Articles tagged with: Word of Mouth
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?
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Facebook is set to capitalise on it’s massive growth and the depth of knowledge it has within the millions of profiles by providing an Ad-targetting service that goes beyond the current selections of age, gender and location of the user.
The new service will allow targeting based on the profile’s favourite activities and preferred music. Currently Facebook displays ads in flyers around the border of Facebook pages, but the new ads will appear in other places interspersed with profile content.
Nearly 1400 members of a facebook group known as “Bring back the Wispa” seem to have convinced Cadbury to relaunch the historical chocolate bar, which will be relaunched on October. There are about 90 facebook groups that were used by Wispa fans to record their appreciation for the brand.
“We have noticed the web interest for some time and the consumer passion has undeniably swayed our opinion to relaunch Wispa.” said Cadbury spokesman Tony Bilsborough. He went on to say “This is the first time that the power of the internet played such an intrinsic role in the return of a Cadbury brand,”.
