CHARTERED INSTITUTE OF MARKETING EVENT / VIRAL MARKETING: THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY
27 April 2010
Word of mouth evangelist preaches dialogue over dogma
- Media Type
- Integrated
- User Generated Content
- Viral
- Country
- UK
- Source
- News
- Tags
- Viral
- Word of mouth
- online
- social media
- Conversation
- User-Generated Content
- PR
We were a little hungover after the sun came out to play this weekend, so imagine our relief when 1000heads word of mouth 'evangelist' Molly Flatt shook away the cobwebs with a barnstorming dismissal of brand noise at Monday's CIM event around viral marketing.
Taking to the floor before an audience of gathered travel company execs and marketers at the Dominion Theatre, London, Flatt caused a stir by not only questioning the wisdom behind the desire to simply 'go viral' but then pondering the value of the sector's most memorable recent campaign; the Cannes- winning 'The Best Job in the World', for Tourism Queensland. Flatt argued that though a great PR campaign, it was no WOM conversational piece.
Preaching the gospel for a WOM approach, Flatt pointed to the diminishing returns of the Queensland campaign - job winner Ben Southall's blog videos dropping into the double digits in viewer numbers and few comments or interactivity on display.
Flatt said: 'I'm hoping to be a bit disruptive. If you're thinking about viral I would clean up your act and do something more wholesome. The purpose of a virus is to make more of itself and to be parasitic. Coming from social media where the definition is two-way, something which doesn't have a dialogue is a little bit worrying.'
Flatt detailed 1000heads' work with brands such as STA Travel and Tourism New South Wales, encouraging tourists and travelers themselves to represent their experience and the product.
The latter campaign reached UK citizens via social networks, asking them to create an experience of the state through user generated content in a virtual 'Awesome Tour of Sydney'. Nine influential online voices were invited to take part in a contest to win tickets to the city by creating responses to six challenges. The interactions led to 477 content episodes, featuring sweet, home-made entries (see pics), 370,800 engagements across 25 social networks and an upbeat WOM around Sydney, with a 34:1 postive:negative ratio.
It was this human engagement which Flatt argued was key to success of a campaign - who questioned that should a piece of content spread in the viral model, what would the eventual take-out for consumers be? when answering this question, 1000heads rely on their own metric system, WOMTrak, measuring sentiment as well as numbers, with a team of human analysts providing the common sense around the results.
Flatt later told Contagious: 'We are really keen that WOMTrak has a human interpretation, as conversation is all about context. We are real people and we like experiences, these are what produce a conversation. Word of mouth is about people and relationships and not about content. It is about how you are making consumers feel, about how useful, entertaining and engaging you are being, rather than just thrusting content at them.'
www.1000heads.com
awesometourofsydney.tumblr.com
Taking to the floor before an audience of gathered travel company execs and marketers at the Dominion Theatre, London, Flatt caused a stir by not only questioning the wisdom behind the desire to simply 'go viral' but then pondering the value of the sector's most memorable recent campaign; the Cannes- winning 'The Best Job in the World', for Tourism Queensland. Flatt argued that though a great PR campaign, it was no WOM conversational piece.
Preaching the gospel for a WOM approach, Flatt pointed to the diminishing returns of the Queensland campaign - job winner Ben Southall's blog videos dropping into the double digits in viewer numbers and few comments or interactivity on display.
Flatt said: 'I'm hoping to be a bit disruptive. If you're thinking about viral I would clean up your act and do something more wholesome. The purpose of a virus is to make more of itself and to be parasitic. Coming from social media where the definition is two-way, something which doesn't have a dialogue is a little bit worrying.'
Flatt detailed 1000heads' work with brands such as STA Travel and Tourism New South Wales, encouraging tourists and travelers themselves to represent their experience and the product.
The latter campaign reached UK citizens via social networks, asking them to create an experience of the state through user generated content in a virtual 'Awesome Tour of Sydney'. Nine influential online voices were invited to take part in a contest to win tickets to the city by creating responses to six challenges. The interactions led to 477 content episodes, featuring sweet, home-made entries (see pics), 370,800 engagements across 25 social networks and an upbeat WOM around Sydney, with a 34:1 postive:negative ratio.
It was this human engagement which Flatt argued was key to success of a campaign - who questioned that should a piece of content spread in the viral model, what would the eventual take-out for consumers be? when answering this question, 1000heads rely on their own metric system, WOMTrak, measuring sentiment as well as numbers, with a team of human analysts providing the common sense around the results.
Flatt later told Contagious: 'We are really keen that WOMTrak has a human interpretation, as conversation is all about context. We are real people and we like experiences, these are what produce a conversation. Word of mouth is about people and relationships and not about content. It is about how you are making consumers feel, about how useful, entertaining and engaging you are being, rather than just thrusting content at them.'
www.1000heads.com
awesometourofsydney.tumblr.com
Register for our newsletter /
COMMENTS /
Nina Lewis
It's all about paying it forward....elevating perceptions of brands can only really work when consumers promote them amongst their own social groups and have something to talk about, encouraging word to get around...so to speak. Reputation is everyting after all.