F MOUTH WORD O OF E CRAFT & TH PUBLICIST THE
THE best PR tactic is not new and it’s not expensive. It’s as old as the dark art itself. It’s effective and it’s absolutely free. It’s called Word Of Mouth.
ng Way back in the earliest days of showbiz, the foundi , fathers of modern PR – Edward Bernays, Chet Burger Maynard Nottage, Arthur Page, Jim Moran, Harry red Reichenbach Carl Byoir and Moss Kendrix – pionee their the idea of ‘engineering consent’ on behalf of clients. And how did they do it? By Word Of Mouth. film In 1917 Reichenbach devised a campaign for a Fox of that had failed to live up to the commercial hopes Hill At its producer, William Fox. The picture, Over The seats The Poor House, had no problem filling the cheap s because of its title – but, presumably for the – perhap remained same reason, the more expensive orchestra seats -whammy stubbornly empty. Reichenbach employed a triple campaign. ive First of all he persuaded Fox to remove the offens ‘P’ word and abbreviate the title to Over The Hill. gn with Secondly, he orchestrated an advertising campai ements from prominent names. Thirdly, and most endors cles brilliantly, he staged a series of street specta the aimed at creating Word Of Mouth. Not by targeting days of cognoscenti, as PRs have tended to do in these ing the Opinion Formers, but by keeping it real: spread word at street level. boys’ One stunt involved paying a pair of hired ‘negro entally’ smash a huge framed painting of the to ‘accid e New film’s poster – its title in giant letters - outsid the York’s Astor Hotel. As predicted, the police made nt in boys pick up every shard of glass from the paveme home front of a sympathetic crowd – all of whom went Next, with something to gossip about to their friends. ning the same two boys ‘accidentally’ dropped bags contai street; $500 in one-cent coins in the middle of a busy them the crowd that swiftly gathered to help retrieve s from soon learned that the money was box-office taking ‘Over The Hill’. g out Reichenbach saved his best stunt for last, sendin corners swanky-looking couples in evening dress from all e of midtown New York to parade through the Theatr discuss District, stopping wherever they saw crowds to which film they should see that night. Inevitably, loudly volume on each occasion they would announce at maximum On that their friends all recommended ‘Over The Hill.’ man with some occasions Reichenbach even threw in an old name of an ear trumpet who could never quite catch the ended by his ‘niece’ who would have the film being recomm to to bellow it at ever increasing volume. Needless being say, by the time they reached the cinema they were ed by crowds eager to see this new film sensation. follow Over Within a week, box office takings had doubled and and The Hill went on to run for a year in New York time. became one of the most profitable pictures of its Fox Meanwhile Reichenbach had successfully convinced to double his normal fee to $1,000 a week and went on to become the best-paid press agent in the world. Brilliant!
ERA › THE DAWN OF A NEW
› MODERN DAY PR &
In the days before mass communication the only way to spread the word was by telling other people and waiting for them to pass it on. And at Borkowski we’ve been using that very same template in one form or another ever since I set up business 17 years ago. sophisticated over Of course things have become much more . The proliferation of media in the the last 100 years so many avenues 21st century means there have never been and magazines publicity: from bog-standard newspapers for ding worlds of TV and radio. Now the to the ever-expan d with the galaxy of digital media outlets has opene that has being the latest twist for an industry internet multi-million-pound monster. transformed into a Of Mouth PR in It is widely believed that the key to Word blog. Blogs are growing at the 21st century is the
THE INTERNET
It is certainly the case that the internet has put a completely new spin on Word Of Mouth. It has allowed the public unprecedented access to information about the behaviour of the companies behind the brands. At the same time, it has provided the public with an unprecedented communications platform for expressing and sharing their thoughts and opinions. It is becoming increasingly evident that, despite its undoubted potential as PR tools, the brave new media world of blogs and the vagaries of the digital hemisphere do not necessarily hold the keys to the kingdom. Some might argue that the internet
OR FOE? INTERNET: FRIEND ›
The casualties are piling up and Wal-Mart, ‘everyone’s favourite supermarket chain’, is one of the latest. In October 2006 a blog seemingly set up independently by ‘Jim and Laura’ - a pair of average Americans chronicling their cross-country travels in a camper van and who just happened to lodge each night in Wal-Mart parking lots - was exposed as a sham when it emerged one of the bloggers was a Washington Post staffer. The blog had been set up as a promotional tactic for an organisation called Working Families for Wal-Mart - a group launched by Wal-Mart’s PR firm Edelman. WFWM paid all the pair’s travel and living expenses, routed the trip, and plastered its logo on their vehicle. Entries on the blog included observations of Wal-Mart employees ‘going the extra mile’ and plugging ‘the nation’s largest supplier of organic milk’ and that ‘by shopping at Wal-mart (customers) eat healthily while stretching (their) food dollar’. Edelman’s Richard Edelman subsequently apologised to the blogging community on the company’s web site for “our error in failing to be transparent about the identity of the two bloggers from the outset” and for contravening the Word of Mouth Marketing Association guidelines “which we helped to write.” Another victim is Nike, which has suffered since being exposed for its use of child labour. Although the company has since worked hard to improve working practices, its corporate image retains a whiff of exploitation. It has not yet managed to move far enough away from the slur to leave the story well and truly behind. It could be years before we think of
› BLACKLASH
Nike without thinking of an underpaid kid in some Third World sweat shop.
ion new the rate of 100,000 a day, with 1.3 mill y 24 hours – that’s 15 every second posts ever – hence
gious – according to Technorati. They’re conta an incestuous the term ‘viral’ campaigns – bloggers are to doesn’t take long for themes and messages lot and it fast, and it’s free. What’s more spread. It’s simple, it’s right now even if it’s probably having an influence on us it. we don’t know
Even MySpace has not been immune. It has suffered from negative Word Of Mouth ever since Murdoch’s $580 million acquisition of the business last year, even though there is little evidence (yet) of the corporate hand that feeds.
has created a double-edged sword: on the one hand there are more and more outlets to spread the word; on the other it is harder than ever to control what is said and by whom.
Earlier this year Waterstones joined the already swelling ranks of companies such as Apple, Delta Airlines, Google, Orange, Microsoft and Starbucks who have all sacked employees for what they have written on their blogs. So what do we make of this? The upshot is that the web has created a punk-style revolution, giving everyone the feeling that they can do what they want. The big challenge for companies over the past 12-18 months has been how to respond to online Word Of Mouth? The response of many has predictably been shaped by fear and defensiveness. Hence the sackings. That many businesses are being motivated by fear should come as no surprise.
The effect of all this is that there is little - if any - purity today in Word Of Mouth
There is an increasing need to recognise that in order to adapt to the ever-evolving PR landscape we must expand our attitude towards new media; both in the way in which we use it and how we expect it to serve our needs. The internet has given birth to untold possibilities but it is impossible to feed them all. And even if you could, the message would be lost in the frenzy of competing headlines before it had fully sunk in and the client had reaped the benefit. The media explosion has been matched by a PR explosion that means there’s always a rival lurking in the background to steal those column inches, satellite minutes and webpage pixels. The advent of a new era of communication brings with it both new opportunities and new challenges. New
role in debates “Blogging continues to play a critical tant issues of our time,” says David around the impor ny. This is Sifry, founder of the blog-tracking compa d; there se the most influential blogs are interlinke becau that can boast more than 500 other are some 4,000 sites sums and you can blogging sites linked to theirs. Do the bloggers are ciate the enormity of this network. Many appre as the mainstream media in updating just as professional bloggers on their sites. “The impact of these
ngly our cultures and democracies is increasi Sifry. dramatic,” adds Mr
a result of Word Of Mouth is evolving constantly, as networking and the resultant the explosion in social 35 million paranoia bred in many businesses. Of the every e today, multiplying at the rate of one blogs onlin t Scobel, co-author of Naked second (according to Rober The Way Businesses Conversations – How Blogs Are Changing mers), many are discussing products and Talk With Custo be missed. brands. It’s an opportunity too good to finally seeing It’s taken a while but the big brands are own blogs and social the value of setting up their include Adidas, networking pages: those signed up so far Motorola, Burger King, Wendy’s and Nike, VW, Honda, report, Fox Starbucks. According to a recent USA Today MySpace) active Media (which sells advertising on Inter requests for corporate profile pages on is ‘deluged’ with esses between the social networking site – costing busin and $1 million to buy. $100,000 e of its own But the recent high-profile sacking by Orang as Affairs Manager for making what they saw Community the company on a blog must make critical comments about . Perhaps those us question the true value of such sites ok the objective for a PR opportunity? companies misto
Corporations, conservative by their very nature, have an inbuilt instinct to stifle Word Of Mouth just as soon as it fails to match the message they want to hear. The
corollary of that, inevitably, is that they respond by trying to create artificial Word Of Mouth to influence consumer choices. At which point, of course, it ceases to be Word Of Mouth at all. If these companies are to rebut misinformation, or set the record straight, they must tread carefully. It’s not easy to intrude on conversations or connections, as members of social networks are – quite rightly – irritated and provoked by having obviously contrived Word of Mouth aimed at them. Meanwhile, any corporate rebuttal posted online often inflames a debate. Ridicule a situation, however, and a brand can come off even worse.
media should be viewed as a two-way street not a double-edged sword. Instead of trying to stamp out any dissenting opinions on clients’ products we should learn from them.
That feedback should never be viewed as negative: it’s a vitally valuable asset. Genuine feedback – real responses unbiased by ‘weighted’ questions in sponsored surveys – is what every business needs. And it’s free. The key is connectivity. Earlier generations of publicists did not have the internet but they still understood the importance of connectivity: the value of the audience and the danger of making them turn against you by conning them. And that’s a lesson that a growing number of companies seem to be forgetting today. It’s not just about getting your message out there – it’s about getting it believed. It’s about trust.
Many modern businesses ignore or forget the fundamental principle held so dear by the likes of Reichenbach and Bernays: don’t leave the audience feeling cheated. Get that one wrong
at your peril. The public can be an unforgiving lot. Just try asking Mr Ratner, the jewellery tycoon who told us his high-street chain sold ‘crap’.
› THE FUTURE OF
nd owners accustomed to It’s time to get real. Bra ir brand image
WORD OF MOUTH
OUTH › WORD OF M E AS A SCIENC
The result of the inernet and blogging on such a massive scale has been to generate a huge upswing of interest in the value of blogs, giving birth to a whole new Word Of Mouth industry. Type ‘Word Of Mouth marketing’ into Google and you get 5.19 million items (575,000 in the UK alone) detailing experts, books, seminars and – yes – blogs, offering advice on how to create it, use it, abuse it, manipulate it, make it work for you. At which point, once again, it ceases to be Word Of Mouth at all but you can’t explain that to Google. In the USA a ‘Word Of Mouth Marketing Association’ has been established to draw up guidelines and host an annual Word Of Mouth summit – presumably by a process of Chinese whispers and cryptic entries on blogs. It could be the only summit where the organisers won’t have the faintest idea how many people are going to turn up until the day. This may give them a pretty good idea of how well they’re doing.
› SUCCESS STORIES
To see an example of a corporation that is successfully using Word of Mouth to its advantage, look at supermarket giant Sainsburys. In Novem ber 2006 it announced a small percentage of its products would in the future come in biodegradable packa ging - not all products, you’ll notice, just a few. The announcement, rather more sophisticated and infini tely smarter than it seemed on the surface, was a delib erate way of declaring that the company was liste ning and responding to Word Of Mouth in an attempt to creat e positive Word Of Mouth - and also to distract its competition into taking their eye off the ball. MySpace, the biggest of the three main social networks, has experienced phenomenal growth since its launch in January 2004 (the UK site launched in April 2006). In just two years it built up more than 100 million users worldwide (four million in the UK) prior to its acquisition by Rupert Murdoch in an eye-watering, eyebrow-raising $580 million deal last summer, and is estimated to be signing up new users at the rate of 250,000 a day. How did it do this? Through Word Of Mouth.
the controlling every aspect ofept they have already and brand messages must acc th and PR agents Mou lost control over Word Of they can reverse this foolish if they think are Of Mouth for the tide. They cannot control Word nt when it’s in its
pote simple reason that it is most of a direct and personal purest form: an articulation experience. experimented with how best For decades companies have that it is of Mouth despite the fact to exploit Word her be regarded as – just anot not – and never should out to create Word Of set marketing tool. You don’t to manipulate it as it is Mouth; neither do you try daily spontaneous by-product of – in essence – just this reason, generations human interaction. For above
› BACK TO BASICS:
BRAND ESSENCE
a greater The web has actually placed e - personal hasis on direct experiencof external emp knowledge - as we grow wary ify. Ironically, communications we cannottver driven PR back it is new technology tha has to basics. people are now questioning
Word of Mouth of people have always used tion (advertising, forms of communica all other ng what to buy. And marketing, etc) when decidi case. be the this will continue to
We’ve come to the point when something – something not everything they hear. It says society - when the head of MI5 very encouraging for our we’re not far off someone says in a radio interview that onse many of a dirty bomb and the only resp letting off don’t believe you.’ us can find is: ‘I
us to view our profession This new climate is asking differently. g ‘positive’ messages; it PR is not just for spreadin telling companies where can be equally useful for are prepared g wrong. Just so long as they they’re goin ion into rporate genuine public opin to listen and inco a g to feedback can send out their business. Listenin s graphs. sale different message from the ne, people don’t promise It’s time to re-focus: onli and X will save their marriage each other that Product secret of eternal youth Product Y will give them the stuff). They talk to each (the spam filter catches that s must builds trust. So businesse other. And that building - and
Word Of Mouth was actually doing OK before anyone drew up guidelines for it. According to US research published in May 2006 the average American mentions specific brands 56 times a week.
One more and Heinz could have hijacked the results for their own Word Of Mouth publicity campaign. They are making a science out of Word Of Mouth: in 2001 Frederick Reichheld in the Harvard Business Review developed a model to measure Word Of Mouth based on consumers’ willingness to recommend brands to their friends. In 2005 this was further developed by Paul Marsden at the LSE with the invention of the Net Advocacy Score. Using a 0 to 10-point scale, consumers are divided into ‘advocates’ and ‘detractors’ and by simply subtracting one from the other, a brand’s Net Advocacy Score can be measured. When correlated against future growth rates, this score can be used as an indicator of the likely future growth rate in sales of a business. Although the LSE study goes to great lengths to turn Word Of Mouth into a science, when it comes to how to drive consumer advocacy, its conclusions are interestingly low-tech. They have come up with a long list of ideas: referral programmes, selective sampling, consumer involvement in new product development, packaging or advertising development, brand ambassador programmes, causerelated activities, influencer marketing and product innovation. Surprisingly nowhere do they mention suppressing Word Of Mouth or paying bloggers to generate positive spin.
Where purity in Word Of Mouth does exist is in startups or small businesses whose manag ement remains close to its founding principles. Skype (now owned by eBay) launched its phone calls via the inter net service in April 2003 and now has 113 million registered users (Q2 06) - up 29% year on year (44.1 milli on in Q2 05). It established itself as market leader in VOIP and remains at least two years ahead of its rival s thanks to a business not built on advertising and marketing but Word Of Mouth: the company now accou nts for just over a 7% share of all international long distance calls by minute.
› BIG BUSINESSES V START-UPS
What’s needed is substance behind than the Word Of stories that lie
a refocusing on the the Word Of Mouth ratherul Mouth itself: the powerf behind the brand.
to turn their attentions back consumer and brand, uilding - trust between reb ence of what makes and getting back to the ess n, but compelling great: not spi great brands brand stories.
Yet all too often as a business grow a product becomes more successful, s, and a parallel growth in the business’sthere’s to control that product and manipuladesire it is discussed and perceived. And te how easily have a negative rather than this can positive effect on the impact of Word Of Mout h.
Proof of this came in a Millward Brown study published in October 2006 concluding that while Word of Mouth is one of the biggest influencers in creat ing brand demand and influencing purchasing decisions, online Word of Mouth makes only a small contributi on to that. The stats make interesting reading: • Just 11% of people in the US and 10% in the UK use informal sources of online info (chat rooms, blogs, online message boards, onlin e contacts) to guide purchasing decisions • Most - 74% in the US and 63% in the UK - turn to friends, neighbours and colleagues for advice • Personal contacts are considered far more convincing than online sources which only narrowly beat company-led communications like web sites and sales people • Online sources are the most likel y to be disregarded when deciding which brand to choose, the findings showed
oach to this At Borkowski we call our appr . It’s an approach Transformational Storytelling ts -and it’s cated by the earliest publicis advo has a story a firm belief that everybody founded on tool Borkowski this has been the worth telling. At brands like Hovis, with the to strengthen heritage on’s Gin, through the story invention of wheat germ; Gord ory to know the who is only the 13th in hist of the man olatier; ’s, the second-ever master choc recipe; Thornton r y service to wrap anything afte and Harrods extraordinar rtment store “anything is all at the worlds leading depa possible” d stories because these are For us, it’s about true bran d that can never be taken the only stories about a bran t invention. others, though, it’s more abou away. For n Cohen success of Borat: Sacha Baro Take the runaway t Kazakhstan to highlight the has invented stories abou wants to tell about redneck particular ‘true’ stories he intriguing flipside and US society under Bush. An America is on a now the Kazakhstan government to this is that about tell genuinely true stories publicity offensive to nted stories created for Kazakhstan to counter the inve post-modernism (unless a Borat. I think we call this rn term has been invented). newer more mode
the founding fathers of PR So what can we learn from to the a then new era and apply it at the dawn of ead of The lesson is simple: inst modern market place? formers’ – whose message targeting the usual ‘opinion on what we once quaintly is getting lost somewhere ow ormation Superhighway’ – foll called the ‘Inf spread the word at street Reichenbach’s lead and ically. level: Literally and metaphor t even begins his work, However, before the publicis more remember a universal truth it is long overdue to re: if the product is relevant today than ever befo hang you out to dry. rubbish, Word Of Mouth will