JUSTIN KIRBY KEYNOTE AT MW WOM CONFERENCE
Connected Marketing resource coordinator Justin Kirby gave the keynote address on day one of the Marketing Week WOM Conference in London this week.
In his keynote speech, Justin defines the word-of-mouth (WOM) marketing industry and presents his Top Ten current key trends and issues in this territory. He refers to several books and research papers during his speech. If you’d like the bibliography, please email us.
You can view a video of Justin’s speech in two parts:
You can also read an edited transcript of the speech below:
“Word of mouth marketing has been around a long time… and so have I!
“I started working in this field back in 1994 when the national press picked up a student campaign I coordinated that inspired the spread of word of mouth via the old and new technologies of the time. (They even labelled it “DIY media”, a harbinger to what has now become social media!)
“I’m a little greyer now and a lot more experienced, having run my own marketing consultancy for the past 14 years. The last seven of those years have been spent specialising exclusively in this field, working at the coalface on hundreds of projects with major brands, and contributing to the theories and methodologies that help the industry evolve.
“Over the years, I have met a lot of people claiming that they have found the ‘Holy Grail’ of marketing; or that their view is right and others are wrong.
“But my experience shows me that things are never quite as simple as this. When you dig a little deeper there’s normally an economic agenda driving such polarised assertions… The Marxist view of history. 
“It’s also true that just because something worked once for one company in one sector, doesn’t mean it will work for anyone else - or even work again for the original business. Shades of grey exist and deserve examination.
“For example, take these two books about one aspect of word of mouth: ‘The Wisdom of Crowds’ and ‘Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds’.
“Is one wrong? Can they both be right? Perhaps they simply show two sides of the same coin, whereby collectively people can be stupid sometimes, but clever at other times.
“The point is that if anyone ever tells you they have a silver bullet for your marketing problems, or that they can show you the light, or that their approach is more measurable, more contagious, more ethical, or simply more catch-all ‘effective’ than other approaches, take it from me: in reality they will have an evolving theory or model, sometimes not that well developed.
“So if you don’t hear any counter-arguments to balance such viewpoints and expose the shades of grey, feel free to contact me and I’ll happily explain the other side of the coin, or point you to another expert marketing consultant who can help.
“This conference is about the state of WOM Marketing, however you will only ever be able to get a snapshot of some parts of this field during the next two to three days. So I’ll now give you a brief overview of the key parts of this territory as I see it. If you want more details about any of the key trends and topics that I’m about to mention, again feel free to contact me.
KEY TOPIC 1: THE TERRITORY
“Viral marketing, buzz marketing, word of mouth marketing. Are they really as different as some people would have you believe?
“In the end, any marketing - even good old traditional advertising! - can help kickstart word of mouth. There’s no such thing as a separate set of techniques only for WOM marketing. This is borne out in the 2005 book ‘Connected Marketing: The Viral, Buzz and Word of Mouth Revolution’.
“Hence the umbrella phrase ‘connected marketing’ which denotes any marketing approach that helps ignite conversations in target markets that add measurable value to a brand.
“Ultimately, it’s about outcomes, not what technique you use or what you call it.
KEY TOPIC 2: MARKETS ARE CONVERSATIONS
“Businesses need to remember that they are dealing with human beings, not users, seats, consumers, eyeballs, profiles, etc.
“There’s no doubt that the renewed interest in WOM over the past few years is related to digital media which has helped turbo-charge the spread of WOM.
“The debate about Web 2.0 and consumer empowerment seems to be intertwined, although some argue this is really an illusion… but a marketing conference is not really the best place to be discussing Slovenian philosophy!
KEY TOPIC 3: ‘DELIVER EXPERIENCES THAT EXCEED EXPECTATIONS’
“This is the core principle of word-of-mouth marketing, because people only talk about experiences worth talking about.
“Recent research by Stanford University shows that your expectations are set by your emotional connection with a brand.
“Customer experience is not just about what happens when customers come into contact with a product; it occurs at every touchpoint with a brand. And it’s this overall experience of a company, good and bad, that shapes an emotional connection.
KEY TOPIC 4: WHAT’S YOUR STORY?
“So customer experience is not just about getting customers to try your product, for example, and quantifying that activity; it’s also about the qualitative aspects of their whole experience with the brand in question.
“That’s why it so important that your story resonates with consumers, because this can help set expectations in the first place.
KEY TOPIC 5: CUSTOMER ADVOCACY
“Briefly, buzz or WOM is not the same as advocacy. And advocacy appears to drive business growth. But what is best practice when it comes to customer advocacy metrics? Does measurement inform actions? And is the experience the same for all businesses?
“This topic has generated a heated debate about the philosophy of customer-focus driving healthy profits versus the Net Promoter® Score methodology … and it’s the NPS’ claim to “show (me) the money” that has been called into question.
“Dr. Alain Samson from the London School of Economics and I have interviewed 27 large UK companies and written a report about this issue for a marketing strategy journal.
“We discovered some very surprising information from the coalface. One company in the mobile sector we spoke to cited intention to switch as a much better indicator of future growth than likelihood to recommend.
KEY TOPIC 6: INFLUENCERS
“The book ‘The Tipping Point’ describes a small group of connectors helping spread the word in society. The idea is that some consumers are more equal than others, so the aim for businesses is to connect and collaborate with the 10 percent of people who influence the remainder.
“This theory has been challenged by Duncan Watts and others. It’s another important debate in the WOM field between people in social psychology and market research backgrounds, versus scientists who specialise in network theory.
“So how is this theme relevant to business? It may sound like academic mumbo-jumbo, but it is very much relevant to business practice and is already being used, for example in the mobile sector which can manage and measure churn and its effect on the bottom line - very clearly seeing how the actions of certain people affect a larger group.
KEY TOPIC 7: BLURRING LINES
“Part of the influencer debate takes into account the differences between people who influence others offline and people who influence others online - and how you as a business can communicate with them.
“The lines about who brands work with (be it digital agency, PR company, specialist social media consultancy, etc.) are becoming blurred. And even the roles of the people within companies who commission WOM-related activity are blurring - these approaches could be the remit of staff in your traditional marketing department, in CRM, innovation strategy, product R&D, new media, IT, brand management, and more.
KEY TOPIC 8: LISTENING TO CONVERSATIONS
“Regardless of who commissions WOM-related activity and what kind of third-party partner is asked to help, there is no doubt that customer and consumer conversations, online in particular, are having a huge impact on business, both positive and negative.
“Listen to your customers, staff, suppliers, partners and give them the means to communicate with you.
“Just remember that noise is not the same as insight.
KEY TOPIC 9: MASS COLLABORATION - THE APPETISER
“With the advent of social media, listening is not difficult - take collaborative blogs for example. The lines between consumers and producers are being blurred, too, now.
“Although remember the two books I showed at the beginning.
KEY TOPIC 10: MASS COLLABORATION - THE MAIN COURSE
“Listening to consumers is important, and so is the next step of igniting conversations, as you will find out more about over the next few days. However you can go a step further and involve consumers in valuable two-way dialogues, enabling participation that goes a lot deeper than simply spreading your marketing messages.
“My take - and I think this is the most interesting aspect of WOM marketing at the moment - is that there are mutually acceptable and mutually rewarding ways to involve consumers directly in product and service innovations and developments at the very heart of the business process - truly aligning demand and supply.
“That concludes my top tips about some current key trends and issues in the WOM marketing territory. Hopefully they convey that this territory is incredibly broad, and within it there is a wide range of theories and approaches for every single aspect, as well as many different viewpoints about everything from influencers and ethics, to measurement and mass customisation - in all shades of grey!”
