February 17, 2010

January and February are proving to be very hard going, however, yesterday, on a rare day of sunshine, the IPA hosted a presentation on Word of Mouth which detailed how positive this is for the whole communications business.

The presentation was given by Ed Keller of Keller Fay, an expert on Word of Mouth from the US, who shared some of his work and findings with a packed house.  There was good news for everyone, agencies, advertisers and media owners.  Ed started by debunking the myth that word of mouth was the preserve of online - reporting that over 90% of word of mouth messages are delivered offline.  Even better, Keller Fay’s key finding is that 48% - (yes that is nearly half) of consumer brand conversations refer to marketing or media, and 22% of brand conversations are led by advertising.  Ed also told us that about 20% of word of mouth is stimulated by advertising and that the effectiveness of word of mouth is substantially increased when stimulated, encouraged, and/or supported by advertising.

So good news all around.  But how do we make this kind of data actionable?  The new TouchPoints Survey due to be published in July includes some of the Keller Fay questions.  For the first time we will be able to identify the WOM Conversation Catalysts by product category and understand who are the main drivers of WOM.

For each product category you will be able to calculate a “WOM” target market.  So for example if you were Vodafone or Orange and you were planning a campaign for the Apple i-phone you will be able to identify Conversation Catalysts for mobile phones and then calculate and see what your campaign delivers against your WOM target vs. your buying targets and your planning targets in the Channel Planner.  You could then adjust your campaign accordingly.

In terms of using this in the Hub Survey, if we take our Vodaphone/Orange Apple iPhone example again, it would be possible to understand how those with a high “WOM” score might behave differently than a broader planning base.  Do these people consume media differently?  Do they consume fewer media or more?  Given that they are more sociable (by definition) do they spend more time out of home?  Do they multi media task more than other people do?  How easy are they to reach using different media?  What time of day is key for their media consumption - does the pattern change as they move through the day?

So lots of exciting opportunities for incorporating and evaluating WOM into our future campaigns which will allow us to harness this currently unmeasured campaign benefit.