Buzz Canuck

7 Questions with Emanuel Rosen - Author of The Anatomy of Buzz Revisited

As I've mentioned to many people over the years, even if you're not steeped in this world as I am, there are 3 essential books on the subject of word of mouth everybody should have on their bookshelves.

From a broad perspective, Malcolm Gladwell's "The Tipping Point" was especially formative for me in how I saw the business world and marketing work at a time when I was just starting out my entrepreneurial life with Agent Wildfire. It is a sociological treat and he gets brownie points for being Canadian.

From a "meat and potatoes" standpoint, Gaspedal's and WOMMA's founder Andy Sernovitz provides a handy reference guide "Word of Mouth Marketing" on how to do word of mouth well and avoid the executional potholes people run into.

Wedged right in the middle of Gladwell and Sernovitz is Emanuel Rosen. Guy Kawasaki calls him the "Peter Drucker" of buzz marketing. I managed to catch up with Emanuel just after he had wrapped up his book tour of "The Anatomy of Buzz Revisited" which he had conducted from the confines of a NOLS bus, powered by vegetable oil.

The Anatomy of Buzz Revisited is a sequel to his book from his 2000 writeup  "The Anatomy of Buzz". 9 years later, the content is still as prescient as it was back then with many new examples and two-thirds new content.  His chapter 24 "Buzz Workshop" is worth the price of the book alone filled with smart and savvy considerations , plus his 10 principles in chapter 9 and 6 characteristics of "hubs" and why we talk is potent stuff. Disclosure: I feel almost guilty given my love of Emanuel's content and the fact I received the book for FREE as part of Emanuel's personal outreach of various WOM VIPs. 

Here are the outtakes from our hour on the phone together:

Buzz Canuck (Sean Moffitt): Emanuel, welcome from your tour across the country, congrats on the new book - 9 years is a long time between book editions particularly one that deals with the fast-changing world of buzz, what's changed and why the new edition?

Emanuel Rosen: Thank you Sean. I agree 9 years is quite a long time. I find one of the biggest changes is that I don't have to convince a lot of people why this topic is important anymore but more the need is to convey how these strategies and tools are being used. From my perspective, the top 3 things that have changed since my first edition (and let's remember, my first draft was in 1993!):

- most important, the availability of research simply didn't exist back in the late 90s on how and why buzz worked - we have a tonne of hard data to lean on now

- there are more case studies and practitioners and many great examples of buzz building - they are littered throughout this new edition

- it may be obvious but the technology has changed - Facebook, blogs, video and picture-based social sharing has transformed the landscape of buzz, although I would go onto mention, the majority of word of mouth (WOM) is still offline and a lot of the basic principles remain the same but the tools have obviously changed

BC: "Social media" has been the common language used in recent years to describe word of mouth and buzz building, has the world of buzz and WOM been eclipsed in popularity by the tools used to build it?

ER: Social media deserves its place in the spotlight. It is one of the ways to garner attention in this networked world. Very powerful. It's also new and as mentioned in my book - "new" gives people something to talk about. Not to minimize it but I believe social media is part of word of mouth/buzz marketing not the other way around. I think you have seen and will continue to see "word of mouth" as a term and concept have staying power and social media will subside. People have quickly learned how to deal with the tools of social media - in time, the idea of using social media will be so common, obvious and natural, it will become a component of everything we do and the term may fade over time.

BC: You've seen the debate on whether Influencers are important, Duncan Watts has produced a lot new research that suggests The Tipping Point and the Law of the Few is dead? where do you chime in?

ER: Duncan Watts ends up showing up in my book. I don't think the idea of influencers and passionate everyday people spreading buzz exist as opposite or different arguments. I'm not too sure if Watts was arguing it either. Watts mentioned that everyday people are involved in creating word of mouth and there are some people that are more influential than others, and I agree. The concern applying Watts research to marketing is applying value to what he calls the global cascade vs. building many little local cascades. I think many marketers should find value in these small cascades vs. the large yet infrequent viral effects.  Also, it's a simple economic argument - is their more value in recruiting and tapping influencers weighed against the cost of finding them. In the examples of Powerbar, Purpose Driven Life and Tremor - the effects of using infleuncer hubs made sense, in other company examples, buzz spread without the use of influencer hubs.

BC: Measurement seems to be a big topic nowadays, does word of mouth work and can it realistically be measured?

ER: I'm amazed at the tools at play to measure buzz today. I deal with the idea of measurement in chapter 5 of the book but there are 4 chapter's of WOMMA's guide dedicated to it with an number of very specific examples on buzz that was effectively measured and that showed proactive word of mouth success. Buzz certainly doesn't suffer from lack of measurement and I would argue has just as much if not more rigour than its much larger cousin - advertising.

BC- I've always loved your 6 characteristics of network hubs - active, connected, travel a lot, info curious, vocal and exposed to interests, there recalled..by memory, I have also added to  your list over time with two others "passion for the category" and "sway over other people" -do they make worthy contenders to expand your attribute list?

ER: These are interesting ones. On the passion for the category, I agree that there is quite a bit of fluidity of network hubs based on their interests or passions. Category knowledge and enthusiasm is a big factor in who will get behind something. Sometimes hubs are in the right place at the right time. On the sway over other people, "hubs" by definition talk to more people. So there is an element of frequency. Their credibility perhaps as well is based on some of the other characteristics. I think how we have dealt with sway is to view it not as a characteristic but as an outcome, did their buzz actually spread.

BC: In your chapter 9 "It's a Small World, So What?" You have 10 principles outlined that drive buzz - any ones particularly interesting for today's economy?

ER -  Two areas of study that I would love to look at more. The first is what I call implicit vs. explicit buzz. The social web allows me to support and implicitly recommend a brand without making a lot of effort. So what is the value of being on a My Space page for Adidas vs. having that conversation in real life. Does never ending friending online in social networks take away from buzz or make it easier to travel through weak ties? The other area I'm interested in is when the web allows the "wrong people" to take control of your buzz, perhaps it jumps across a category and they start wearing your stuff and not project the brand values and the whole idea of how to avoid it or work with that.

BC: The social web has produced a practitioner set that tends to sing from the same song sheet - be open and transparent vs. some buzz adherents who suggest keeping stuff somewhat secretive and creating social currency by seeding people - which bandwagon are you on?

EC: A lot of our beliefs about the world of buzz have been handed down from the world of entertainment or software, which likes the secrets (Easter Eggs) and seed strategy (sneak previews) and have people get pent up excited about a launch. Xbox, the iPod - these are hot and have high expectations. I think the rules are different for these brands vs. an average product like a CPG good. An average product and average companies don't create excitement for themselves easily. I believe for these goods, involving people openly and early is a better idea. One perfect example of not keeping things close to your chest, is the strategy used by Doritos, Nationwide and Chevrolet to promote their products aggressively before the Super Bowl, which according to Jim Nail turned into the best approach for stimulating post-game discussion.

BC: What's the biggest sin in practice by buzz marketers?

ER: Trying to apply this stuff without anything interesting to talk about. Marketers need to find an interesting or useful angle to talk about their stuff that actually helps people. Otherwise it doesn't matter what your approach is.

BC: Congrats on the book launch again, look forward to seeing more buzz about your buzz.

ER: Thank you for your time, I will be up in Toronto for a Search Engine Strategies conference in June. Hope to see you then. Don't worry about that noise, my dog is barking at my pool guy, I must go. See you soon and let's stay connected.

7 Questions with Andy Sernovitz, CEO of GasPedal, Author of Word of Mouth Marketing and Former Head of WOMMA

If word of mouth marketing was a religion (and to some of us, it almost is) than Andy Sernovitz would be our Mohammed.

For years Andy has been able to ringlead this rag tag industry of mavericks, big thinkers, opportunists and evangelists into a tightly bound segment of marketing/media practitioners  who share some insight, values and practices about word of mouth and how things should gety done in the modern marketplace and media aisle..

He was instrumental in the development  of the trade association WOMMA, wrote the book on word of mouth appropriately titled - Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking (a fixture on my bookshelf) , authored the most commonly stated code of ethics for social media and now, beyond his consulting at GasPedal , lecturing at Northwestern, blogging at Damn I Wish I Thought of That, he has also conspired to build a new organization called the Corporate Blogging Council.

Beyond a finely tuned and buzzed about pedigree, Andy is a great friend and colleague and always an interesting conversation, here are the 7 questions I threw at Andy when we chatted last.....

1) You've recently moved from being president of WOMMA back to your days as an entrepreneurial rainmaker - enjoying the shift?

It's fun to be back in the startup game again. I'm definitely a startup kind of guy.  But there is one thing I miss: the platform that WOMMA gave me to speak out and lead the fight on ethics.  I'm still a
passionate advocate on ethics issues, but it sure helps to have 400 committed companies in your corner helping to spread the word.

2) You've had a lengthy ride with word of mouth, what topics have become more prominent and what issues have become less prominent as time marches on with WOM?

I love the fact that we're not really talking about technology any more. We have so many great, easy, and often free tools.  If I want a blog or community I can get it launched in an hour. It takes away the IT excuses that prevent companies from trying these things.

3) If you're like me, you likely look at the current marketplace and cry out in horror with some marketing practices, what is a WOM  idea whose time has come and yet you haven't seen it happen yet?

I'm still flabbergasted at the companies that haven't done the basics yet. They have spent more staff time trying to research the hypothetical ROI of a blog or community that they could have just done it and found out.  That's why I love the Blog Council members (http://www.blogcouncil.org) -- they are the ones who are doing it.

4) The line between your professional brand - GasPedal and your personal brand is a little bit blurry, is this the wave of everybody's future or just the way you like to run a transparent consultancy?

Actually, one of my biggest challenges this year is to separate the two. I had the option to make it a personal brand, making a good living as a consultant and speaker.  But there's no way to grow it.  So I hired an awesome team of smart people who are building the GasPedal brand and an independent brand not dependent on me. We call it "deAndyfication". Either direction would have fine, it's just a personal choice. Think Seth Godin vs. Don Peppers.

All companies using social media correctly are going to have a lot more personal personality injected onto the corporate brand.  The important thing is to be aware of where the lines are, and manage it.  Dell has strong centralized corporate social media, where the corporate brand is first. Microsoft has thousands of individual voices, and less central social media messaging.  Both are good.

5) Smart distinction  company head vs. company operations this time around and cool new urban dictionary term ...deandyfication ..sounds like a little bit of Good to Great is slipping into your leadership skills repetoire, Andy. Let's forget about you, I like how you boil WOM down to its bare essence, for the legions of wannbe WOM marketers out there, care to topline your 5 things to get right about generating buzz from your book Word of Mouth Marketing?

Follow the 5T's of word of mouth marketing and you'll get it right every time:

Talkers: Find The People Who Like To Talk
Are they your customers? Neighborhood moms? Doctors? Bloggers? Think about the people who are most likely to tell a friend about what you are doing. Make sure they know about your new topic of conversation.

Topics: Give Them a Reason to Talk
Give people a reason to talk about you. It doesn't need to be fancy. A special sale, good service, a neat new feature, a better flavor, a funny package. (Remember the Gateway computers that came in cow-patterned boxes?)

Tools: Help the Message Spread Faster and Farther
Do everything you can to make it easy for talkers to pass along your topic. Include postcards and stickers in the box when you ship a package. Put up a chat room so people can talk to each other. Join a blog conversation. Hand out samples. (Did you ever get one of those emails with a "secret" coupon that was supposedly for employees only? Did you forward it?)

Taking Part: Join The Conversation
Conversations die out when there's only one person talking. When people are talking about you, answer them. Reply to their email. Comment on blogs that write about you. Send a lot of thank-you notes.

Tracking: Measure and Understand What People are Saying
The word of mouth conversation is the best feedback you're ever going to get. It's far better than any other kind of market research, because it is the authentic voice of the consumer. Hear what people are saying, learn from it, and use it to be a better company.

6) You once built a fairly large trade organization filled with promo companies, research houses, PR companies, big agencies, boutique firms, digital startups and I'm sure some superheros and crime figures to boot, who rules the roost (or should rule the roost) when it comes to WOM?

On the agency side, the best WOM folks usually have a media relations background. They have deep understanding of WOM skill #1: building trusting relationships with people who will speak for you.

On the client side, the best WOMMers are people with a true love of customers and customer service. You've gotta love people. That cuts across all titles and departments.

7) Despite impressive efforts, the reality is that 2/3rds of purchase decisions are made via WOM and yet only a tiny fraction of that is spent directly on trying to get it, read the tarot cards - is this the ongoing fate for WOM?, or are we reaching a tipping point? or is there some new technology, event, shift that will cause WOM to change its place and importance to companies in the future?

Repeat after me: "Hmmm."  WOM drives lots of our revenue.  We spend nothing on WOM.  So maybe if we started paying attention and investing in it, we'd have more revenue.  Maybe we could spend less on other kinds of marketing. Then we'd have more to spend on the service, support, and innovation that drives WOM.  Which would let us cut our marketing costs. And we could invest more in service, support, and innovation. Ah ha!"

You either get this, or some competitor who does is going to kick your ass.

Well said Andy, until we muse about WOM again.

The Ryder Cup of Word of Mouth, Buzz and Viral

With the advent of golf's best entertainment showcase about to take place, I thought I would provide the WOM version of the famed Ryder Cup tournament.

Why not pit the top 36 bloggers from the USA that speak on the subject of word of mouth, viral, buzz, influence and the engaging brand against the top 36 international bloggers that muse on the same subject?

Unlike some of the social media- and tech dedicated marketing and media bloggers, these broad-minded bloggers and company heads (below) have distinguished themselves by helping visitors understand how ideas spread, online and offline, through a range of different strategies and tactics and each recognizes the importance of having brands getting noticed, talked about and advocated in a 2.0 world.

In my opinion, they are much closer to explaining the purpose and benefits of a range of new media, web 2.0, co-creation, social networks and other web, cultural and social phenomenon.

For my social media appetite, they are also among the best at understanding the art and science of buzz, not getting too hung up on the Silicon Valley gossip, the backslapping self-promotion (with the race exception), the technology minutiae, the journalistic ethic or political meaning behind peer-generated ideas, content and advocacy.

To my knowledge, no one has yet built the all star list of word of mouth savvy blogs - too often our best are muddled with overarching marketing categories (The Power 150) or not fully descriptive, catch-all  social media lists. 

So here is my list, I've visited and read them all - my apologies to some of the non-english speaking International squad (there are limits to my comprehension even with pictures) and to some inevitable oversights.

Acknowledging my blind spots,  I've left 6 spots open for your own submissions on the U.S. and international side. Submit your thoughts on who publishes most credibly on the topics of influence, word of mouth, persuasion, participation, community, buzz, experiential and viral topics.

Perhaps we should have a favourite post tournament?  Any volunteers as Captains for the U.S. Side?

  The USA Team

1. Jackie Huba/Ben McConnell - Church of the Customer (Austin, Texas)

2. Andy Sernovitz - Damn! I Wish I Thought of That! (Chicago, Illinois)

3. Pete Blackshaw - CGM (Cincinnati, Ohio)

4. Jim Nail - Influence 2.0 (Boston, Massachusetts)

5. Idil Cakim - dot WOM (New York, New York)

6. Jeremiah Owyang - Web Strategist (San Francisco, Calfornia)

7. Rohit Bhargava - Influential Marketing (Washington, D.C.)

8. Owen Mack - CoBrandIt (Boston, Massechussetts)

9. Walter Karl - WOM Study  (Boston, Massachusetts)

10. Fred Reichheld - Net Promoter - (Boston, Massachusetts)

11. Max Kalehoff - Attention Max (New York, New York)

12. Olivier Blanchard - The Brand Builder (Greenville, South Carolina)

13. Charlene Li - Charlene Li (San Francisco, California)

14. Sam Decker - Bazaar Blog and Decker Marketing (Austin, Texas)

15. Joseph Jaffe - Jaffe Juice (New York, New York)

16. John Moore - Brand Autopsy (Austin, Texas)

17. Peter Kim - Being Peter Kim (Austin, Texas)

18. Mack Collier - The Viral Garden (Florence, Alabama)

19. Spike Jones - Brains on Fire (Greenville, South Carolina)

20. Ron McDaniel - Buzzoodle (Cleveland, Ohio)

21.John Jantsch - Duct Tape Marketing (Kansas City, Missouri)

22. Kim Proctor - How to Create Powerful Customer Experiences (Los Angeles, California)

23. Rob Walker - Murketing (Savannah, Georgia)

24. Lois Kelly - Foghound (Providence, Rhode Island)

25. Ann Handley - MarketingProfs (Boston, Massachusetts)

26. Shiv Singh - Going Social Now (New York, New York)

27. Laurent Flores - Customer Listening Blog (New York, New York)

28. Tom Asacker - A Clear Eye (Manchester, New Hampshire)

29. Francois Gossieaux - Emergence Marketing (Boston, Massachusetts)

30. Geoff Livingston - The Buzz Bin (Washington, B.C.)

31. Dave Balter - BzzAgent (Boston, Massachussetts)

32. John Bell - Digital Influence Mapping Project (Washington, D.C.)

33. Todd Tweedy - Word Spreads Quickly (Charlottesville, Virginia)

34. Marta Kagan - the Secret Diary of a Bonafide Marketing Genius (Boston, Massachusetts)

35. Greg Stielstra - Pyromarketing (Nashville, Tennessee)

36. Willow Baum Lundgren - Small Planet (Kansas City, Missouri)

37. Amber Naslund - The Brand Box (Chicago, Illinois)

38. Greg Verdino - GregVerdino.com (New York, New York)

39. Paul Chaney - Conversational Media Marketing (Lafayette, Louisiana)

40. August Ray - Experience - The Blog (Milwaukee, Wisconsin)

41-42??? Your Turn

The International Team

1. Frederick Herrman - Netszkobold (Germany)

2. Emmanuel Vivier - Culture-Buzz (Luxembourg)

3. Sean Moffitt - Buzz Canuck  (Canada)

4. Rachel Clarke - Behind the Buzz (England)

5. Gavin Heaton - Servant of Chaos (Australia)

6. Sam Flemming - SeeISee.com (China)

7. Ian McKee - The Power of Influence (Singapore) 

8. Mirko Pollera/Alex Giordano -  Ninja Marketing (Italy)

9. Russell Davies - Russell Davies (England)

10. Simon McDermott - Attentio (Belgium)

11. Andy Lark - Andy Lark  (New Zealand)

12. Max Lenderman - Experience the Message (Canada)

13. Paul Marsden - Viral Culture (England)

14. Laurent Valembert -  Marketing Alternatif (France)

15. Mike Rowe - 1000 heads (UK)

16. Par Thunstrom - Buzzador (Sweden)

17. CLeber Martins - Blog de Guerrilha (Brazil)

18  Willem Sodderland - Buzzer (Netherlands)

19. Jean Nasr - Alt-Buzz (France)

20. Igor Beuker - Viral Tracker (Netherlands)

21. Grant McCracken - This Blog Sits At...(Canada)

22. Mitch Joel - Six Pixels of Separation (Canada)

23. Justin Kirby - DMC (U.K.)

24. Sebastian Provencher - Praized  (Canada)

25. Alan Moore/Tomi Ahonen - Communities Dominate Brands (England/Hong Kong)

26. Anna Farmery - The Engaging Brand (UK)

27. Neil Perkin - Only Dead Fish (UK)

28. Johnnie Moore - Johnny Moore's Werblog (UK)

29. Joanna Kocieba - BuzzReporter (Poland)

30. Hjortur Smarason - Marketing Safari (Iceland)

31. Krishna De - Biz Growth News (Ireland)

32. Fred Cavazza - FredCavazza.net (France)

33. Bart van Der Aa - Icemedia (Netherlands)

34. Gianluca Artesano - Frozen Frogs (Italy)

35. Ivo Laurin - Outbreak (Czech) 

36. Chris Abraham - Chris Abraham (Germany)

37. Mark Earls - Herd (U.K.)

38. David Eicher - Brainwash (Germany)

39. Pepe Wietholz - Buzz People(Germany)

40 Christian Wilfer/Carolina Schulz -  Viralmarketing.de (Germany)

41. Dean Hunt - DeanHunt.com - (UK)

41-42??? Your Turn

Spread the word, the Game is afoot!

Addendum - also if you could, take the following Agent Wildfire Buzz Report survey about word of mouth behaviors and practices in return for a chance for your favourite 12 business books.

Word of Mouth Firestarter: Speaking Gun for Hire

Not being affiliated with a speaking bureau (at least not yet) has its pros and cons.

The pros: I can speak wherever I want, whenever I want for whatever price I want and not be concerned about previous arrangements/contracts and not feeling pressured into taking gigs I might not otherwise want.

The cons: I have to process through the administration of getting booked and paid and unfortunately, missing out on some good opportunities, particularly internationally, that can cross my way but don't since speaking is not my day job.

So for those interested in hosting conferences/seminars in exotic destinations, over-the-top hotel rooms and can furnish suitcases filled with unmarked 20s (and of course, other gigs too) here's my deal:

Who Am I: Sean Moffitt, President, Agent Wildfire - former senior marketing executive having worked on some of Canada's most loved brands and best, innovative companies, now founder and chief evangelist of a unique marketing, media and research services firms , positioned as Canada's Word of Mouth expert

Why Me:  there's no way to make this not appear like a shameless self-promotion, so here goes
- a new marketing/media practitioner, strategist and speaker - a rare combination - I have no book to push, just a lot of white paper and an unrequited passion for the subject
- a senior executive level marketer with a pedigree of business success and given our company orientation - a full breadth and understanding on most subjects relating to new media, marketing, innovation and research
- working affiliations with the Canadian Marketing Association, IAB, IABC and nGenera (the people behind Wikinomics)
- the leader of The League of Kickass Business Folk (a boutique senior-level networking group) and Canada's 1% Army (Canada's top media/marketing/digital bloggers)
- a top-rated speaker at conferences and corporate team sessions attended - enthusiastic delivery and interesting, fresh content served up in nice interesting packages, backed by being able to put insights/new concepts into context
- author of this popular blog - Buzz Canuck - you have 500 posts here to decide whether you think I know what I'm talking about
- I don't just talk about this stuff - professionally, we practice what we preach by running one of Canada's leading independent marketing/media research firms and personally, I am addicted to my:  blog, Twitter, Facebook, flickr, LinkedIn and FriendFeed amongst other social and collaborative activity
- connected to other giants - frequently I help conference and seminar organizers find other well-regarded speakers that I know through my web of contacts
- tailored content - avoid like the plague the one-stop shop presentation and ensure the content and delivery of my stuff fits the audience

My Rider Policy :) :
- Green M&Ms in a fish bowl (only green though)
- A hotel with a nice Gym, high threadcount sheets and good morning coffee

Why I Really Like Speaking:
- making new relationships with interesting, intelligent people from diverse universes
- genuinely helping people perform better in their marketing, media and research activities
-  exchanging ideas and dialogue with people doing interesting work
- I like to stay current and practice what I'm good at- this is one of them

What I'm Currently Speaking About:
- Wiki Brands - Reinventing Your Brand in a Customer Controlled Marketplace
- THE ABCs of What's Next in Marketing and Media
- It Takes a Campaign not a Community to Build a Brand - The Whos, Whats, Whys, Hows of Hosting Your Very Own Brand Network
- Community Chest - The 50 Elements of a Well-Lit Brand Community
- What's the Buzz - The 30 Things to Get Right in a Word of Mouth Program
- Igniting the Grapevine - The 36 Reasons why People Talk about You
- The Influencers are Coming - How To Find, Target and Keep Your Top 1% Happy
- Social Media Measurement - The 10 Somewhat Immutable Laws of Measuring Your Socialness
- Building the Buzz - Putting a Word of Mouth Marketing Plan together
- Customer Experience Gold - Marketing is What You Do, Not What You Say You Do
- The Great, the Good, The Bad, The Ugly - Deep Thougghts on What to Get Right in Social Media and Word of Mouth
- The Crazy Canucks - Celebrating the most Progressive Marketers in Canada
- Marketing 2010 - How will Building and Marketing Brands Change
- Corporate Workshops - Making the First Steps to 2.0
- Executive Seminars -  The Guide to Becoming a Peer-to-Peer Driven Organization
- Innovation Edgecraft - Building Ideas and Products that People Talk About and Buy
- WOM 101 - Profiling the 9 Key Types of Word of Mouth - Opportunities and Watchouts
- WOM 201 -  Digging through the Word of Mouth Playbook
- The Buzz Report - the latest research on new marketing, media, innovation and research

Upcoming:  Watch out for-
Executive Fall WOM Bootcamp - in three cities across Canada
TrendCity and the 2009 Trends Report - An exchange of Style, Ideas and What's Next

Randy Pausch - You Were One Really Cool Guy...

I remember seeing this video "Achieving Your Childhood Dreams" months back and it profiled a Carnegie Mellon last lecture series, apparently a long standing tradition....except in this case, it really was Randy Pausch's last lecture. Having been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer - he was given 2-3 months to live, and as a courageous fighter, he survived over 10 months since this lecture. Unfortunately his life came to an end yesterday July 25th, 2008 at the age of 47.

I'll let the lecture speak for itself - it's very powerful and there's a reason why it has received over 4 million YouTube views.  If there's one thing to takeaway from his message is that we're all dying everyday, just in Randy's case, it was on an accelerated, sped up basis - so with that in mind, wouldn't you want to live your life in a different way to maximize its happiness and enjoyment for yourself and others?  It's a great message from a really cool guy.

Other valuable life lessons from Randy Pausch:

- Brick walls are there for a reason,  they let us prove how badly we want something

- Testament to great education is having students have fun while learning something hard

- Let your kids paint their bedroom walls

- Respect authority while questioning it

- Never lose child-like wonder - are you Tigger or Eeyore?

- Help others

- Loyalty is a two-way street

- Ignore what prospective friends say, pay attention to what they do

- There are moments in your life that are pivotal, it's amazing to be able to know them as they happen

- Tell the truth

- Be earnest

- Apologize when you screw up

- Focus on other people, not yourself

- Don't bail, the best gold is found at the bottom of bails of crap

- Get a feedback loop and listen to it

- Show gratitude

- Be good at something, it makes you valuable

- Don't complain, just work harder

- Find the best in everybody, wait a long time if you need to

- Be prepared - luck is where preparation meets opportunity

- It's when they don't tell you what you're doing wrong, that you're in trouble, because they've stopped caring

- Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted

A nice "life mirror" for a Saturday afternoon... you will be missed Randy Pausch.   

7 Questions with Dan Hunter, IMI

Dan Hunter has transitioned himself from a very good CPG marketer into a leading mind of Canada's research community as a partner at IMI International. Dan is also a former colleague from my Procter & Gamble days, so I was happy when he accepted my invite to speak at our recent Word of Mouth Conference on the powderkeg topic of measuring peer generated media and word of mouth.

1) Measurement of any marketing tactic has come under greater scrutiny over the last few years, are we getting better as an industry?

Yes, I believe we are getting better as an industry.  First the differentiation between below the line and above the line is rapidly blurring if not disappearing all together.  There are two implications to this change in thinking: i) All marketing executions are perceived as valuable and ii) Measurement of all brand activation techniques including Word of mouth is important.  As integrated campaigns with 360 degree of touch-points are implemented, managers are asking themselves what the impact is from each and what the appropriate expenditure against each is.  At IMI,  we measure all marketing activity using the same metrics and use dollars as a common denominator.  With a database of over 8,000 case studies we are in a unique position to provide our clients with ROI on all their brand activities including word of mouth. We know our clients are asking the right questions with regard to measurement and asking the questions is leading to new and useful solutions.

2) Word of mouth is a particularly tricky one since its frequently spontaneous, any trick on how to measure it?

A brand's health is a sum of its in-market activities.  At our WOM conference, Rushkoff used a bookstore analogy with the two buzz camps referred to as Fiction (the mythology that brand advertising creates) and Non-Fiction (news stories, customer service experiences, product satisfaction etc).  The salient buzz (positive or negative) can be tracked by search (outbound) and from recipients (received, recalled) through consumer research.  Using multivariate techniques the source of that awareness can also be identified which leads directly to evaluating the “buzz” from specific marketing initiatives as well as consumer trial and interaction with the company. This measurement is significantly enhanced with a historical database that allows the 'self-statement' bias to be comparable and provide some context of the self-stated information.  The impact of the “buzz” when measured can be related to the dollars spent to achieve it leading to valuable ROI for the marketer. If the salient good and bad news 'buzz' surrounding a brand is measured a more holistic view on why brand equity measures are up down, or whether consumers are being driven to purchase, over a given time period is achieved.

3) What are the key metrics people should be looking at with a word of mouth experiential campaign? Any differences between online vs. offline-driven campaigns?

Clearly, an experiential campaign will have to consider quality of impression' or impact in order to justify its budget compared to mass marketing.  The trick is to isolate the change in attitudes and behaviour that are driven by the experiential marketing campaign as a good start, and then understand recommendations made from attendees, and received and recalled messages to non-attendees as potential recipients of Word-of-Mouth.  They can provide both the 'what' is being said and 'how much' to size it compared to other similar campaigns.  The depth of change on the key metrics will differ across categories; Instant consumables can have greater purchase change in the short-term versus hard-goods or long purchase cycle items. Regardless of category, however, do not forget to consider the efficiency driven by WOM:  Our studies clearly show that consumers who hear brand activation details through WOM are more likely to a) understand and b) participate as a result of the info, versus those that did not hear it from WOM.  As to the difference between on-line & off-line campaigns, the content and key metrics need to be comparable, although information from on-line is much easier for the consumer to acquire.  To measure the impact whether on or off line, the techniques must be the same to drive comparability.

4) Most companies don't profile their customer base on their referral value - is these a more effective way to value the importance of CRM or direct audience based on word of mouth value not just loyalty and consumption?

The implication from your question is powerful:  the more that is known about the database the better the database can serve the interests of the company and the more the company can serve the interests of its customers.  Word of mouth is just one of a number of variables that can be collected and used to the company’s and customer’s best interest. Knowing the habits and tendencies toward positive word of mouth among members of the database allows the company to direct specific programs at these customers who will then act as advocates in their social network.  Similarly knowing the tendency toward negative word of mouth allows the company to communicate with these specific individuals to transform misperceptions and change brand detractors into advocates.  Well designed customer marketing databases allow the brand group to know the cost/time to acquire new customers and the lifetime value of new acquisitions—this provides a framework on how to value the Word-of-mouth behaviour.  I strongly suggest a "what's in it for me' to incent on referral habits (sometimes recognition is more than actual rewards), especially when the WOM advocate and its recipients transactional behaviour can actually be tracked.

5) In Canada, budgets are often under pressure given the size of the market, are there any benchmarks on what percentage of budgets people should be allocating to researching their efforts?

A general rule of thumb is to set aside 10% of your marketing budget for new learning.  Some methods I used in my CPG marketing days to stretch budgets were to i) have the big brands in the portfolio fund most of the budget, on shared initiatives, and ii) measure things like ExM and WOM as parts of integrated programs.  Quite often the increased sample size for a strong statistical read on the impact of these elements on top of an existing project is fractional, and well worth the new learning.  I've also 'Dollarized' the huge benefits achieved in-market for the small cost outlays made; CFO's tend to love pay-out scenarios.

6) What are some of the surprises you have found in your word of mouth research that you might now have suspected?

The Canadian success story of Tim Horton's Roll up the Rim to Win continues to astound me--I hope most Canadians know the uniqueness of this program:  we don't see this level of success in other geographies in which we work. In IMI’s ConsumerTrack™ , we learned that almost everyone knows about the annual Tim Horton’s campaign, but what is incredible is 72% of aware consumers heard about RUTRTW through some form of unpaid media or buzz!! That includes 61% from word of mouth from friends, family or contacts. If Tim Horton's was a client, I would recommend a dramatic cut to their mass advertising budget...

7) There are some people who believe tying benefits of word of mouth initiatives back to sales is difficult to achieve and perhaps unfair given the different levels of secondary value you get - content, loyalty, support, insight - what's your position?

Word of Mouth Marketing is not alone in this struggle to link to sales.  Our fundamental approach is to look at both the media value and the residual gain to brand equity based on its content.  First, let's look at WOMM (word of mouth marketing) from its media value:  You need to isolate WOM into a 'campaign' (or an aspect of a campaign), and then specifically link changes in attitude and behaviour as a result of this outcome--this allows you to specifically value it, and compare it to the other like campaigns, or across other traditional tactics impacting the brand.  Next, consider its impact on brand perception--if you can isolate the media, you can collect the messages as well, both positive and negative.  This measurement can be valued ("I spent this and I got that") and turned into insight and quick action to steer your brand from the direction of your most valuable assets: Your consumers.

7 Questions with Patrick Thoburn, Matchstick

I've been aware and have come to know Patrick Thoburn and his partner Matthew Stradiotto, who run Matchstick for the past number of years, first as a client, then at an agency and now as colleagues. Their product seeding and influencer-driven marketing are philosophies we share in common, they've been practising it well before the current frenzy to invest in it and so I was happy that I could exchange views with Patrick at the recent CMA From Mass to Grass Word of Mouth Conference I helped chair in June.

1) Your company Matchstick has been a pioneer in the WOM space for the last 7 years, have you seen this segment of marketing change over that period of time?

We've seen the industry grow faster than we'd thought possible. A perfect storm -- of changing consumer media behaviour, enduring rise of consumer generated media, and marketers looking for more
involvement-based metrics (rather than impressions) for ROI measurement--  has made marketers ready to engage with word of mouth marketing.

2) Is word of mouth its own individual medium similar to TV advertising, packaging, PR or promotion or is it a medium?

We think word of mouth can be a medium, and it can be a philosophy, approach, religion... . We've chosen to model our services around word of mouth marketing as a medium through which a marketer can engage consumers better than other media.

3) Are there examples of taking a poor or even an average product and making it sing and buzz? Or do the product credentials have to be superior for it to work?

Our experience is that everything starts with the product. A product without innovation, a story, something that people will want to talk about is better left to the airwaves.

4) There was some recent industry buzz that suggested that influencers don't exist and that we all word of mouth to more or less the same degree  - care to debate that one?

I'd reframe that -- I believe the debate was not about whether Influencers exist, but whether they are "accidental" or not. Our experience has shown us that by engaging a category or product expert on
behalf of a brand, we can reliably and predictable create word of mouth. I am sure that accidental influence exists also, but tapping into it is not what we do.

5) A common refrain from marketers is can you measure WOM - you've spent some time diagnosing this area, any metrics or caveats marketers should be aware of before they jump in the WOM research deep end?

I think this is the big myth about womm. We can measure our outcomes as well or better than any media (with the exception of pure digital media tied to e-commerce). Last year Matchstick won a "best demonstration of ROI" award from WOMMA (Word of Mouth Marketing Association) and we were
very proud of that.

6) Many new social media, WOM and experiential agencies have started up - both specialist and within large agencies - do you embrace competition as a way to accelerate industry adoption or fear the mania of the "instant expert" might lead to a poor perception of the industry already built up?

As our industry has grown with competitors, so has our company grown. It seems the more the merrier and we all benefit from clients who are better educated on the benefits of womm because of the growing coverage of the industry.

7) With the progress of social networks like Facebook, the sophistication of mobile in other countries and the Web 2.0 boom, does it change your opinion about the balance between online and offline word of mouth and whether it makes a WOM marketer's job easier or tougher?

We think the best impact a marketer can make today with word of mouth marketing tactics is by using digital platforms. While we subscribe to the research that most wom takes place offline, our experience is that the scale and accountability of digital allows marketers to make the greatest and most measurable wom impact.

7 Questions with William Azaroff, Vancity

I met William Azaroff, Head of Online Strategy & Community Engagement for Vancity, Canada's largest credit union, more than a year ago, subsequently did some work with Vancity and not only have I been impressed with his efforts on behalf of Vancity but also now consider him a good friend and truly one of the most  passionate guys in getting online customer experience and community building right.  If your interested in his musings, he runs a pretty cool blog as well named appropriately Azaroff.com.   Thankfully we were able to bridge Vancouver and Toronto and caught up in person at the recent CMA "From Mass to Grass" Conference.

1) Vancity is an interesting enterprise, it talks about a triple bottom line - improve your money, your community and your world - does that ethos have a big effect on how you practice day-to-day? Examples?

It does, in that a site like ChangeEverything.ca doesn't have to prove a positive ROI, but it still gets a lot of love from Vancity because it speaks to a more inclusive measurement of success. We do a ton of community activities, from granting to becoming carbon neutral, to creating products that have a real positive benefit for the environment or the community, such as reducing poverty. ChangeEverything.ca fits well into that landscape.

2) Given its rankings as one of B.C.'s best employers, how much of VanCity's word of mouth is driven by what you do and stand for vs. what you say you do?

One of the things that's interesting about Vancity (and the 'C' is lower-case), is that as much as we do in the community, we're actually quite modest. So much of what we do isn't well promoted. So I think it's definitely based on how much we do, the fact that it's genuine and authentic, and as a result we are rightfully perceived as a great employer.

3) A couple of years ago, you launched something called Change Everything to help connect people who wanted to improve their local communities, what is this and has anybody told you financial institutions don't need to be so caring? :)

Nobody has told me that. Perhaps people have said it behind my back, but maybe I'm just too enthusiastic about it for someone to say it to my face. Simply put, ChangeEverything.ca is a community for people in Metro Vancouver and Southern Vancouver Island, where we do business, to connect about changes they want to make in their lives, their communities or the world. As a result, people connect and take action on climate change and social justice issues. It's an amazingly inspiring and positive environment to discuss what change means and how to make it happen.

4) Change Everything has become an award-winning and Webby-nominated cause-related social network but it remains principally a non-branded site with no profit-driven motive, how would a CEO reconcile on its value to the company?

In a more traditional company, I think it would be a tough sell. I do think the branding is strong enough that people who spend much time on the site know we were behind it, and that creates great awareness and goodwill. In the end, how do we justify giving 30% of our net profits back to our members and the community? How do we justify creating products that might reduce our profits just a little bit in favour of improving our society. We're a financial co-operative, and so we follow a different, and I would argue a better, set of rules.

5) In a still reasonably sized company of 2,300 people and 46 branches, it must be difficult to translate a consistent brand and customer experience that lives up to expectations of a compassionate, community-focused brand, how do you do it?

We're far from perfect. We're very good at delivering great experiences, but we do make mistakes, and there are areas I believe we could be more consistent. But I think people who work at Vancity know what we're about and that we make great effort to deliver on that promise. We stand for something, and so the values come from deep within, rather than being layered on top through an external branding exercise. That puts us in a much better position to market ourselves, because it's authentic and genuine.

It can also create such high expectations that when mistakes inevitably happen, people are far more disappointed in us than they might be in another financial institution. That's the flip side of our coin.

6) Cynics might say that this only works because of the granola, green-loving, community-activist fishbowl of B.C. - do you think your brand of cause-related word of mouth - exportable elsewhere?

Increasingly, I believe it is. In B.C., we're a bellwether of what's to come as more Canadians and even just consumers in general want to create more meaning in their lives and have a better environment and society. Bill Moyers once put it something like seeing ourselves as citizens and not just consumers. I think that's happening and is very powerful.

7) So you've become the poster boy for grassroots marketing behind Change Everything, what do you now do for an encore?

A great question. The pressure is definitely on. We're exploring ways to create meaningful connections between and among our members, staff and community. Using the online toolkit is a more efficient way of doing that, and so stay tuned for more great stuff.

7 Questions with Jim Button, VP, Marketing - Big Rock Brewery

After having worked with my client Jim Button from Big Rock Brewery for the last 6 months on a community-based initiative Friends of Big Rock, I had a chance to take a breather from the day-to-day and interview him when he traveled to Toronto and presented at the CMA From Mass to Grass Conference I chaired back in June

1) Big Rock as a brewery zigs where other industry competition zags, they generally produce ales in a lager marketplace and avoid mainstream marketing tactics, is this company culture, intentional strategy or market dynamics at play?

Right from the beginning Big Rock has been a zigger; it all starts with our Founder Ed McNally. There is no logic that would tell us a 60 year old should start a brewery during a recession and focus on making ales when everyone else was drinking lagers.

2) You've just completed this year's Eddies dubbed The Oscars of Beers - you were involved from the start - can you briefly describe what it is,  how it got started and how it galvanized a creative community to rally around the brand?

Actually I wasn't there right at the beginning, the idea and first couple of years was Ed's brilliance. I was simply the guy that took the event for a dozen years and tried not to screw up a good thing that Ed had started. I cannot even begin to try and explain how powerful the Eddies are for us as a brand. If you try to imagine the amount of time it takes to create a 60 second commercial (100+ hours for many of the submissions) you start to get an idea of how much passion people have for the beer itself. We often talk about how the event is a success simply because our consumers wanted the event to be a success and took the bull by the horns and built it themselves.

3) Big Rock is a bit of a paradox, although a small craft beer brand nationally, it actually has quite a large folllowing in Alberta, is it a tough balancing act?

Very tough indeed. In Alberta we have a strong following of people that know quite a lot about us. They know our founder, they know our history and they love our community involvement and support from the arts to the farming community. Elsewhere in the country we are indeed a discovery brand. We need to   remember this when we are putting efforts together - if we understand that different regions are at different places in their life cycle we will have a better chance for success. That being said, it's just nice to make sure people understand we are truly still a small Canadian craft brewery made up of a group of people that are really passionate about what they do; which is sharing a good beer with their neighbours.

4) You've made an avowed strategy to be a grassroots word of mouth driven brand by your initiatives Grasshoppin', Untapped, The Eddies and Friends of Big Rock, wouldn't it be easier to build a print, radio and TV campaign?

Yes. The way my day is going today I think we might just spend it all on one TV campaign so I can go have a nap. It's an awful lot of work selling a product one person at a time, but it sure is a lot more meaningful and effective in the long term. On second thought, forget the nap, I just re-engaged myself.

5) They say a good premium beer brand has three things going for it - a good story, a real place where its brewed and a unique product/package, care to breakdown what percentage of these is leading to your customer's sometimes unbridled evangelism?

I'm not sure I can place a percentage on the value of these components. I do however think it is most important that people have a story, whatever the story is it must be honest, genuine and believable. Build that and they will drink.

6) Beer brands in general have not been known as the most forward-leaning web participants, why has Big Rock taken the lead in a number of interesting online platforms?

We're zagging now. Actually, it's the right thing to do so it's less of a zag and more of an understanding that the world has changed.

7) Having been involved in customer engagement, brand experience events and community building before it even became in vogue, any insight for other prospective grassroots marketers from a grizzled veteran?

What do you stand for? Find it, believe it, get buy in and then start telling the story. Think long term (way way longer than your CFO is comfortable with) and execute efficiently. Put it out there and then be prepared to fight for it...not everyone is willing to take a long term view.

And I'm not grizzled.

7 Questions with Tricia Mumby - Founder of Mabel's Labels

Tricia Mumby is a founding partner and owner of Mabel's Labels - Labels for the Stuff Kids Lose and architect behind an amazing Canadian grassroots WOM success story.  I recently caught up with Tricia at the "From Mass to Grass" conference I chaired and despite some technical glitches gave one of the more rousing and best-received presentations at the conference.

1) Mabel's Labels is a real grassroots Canadian success - when did really you know you had a hit on your hands?

We knew we had a hit on our hands when WOM lead us to a hit in dailycandy.com  . It was massive.  We had no idea how it happened, but later learned this was the path:
My friend went to school with a freelance journalist
> freelancer saw her labels and wrote about us in Canadian Living
> random person in California was visiting a cousin in Ottawa and read the article
> ordered labels
> loved them
> notified dailycandy.com of great product
> thousands of orders flooded our website

To this day we still get orders crediting dailycandy.com with "how they heard".  It led to many more hits by Global TV, Fox News, Hamilton Spectator and more.

2) There's something magical going on here - you're not only building sales but your customers are really rooting for you, what's the special sauce?

The special sauce is a product that REALLY does what it says, looks fabulous, makes life easier, and has genuinely passionate founders and staff behind it.

3) From an online purist perspective, time-starved moms have not been known as a big digital enthusiast audience, care to debunk any myths here? 

YES!  I do care to debunk that myth!  Moms are online like it’s their job!  In fact, for many, it is their job! BlogHer estimates more than 36 million women participate in the blogosphere every week.  Women work online, shop online, socialize online, share online, research online and use the internet to organize their lives.  95% of Moms go online at least once per day.
By most estimates, there are more women online than men and the gap is expected to widen.   Women control 85% of household spending and they do their homework online.  44% of women report spending time on the internet is replacing TV time.

4) How has word of mouth factored into how you've grown your business? Any surprises?

It has all been a surprise.  We owe everything to "word of mom".  Most of the major milestones of our business have come as a result of WOM.  When Moms find a product or service they love - they tell their friends.  It's that simple. We can look at our sales data and see huge sales in small towns and little activity in larger towns in the same demographic. Why is that? We've lucked into an influencer in that small town and haven't yet found the influencer in the larger but similar town.

5) Now that you've achieved a measure of success and fame, does the challenge of getting the word out change as a business owner? 

It certainly does.  A big part of our WOM success is our super-quick and super-responsive customer service.  That was simple when we had 5 orders per day!  It's much harder at this level.  The key to success with women is grassroots, face-to-face product experiences.  It's a challenge to participate on our much larger playing field effectively.  We know that our passion for the business, obsession with quality control and customer service, and personal interactions with influencers has been key - now we have to scale it up successfully.

6) Are there any specific nuances to share about grassroots marketing to women?

Be inclusive.  Be consistent.  Make it easy.  Women will respond better to "I'll do this for you and your friends" vs. "here are some coupons for your friends".  If a woman recommends your product or service to a friend and the friend has a different experience, you've lost your influencer.  Women are busy - give them materials, electronic tools or something charming and remarkable to pass along. 

7) There are plenty of small businesses that have a great idea and passion and even a good story and yet still fail, are there success factors people should replicate or missteps that start-ups should avoid?

It is important to stay genuine and control your own story.  Run the business the way you want.  There is a lot of advice out there - but if it doesn't feel right - don't do it.   The marketplace can sniff out a fake in a heartbeat. I believe women are even quicker to sniff out the fake!