are provided.

Perspective: It’s great to see Jockey create a contest like this, and whilst I won’t be entering I do think this campaign will be successful.

Tags: Word of Mouth

Blinkbox is a new site that allows you to customise video clips from your favourite movie, TV show or viral.
You can chose from a range of videos, and then insert your own text which runs on the start of the output video mashup.

The resulting video mashup can be inserted into your website, or you can email the link to your friends.

Blinkbox has contracts with several content producers, which gives them quite a large selection of clips.
The site hopes to monetize this by linking any blinks allowing viewers to rent or purchase the movie or TV show.

Perspective: This is an interesting idea, and linking the success of the site to renting or purchase of the videos will certainly keep the content owners happy. Blinkbox has also chosen to allow a simple mashup of adding text as a pre-roll option. As video editing software becomes easier to use and more available, I think they will need to expand this offering. I also think that Blinkbox should expand their reach by integrating their tool as a Facebook application.

Tags: Word of Mouth

Renovation has got to be one of the most talked about topics, and so it’s no surprise to see a social network built around sharing advice.

Refurber is a well laid out site, and built on the same platform as Minti (the parenting advice social network).

Refurber has some cool features such as Latest Activity which shows by timestamp how long ago the social network was updated and by who. It’s a good indication that this social network is very active.

The company behind Refurber is Vibe Capital and they are also offering the network engine to people wanting to build an advice driven social network. An example is Building London.

Perspective: Social networks will continue to appear and over time, there will be a place for just about every conversation. So think about the category your brand is in and explore what social networks are emerging. Make sure you establish a program to monitor the conversations as this is a valuable source of research. Then, figure out ways to engage in the conversations, such as establishing advice services, or sponsorship of existing social networks. Conversations in social networks are growing .. is your message being heard?

Tags: Social Network, Social Networks, Word of Mouth

I can’t claim to be a Baseball fan, but I love to talk about campaigns that let consumers have a real say in determining an outcome.
And that’s exactly what Marc Ecko is doing with the Barry Bond’s baseball that broke the number of home run records .. 756 to be precise.

You can even join the conversation on Youtube and Myspace

Perspective: The competition is pretty simple, but given the 10,010,552 votes so far, it’s sure to generate over 756 thousand conversations! Are your giving your consumers a reason to experience and talk about your brand?

via Jaffejuice

Tags: Frontiering Products, Frontiering Websites, Word of Mouth

IsAnyOneGoingTo.com launched in this year in the UK, and allows users to register their name, town or postcode, and then a photograph of themselves and/or their vehicles and a short description of themselves. They also pick one of three categories that suits their travel needs which are best—leisure, business or student, and then enter their travel requirements.

Other members can then search the site and communicate through Skype or e-mail to arrange travel and divide the costs before meeting. Over ten thousand members have already registered with the free site.

Founder Sonia Slater explains: “Our fundamental objectives are to realize how we all can be environmentally sound and still have fun, improve the environment by reducing the number of cars on the roads, use the Internet to introduce travelers and change the way we travel.”

Perspective: Is Anyone Going to is a good example of how social networks can overcome the normal barriers that keep people from connecting.

Tags: Frontiering Websites, News, Social Network, Word of Mouth

Riding the social network phenomenon is this new social network, known as Babyfy in the UK which combines product reviews, hospital reviews as well as special content features to provide a platform for new and existing mothers to communicate.

The site is well presented and there is already quite a lot of content and well worth a visit if you are in this category and live in the UK.
Babyfy is asking for expressions of interest with respect to Advertising and it will be interesting to see how they combine “consumer reviews” with “product ads” if that is planned.

Perspective: The name Babyfy is quite clever, glad it wasn’t called “Mumify”. I think review sites like this offer a great service to consumers, but I can’t help wondering if the brands who are trying to target this demographic will bother listening to these conversations.

Tags: Social Network, Social Networks, Word of Mouth

Heinz has just announced the winner of their Top This promotion, which invited consumers across America to create the next ad for their Ketchup product.

The Top This TV competition website describes the competition as

We said make us laugh. Make us cry. Make us say, “Wow! Why didn’t we think of that?” But make it something you’d want to see on TV.
Well, people uploaded a boatload of commercials to YouTube that they wrote, cast and shot themselves—and spent tens of thousands of hours watching them.
Four runners-up will win $5,700, and their commercial will air on The Today Show on September 17. The grand prize winner will win $57,000.
Oh, and eternal glory.
Watch the winning Top This commercial on the Primetime Emmy® Awards, Live! September 16th, 8pm/7c on FOX.

Here’s a list of the semi-finalists

As you can see, many of the ads look professionally made, and perhaps some were made by agencies. However, the big winner here is the brand. Loyal consumers have spent many hours making, submitting and then telling their friends about their ads giving huge exposure to Heinz, as well as providing the change for everyday consumers to provide their interpretation of the brand positioning.

Heinz have already announced a follow up competition to start in October.

Perspective: It’s not just big brands that can run these competitions. With the ever increasing tools now available on the internet, as long as you have some passionate consumers, you can channel their creativity into a campaign channel.

Tags: Frontiering Campaigns, Word of Mouth

In an attempt to attract young people, Leader Newspapers (owned by Newscorp) has created a local search site called Nook.

The site is intended to be a lot more than just local search, allowing users to join the conversation and write about local venues such as restaurants, review local tradesmen, as well as discuss local issues.

There are no ads on the site yet, but there’s little doubt that the site will start to run ads once the content and audience numbers grow.

Where I live is a similar site servicing Sth East Queensland.

Perspective: One of the challenges from the existing local search models such as Sensis’s Yellowpages and New’s Truelocal, is that they don’t provide facilities for consumers to review businesses. This is mainly because their listings are subscription based, and they haven’t found a way to juggle charging businesses a $1000 listing fee, while allowing consumers to publish a bad review next to their listing.
However, I think that consumer review sites have a definite place and if executed correctly, even the reviews get reviewed and rated, thereby providing a much richer source of information for readers. Amazon and Cnet are perhaps the best examples of this where professional reviews are mixed with consumer reviews to provide a rich source of product commentaries. Ning’s Restaurent Reviews with maps is another example that is purely consumer review driven. If Nook strikes a chord in Melbourne, I have no doubt that News will expand the service to other cities. I also think there is a place for professional consumer review organisations like Choice to take the lead in this space.

via Search Engine Room

Tags: Frontiering Websites, Social Networks, Word of Mouth

Who says traditional companies can’t play in the social media space?

I remember subscribing to J&J’s Babycenter’s weekly email just over 10 years ago, when my wife was pregnant with our first child. You got a very well packaged 1 page email explaining what part of the baby was growing. Babycenter has continued to grow, providing advice related to planning and having babies.

This week Paidcontent tells of Babycenter’s purchase of Mayasmom, which is a social network aimed at mothers. The social network will be extended across the Babycenter network. Along with this purchase, there are plans to create an Advertising network for this category.

Perspective: This is a smart move by J&J, and just shows that finally some big corporations are not just placing ads on existing social networks, but providing consumer driven communication channels.

Tags: Frontiering Websites, Social Network, Social Networks, Word of Mouth

Perhaps because alcohol products have had greater restrictions advertising on mainstream channels and therefore have had more time to experiment with other levers. But it is now more evident with the announcement that Jim Beam’s CMO Rory Finlay is committed to refocusing it’s advertising budget into activities aimed at generating Word of mouth.

Word of mouth marketing is not new. It started around the camp-fire when people debated over what were the best hunting tools, and conversations continued into market places where trade flourished. But since the invention of the TV, which radically changed the way brands spoke to consumers, many big brands have either forgotten or ignored the levers that drive word of mouth marketing.

Perspective: The science of how you measure word of mouth marketing is still in it’s infancy, and no doubt organisations like WOMMA will continue to promote various metrics to try to standardise the way word of mouth can be measured. But there are some quite simple initiatives that marketeers can do to maximise the word of mouth marketing effect of their campaigns.

Here’s a check-list that it worth considering as part of every campaign or activity, which should help you enhance the word of mouth marketing impact.
1. What conversations will this campaign drive?
e.g new product feature discussions, boasting about the experience, will they be category discussions or specific to your brand?
2. What mediums will these conversations use?
e.g. at an event, on an online discussion group, social networking commentary, dinner table discussions
3. How can we make it easier for these conversations to take place?
e.g. Can you provide photos of an event that consumers can download and post to their social networks?
4. What can I do to monitor some of these conversations? (one of the easiest success measures is an increase in online discussions that unlike tacit conversations are recorded. Hint, you need to know what the existing conversational levels are to measure a change, so if you don’t have an online monitoring service, consider starting one.
5. Testing
Can I test the campaign’s word of mouth impact before hand or with a smaller sample? For example, run the campaign in an area where you can more easily measure the impact, this will provide an opportunity to make any changes before a major launch.
6. Incentives
What incentives can I give people to share the conversations with others, and what ways are there to reward this? Are there opportunities to allow people to create Consumer generated content to express their opinions.
7. Involve your staff.
Can you utilise your existing employees to generate conversations related to the campaign?
8. Call to action
Does the campaign have calls to action which allow people to sign up to special offers?
9. Use your evangelists.
Do you have a record of brand advocates, or a loyalty program, and if so, have you involved them or made them aware of the campaign? if you don’t, then use this campaign to start a database.
10. Evaluate the results
Make sure you learn from the results, get into the habit of asking these questions before the campaign is designed, so you can change where necessary.

Tags: News, Social Network, WOM, Word of Mouth