Mission Accomplished: The "word of mouth marketing" flags have now been seeded and firmly planted in Canada!
Our idea in organizing the just wrapped up "From Mass to Grass" conference was to get heads of business, entrepreneurs, marketers, media people and agency types excited about their roles in the new marketplace and get word of mouth on the lips, minds and plans of many leading Canadian brands.
Although currently flourishing in the U.S., the word of mouth marketing umbrella has taken a little longer to unfold in Canada. Judging by the roster of senior Canadian speakers, the "lean-forward" engagement of attendees and the energy and quality of discourse in the hallways, the success of the "From Mass to Grass' conference says we're well on the way to the new wave of people-generated marketing north of 49.
The prognosis from the conference: change is going to happen quickly, it's going to leave old marketing methods in the dust, it will reward the people who experiment now, it will shift dollars from mass media to word of mouth marketing, media and experiences and even though, we don't have everything solved or agreed, we're well in motion.
Incredibly, of the 60 some odd people I chatted to, including some establishment media types, I found nobody willing to defend the mass marketing status quo or even believe that change would be ploddingly slow and progressive to a "grass" orientation. I was also shocked how many are already starting to dabble.
Louis Gagnon, Monster.ca and myself (Sean Moffitt, Agent Wildfire ) kicked off the day with the idea that a new organized form of marketing "word of mouth" was emerging with online, offline and integrated flavours. Its growth was being driven quickly by technology, media clutter, demand for authenticity and trust and the consumer's willingness to collaborate and connect. Evidence was shared on how Canadian consumers were leading the world in its appetite for this form of marketing and that to avoid massive turnover in the CMO suite (average tenure 22 months) and agency relationships (average lifespan 4 years), Canada required a tribe of marketers that were word of mouth "love magnets" not advertising-addicted "begging for the first date" or promotion-happy "pursuing one-night stands".
Jackie Huba, author of Citizen Marketer and partner in Church of The Customer, gave a very informative keynote on the meteoric rise and surprising quality and quantity of output from amateur marketers.
Jackie gave a clarion call to professional marketers to embrace their most involved customers and to get used to the notion that in this world, everyone is now a publisher and broadcaster, control is out of control, you are your Google results and that yes, consumers do in fact want to get involved in your brand.
These people were termed the 4Fs: Firecrackers (Apple), Filters (Netflix), Fanatics (Surge Cola) and Facilitators (Mini Cooper) who happily engage in productive leisure with their favourite brands. Other key terms highlighted- the 1% rule (the consumers who drive content and collaboration) and the emergence of an important fifth P (Participation) to the marketing mix.
Eric Petersen from lululemon gave an exciting glimpse behind the curtain on how a Canadian active wear business success and lifestyle brand icon lululemon really works and how their entire marketing energy (and budget) is spent on creating great store experience, locally relevant and authentic engagement, ballsy risk-taking and a surprising amount of autonomy to its local store staff to implement change (and virtually no money on sophisticated research, TV ads or nearly any traditional kind of marketing mix). The Lulu Love Bus, a Manifesto, guerrilla store windows, brand ambassador programs and neighbourhood events were all great support for word of mouth behaving as business strategy.
Doug Walker (World RPS) gave an encore performance of Rock, Paper and Scissors with his understanding of the grassroots mechanics that made it successful: authority, mutation, participation and accretion. Also some clever word of mouth insights on the importance of storytelling, the power of context (a very funny Harper vs. Martin debate picture) and the notion that "who posts something in the blogosphere is in a lot of cases more important than what is posted".
Kyle Macdonald of one red paper clip gave a riveting and compelling human interest story of how he traded a paper clip for a home. In a folksy yet very entertaining way, Kyle laid out the fundamental human elements for his incredible buzzable initiative - great things can happen from something small, we are only limited by our imaginations, curiosity and storytelling is a powerful thing, the triumph of people connecting over media broadcasting is alive and well, and our exchange with our customers should be give and take with mutual benefits. Some wonderful funny examples were provided in his 14 trades, particularly in his trip to Yahk, B.C., a questionable trade for a Sno-Globe, time spent with Alice Cooper and Corbin Bernsen and the red paper clip lovefest in Kipling, Saskatchewan...a real gem of a session that had the audience smiling, thinking and cheering "the little paper clip that could ...and did".
The Great Word of Mouth debate was built up as a discussion about some of the controversies and lightning rod issues about the word of mouth space. It did not disappoint.
Martin Ouelette, founder of Provokat played the cheeky Eddie Hascle role and was appropriately placed at the far end of the panel. He provided some profoundly deep and simple insights about word of mouth - the conversation is not owned by consumers - it's owned by the marketer and the consumer - implication - don't be afraid to dialogue and engage with them because of supposed rules or web 2.0 decorum. He also questioned the ability of a heavily brand image driven company like Nike to grow in today's marketplace. We'll also give Martin the metaphor of the day - as a marketer you are the parents, your consumer is an unruly teenager--try as you might to control their ways, they're going to do what they want to do --best advice - give them some guidance and get out of their way. Martin's a maverick who definitely surfaced on my radar as an outspoken guy who "gets it"...whether you agree with him or not, the Canadian marketing world needs more Provokat.
Geoff Craig, VP Marketing for Unilever offered a candid perspective not often seen in the executive marketing suite. Candidly, as a fan of Geoff's recent Dove and Axe campaigns and a naysayer on his Sunsilk work, I was curious on how his message would sink in with me. Having heard him now speak, I know why Unilever is leading Canada's CPG world in getting this word of mouth stuff right more often than not. First, he offered two appropriate cautions - awareness-driving media like TV isn't going away tomorrow and that the positioning of a brand is still important as a guide to the conversation you'd like to have. Then, he proceeded to strip down the beliefs of traditional marketing practices - the inflated value of media companies, the irrationality of attribute-driven communication, the overly rigidized use of ROI models, the need for more intuition in the communications repertoire and the need to innovate a better relationship between marketer and consumer before its too late. Geoff offers a measure of faith that large "command and control" companies can retool themselves with marketers playing key roles...
Rob Kozinets, professor at Schulich, offered up a number of examples playing on the fringes of the ethics of word of mouth - Walmart/Edelman paid blogging, Microsoft Vistas blogger giveaway and Wendy's unbranded movie approach. The discussion elicited some hot debate on whether any rules were required or if self-governance would be the ultimate police.
The summation was that WOMMA's rules should be considered as smart guidelines and operating outside of many of them was generally a recipe for brand suicide, to be used at the brand owner's risk. An interesting question continues in my head of whether a brand has to reveal itself even if it's not selling anything (the first letter of the honesty ROI - relationship). I'm more inclined after the debate to believe its possible for brands to create content that influences culture without the need to reveal themselves in certain scenarios - so long as the lack of disclosure doesn't lead to an unfair benefit, fraudulent practice or targets a vulnerable group.
Cam Heaps, president of Steam Whistle Brewing, held to his long-standing belief of creating great "brand experiences" for consumers and that marketing's focus should be about crafting ways to deliver wider, broader and better product, operations and customer experiences. Cam's emphasis on the human side of running a business and the need to have live interaction and dialogue with your customers was an important balancing point to the mania rush to online-driven tactics which regardless of what you call them can oftentimes masquerade as broadcast ads in a different media. He's spot on and although he was the least vocal of the four presenters, likely came closest to my understanding of a word of mouth home run - that includes profoundly inspiring customer experiences, product/process authenticity, mutual dialogue with your customers, marketing as everybody's job and the premium for having a grassroots savvy understanding of your customer base.
The day ended on a high note with the anointing of the Canadian Marketing World's Rock, Paper, Scissors champion. We hope he'll be able to defend at next year's Word of Mouth Conference.
We also conducted eight concurrent sessions with over 30 speakers I haven't even begun to summarize those yet...look forward to those cribs, a follow up one-day seminar on word of mouth, Agent Wildfire's Buzz Report and our soon-to-be-revealed 52 Faces of Word of Mouth at the hub and bulletin board for word of mouth in Canada - Buzz Canuck.
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