Word of mouth is a fad?
Over on Adgabber, the socnet of Adrants, Steve Hall writes:
"Is social media the new word of mouth? A couple years ago, word of mouth was all the rage. An industry organization was even created to highlight and codify it. No one seems to be talking about it any more. Has the current social media hype eclipsed it or is social media just another element of word of mouth?"
Steve's question illustrates the cultural problem with advertising and the ad industry: over-reliance on faddishness. Trend-chasing as the means to an end. Little wonder that ADD and ad are practically a homonym?
The responders to Steve's question set him straight:
"The New Word of Mouth,
is the same as the old Word of Mouth,
which is the same as the original Word of Mouth,
which has been, is, and will always be Word of Mouth."
"Is social media the new word of mouth? A couple years ago, word of mouth was all the rage. An industry organization was even created to highlight and codify it. No one seems to be talking about it any more. Has the current social media hype eclipsed it or is social media just another element of word of mouth?"
Steve's question illustrates the cultural problem with advertising and the ad industry: over-reliance on faddishness. Trend-chasing as the means to an end. Little wonder that ADD and ad are practically a homonym?
The responders to Steve's question set him straight:
"The New Word of Mouth,
is the same as the old Word of Mouth,
which is the same as the original Word of Mouth,
which has been, is, and will always be Word of Mouth."
4 Comments
-
Comment by Russ Tate on April 9, 2008 at 11:48pm - Steve's responders are right. Let's face it, before there were phones, before there was writing, before there were cars, or roads, or even fire to make smoke signals... about the only way to communicate news, cave's for sale or the latest sabre-tooth tiger sighting from person to person and tribe to tribe was good old, very old fashioned, personal, face-to-face WOM. Digital tools, customer control and involvement and the explosion of social networking online have made WOM a viable opportunity for all us trendy ad folks to toss out the smoke and mirrors we've relied on for so long and actually encourage honest conversation about our products and services. No tricks, no green crystals... the truth. I thank our ancient ancestors for thinking of it first.
-
Comment by Jack Shipley on April 15, 2008 at 6:51pm - I wonder if the more marketing inputs we receive the fewer we trust. This thought supports the importance of word of mouth: One person talking in trust to another. Pretty old fashioned notion. The rest is just technology.
-
Comment by Jeffrey Summers on April 18, 2008 at 9:03pm -
You mean they don't really understand that WOMM worked in the past,
Is working now, or will work if applied,
Or that it will continue to work in the future?
Add a Comment
You need to be a member of Society for Word of Mouth to add comments!
What people are saying about SWOM
© 2008 Created by Ben McConnell
I'll blow it up and paste it to my wall.
I think it further illustrates a wider issue I've been touching on here at SWOM." and elsewhere.
That is, that so many people in marketing, and especially online marketing, have no idea of the history of marketing and advertising.
Especially the history of what works.
If they don't know what works, it is inevitable that they will chase fads in a fruitless attempt to improve their advertising effectiveness.