Word of Mouth, The Best Gig In Town

Marketing has come a long way in the last 100 years or so. Ever since our boy Sigmund Freud figured out that we could actually use media (among other things) to manipulate how humans perceived products/brands/etc it's been quite the free for all.


Case in point:
1960: Barney takes a "Winston Break"





2008: A random song and dance outside a big tobacco company's headquarters



There's no doubt that we've come a long way to at least not trying to sell cigarettes to children, but even the current tactics are becoming obsolete. We are bombarded with so many messages daily its pretty much impossible to drown out the noise.

Enter word of mouth marketing. While not a new concept, in this world of marketing noise has made it a necessity to ensure people are having conversations about yours brands.

I was on the subway the other day and this group of women was speaking very loudly about all of the great things that Cineplex Odeon had done for her, as she had just won a year of free movies. More specifically, she was pumped about the great customer service she received so that she didn't have to pick up her movie tickets every week as the original deal intended. (See my previous post on customer service here.)

Honestly, this woman was like an evangelist for the brand to the point where I was skeptical of whether she was a real person or whether she was some guerrilla marketer getting kickbacks from the company. I continued to listen, and all of the women were sharing about their interactions they had with various brands over the course of the last few weeks, both good and bad. I had to assume they were legit, as I doubt most companies would be paying people to bad mouth another brand, but maybe I just too benevolent for my own good. ;p

Either way, as a quasi-marketer I was blown away at how these ladies were just listing off all of the brands they interacted with and their opinions with such passion. I just thought to myself: If they were talking about my brand, this would be a gold mine!

Of course it is not that easy to get people talking about your brand positively, but if you can capture the elusive beast, you'll be part of the best gig in town.