Omnicom Finds Word of Mouth Religion - Zocalo Group

Colossus Omnicom has carved off a part of its PR group Ketchum and built a separate company called the Zocalo Group, translated from Mexican means "town square". (Thanks Mitch for originally tipping me off)

This follows last year's hiving off of Denuo (another translated word, this time form Latin "afresh" or "anew") within the Publicis group. It would appear the pressure to move away from traditional to non traditional marketing and media tactics and to build customer experiences and communities rather than a communications and  advertising  is starting to take root with the big guys.

As an independent, we'd love to see more of this, particularly in Canada - it can only help us stay competitive, create word of mouth marketing evangelists and legitimize the segment overall. Until then, we'll keep evangelizing with missionary zeal.

Some cool stats from Zocalo's By the Numbers Page.

• 76% of Americans don’t believe advertising – Yankelovich, 2005
• 92% of Americans rate WOM of friends, family, and others as the best source of ideas and information (up from 67% in 1997) – GfK NOP/Roper 2005
• WOM ranked as #1 driver of directly influencing technology or services purchase decisions – CNET Business Network
• 85% of U.S. marketing executives plan to incorporate WOM, customer evangelism and blogs into their marketing mix – CMO Magazine Survey
• 74% of people hearing a personal, negative recommedation, were influenced to buy another brand – Millward Brown, 2005