Word of mouth - people really like it. Ads that interrupt - people don't like so much. Yawn...
It's fascinating how media will fixate over new Google ads that edge to the issue of irritating and outightly rejected pop ups or some fascinatingly new social network like "Insert name" here.
Proportionately however, they do not cover the overwhelming acceptance that people have for recommendations from their friends. Simple organic and managed word of mouth gets nowhere near the press it should deserve for influencing 2/3rds of consumer purchase decisions and exactly half of B-to-B decisions.
I'd liken the rift between what's pressable and what's actaully truly buzzable to Warren Buffett's school of investing.
Buffett's contrarian investment strategy is not popular with everybody, may underperform hotshots within a given year but has stood the test of time.
It's strategy can be summed up in oversimplistically be summed up in 4 statements:
-only invest in things you understand ("circle of competance")
- invest in things that have real return on investment
- look for sustainable competitive advantage
- look for strong and fundamentally sound management not people outside of their expertise
It's why Berkshire Hathaway has outstripped market returns by 7 percentage points over the last decade and why $15 invested invested in 1965 returns $87,500 today.
Now I'm just guessing here but if the "Oracle of Omaha" was the "Rainmaker of Omaha", he would look at this crazy world we call marketing, communications and PR and I would imagine he would invest heavily in sound-minded, high return, sustainable and well-managed word of mouth activities than next month's gimmick.
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