• The Gray Area of Word of Mouth Marketing

    Posted on October 26th, 2005 by and currently 2 commenting.

    There’s an interesting article in the Boston Globe about corporations enlisting students to pitch their products and services on campus. All kinds of terms are thrown around in the article, word of mouth and buzz being a couple.

    And check this out:

    They (the students) are expected to devote about 10 to 15 hours a week talking up the products to friends, securing corporate sponsorship of campus events, and lobbying student newspaper reporters to mention products in articles. They also must plaster bulletin boards with posters and chalk sidewalks — tactics known as “guerilla marketing,” which, marketing firms acknowledge, intentionally skirt the boundaries of campus rules.

    These kids get paid by the big corporations like Microsoft to engage in these activities.

    Is this true word of mouth marketing? Or shill marketing? Or both?

  • http://thebrandbuilder.blogspot.com/ Olivier Blanchard

    There’s Karate, and then there’s Karate. Somewhere at the center of the Karate world probably exists a nucleus of true/genuine/authentic/traditional Karate. The further away from it you get, the more watered-down the Karate dojos get. Travel far enough away, and you’ll eventually find yourself in a gym-turned dance studio-turned-part time dojo. Think blue dayglo uniforms and sweatbands. Think baggy sweatpants and custom T-shirts. Think people calling it “karatee.” It’s the same thing with word-of-mouth marketing: Whether you’re a pro or a hack, whether you bring value to the discipline or exploit it, WOMM is WOMM. What defines us is where we function inside the WOMM bubble: Towards the center, or along its fringes? Meh!

  • FI Chris

    True Word of Mouth comes from customers, advocates, people who use a brand and love it (or hate it) so much they are compelled to talk about it. I do it all the time. Companies good enough (or bad enough) to generate True Word of Mouth deserve it. Paying people to talk up your product is not generating Word of Mouth (True or otherwise), it’s hiring representatives. The main difference between these people and a simple sales rep is that the reps already have their degrees. Think about it: if you walk into a Chevy dealership, the salesperson is going to tell you how great Chevy’s are, possibly drawing on his own personal experience. But that’s his job. It’s the same with these students; they’ve been employed to sell Microsoft, figuratively and literally. True Word of Mouth comes from the heart, not the wallet.