Buzz Canuck

The Engagement Octopus of Movember

       
Graphic credit to Brandon Home and Threadless

A good chunk of what has obsessed our office over the last few weeks is the launch of Movember, christened last week by a moustache-inspired art gallery Movember launch event in Toronto.  This is my third year as a committed, albeit scant blonde, MoBro (@movembersean) .

Part of the success of the Movember movement to change the face of men's health, has been in extending out well beyond the traditional circles of fundraising, in order to deliver attention, buzz and engagement.

It's open armed approach is embedded in its history - from 30 Australians having a dream (and perhaps one too many lagers), Movember has grown to a cause supported by 620,000 Mo Bros and Mo Sistas worldwide raising millions of dollars for the treatment and detection of prostate cancer worldwide. The success of Movember has not been driven by celebrity, a wealthy steward or a crisis moment; it's more been driven by word of mouth and getting people to care about and change their appearance for a cause, where they live, work and play.

Here's the impressive array of places you'll find Movember this year, consider the Movember Engagement Octopus more than 30 tentacles wide:

On the website front:

1) Movember.com - a GQ-meets-Trucker Mo designed website whose key mission to to spread news, orchestrate fundraising and share member involvement with 6 country-based offshoots.

2) Movember Registration Area - where all the fundraising begins - sign up as team captains, join a network challenge and integrate all your fundraising onto Twitter and other social arenas.

3) The Movember 5-Plex - five things you can do while on Movember.com - update on news, see how you rank across other fundraisers, get some merchandise, build out your social pages and visit a swanky and flash-based The Lodge - and amidst the stag heads and other clasically male trinkets, check out the Style Guide, some tips and facts and 5 basic Movember rules.

4) The MOSCARS - a MO-sourcing, video based competition built by Meme Labs to aggregate all the videos that flag why Mo Bros and Mo Sissas are participating in 2010, the three top videos get suited up with Movember swag.

On the Social Extensions front:

5-8) MO Social - Movember has keenly taken advantage of digital word of mouth by inhabiting the top 4 networks: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr with many country and city specific handles - next year perhaps we'll add LinkedIn - but perhaps that would make us less cool?

9) Movember Digital Challenge and Captains - we've localized and created a focus for our web interests through passioante city-based captains and assistant captains in 20 cities across North America.

10) Movember Digital Champions - the recruitment of concentric circles of 2,000 digital ambassadors in Canada - who are connected, influential and ready to MO Up  who will all congregrate at @MoChampions.

11) Movember Network Challenges - the ability to compete against peer companies, agencies and teams by activating a multi-team leaderboard within Movember.com and starting some Mo smack talk.

12) Movember MoPhone - check out iPhone apps and get your iMo on with Movember MoPhone and monitor, scrutinize and share your 30 days of follicle growth.

On the sponsor, PR and merchandise front:

13) Movember Threadless Challenge - one of my favourite causes meets one of my favourite crowdsourced websites - check out over 400 of the best Movember T-shirts you'd ever want to see, vote on and buy.

14) Movember Hockey Mos - the use of Lanny McDonald and Wendel Clark as front men is as Canadiana as maple syrup and Kraft Dinner, also take our recent poll on your picks for the best historical and current hockey Mos and which team logo derserves a MO.

15) Movember Cufflinks - grow a Mo with style with Arbitrage cufflinks .

16) Movember Shoes - get a pair of limited edition shoes from Tom's and have the coolest slicks on the block.

17) Movember T-Shirts - get some groovin' T-shirts and badge your self publicly http://www.zazzle.com/movember+tshirts  or http://www.palmercash.com/search.aspx?x=0&y=0&SearchTerm=movember.

18) Movember Mercedes-Benz Sponsorship - Mercedes-Benz is a lead sponsor for the effort and is offering up some Smart Cars for promotion and some Mercedes-Benz prizing for the key fundraisers. 

19) Movember Schick Sponsorship - check out the Schick manscaping swag available from Australia and North America in this year's effort as well as an effort to tailor your Mo at SchickMoPic.ca.

20) Movember Moo Cards - those lovable stationary cards do it again - this time get your ready made Mo Business cards and MiniCards - just ordered mine.

21) Movember Sector9 Longboards - forget the grizzly November weather - bump and grind down your local 'hood with an official Movember 'board.

22) Movember Demitasse Jewellery - attention Mo Sistas, attention Mo Sistas - get your moustache inspired jewellery and become the fashion diva of Movember.

23) Movember Canadian Club Cocktails - move over Mad Men, your season may be over but ours is just beginning - look for official and some unofficial Canadian Club cocktails inspired by Movember - having drank all of them at the Toronto launch, I highly approve.

24) Movember NHL Players - it's anticpated more than 15 NHLers will be donning a jersey and growing a Mo this Movember, as much as playoff beards are important, mid-season MOs are even more important - have a read on the Minnesota Wild's effort and it's link to the NHL effort of Hockey Fights Cancer.

25) Movember NBA Involvement - talk about a home season opener, NBA fans got their dose of Movember recently in Vancouver

26) Movember Corporate Challenges - who says bankers, lawyers and investment people don't have fun, one of the more successful efforts in Movember is getting prominent companies to raise funds as a company with an automatic company match

27) Movember Prostate Cancer and Livestrong affiliations - establishing strong ties to the representative bodies for Movember in Canada and the U.S. leaves a trail of a lot of positive goodwill and also the raison d'etre for undertaking the campaign.

On the events/experience front:

28) Movember Local Committees- it's amazing what happens when local people embedded in their communities rally their own business, organizational, trade and neighborhood groups around the Mo flag.

28) Movember Gala Parties - commune and celebrate with your MoBros and MoSistas by fundraising and joining us at the 7 Canadian gala parties and 14 US gala parties from Aspen to Victoria.

29) Movember Moustache-Inspired Art Exhibitions - the moustache has had a long and storied tradition among the elite and bourgeosie of society - why not launch our effort this year by celebrating the aesthetic of the Mo ?

30) Movember Barber Shop Shave Offs - November 1 straight edge clean shaves, remember follow Movember's five golden rules and you can't go wrong.

31) MoCupcakes - the quest to find the manliest cupcake in Canada - join our effort as a cupcaker, amateur baker or cupcake enthusiast  @MoCupcakes .

32) Movember Event Space -why wait for a gala event to pop up in your 'hood? Organize and post your own events and order a Movember party in a box .

32) Movember Prizing - compete for one of fourteen Mo grand prizes  - vie for the title of Man of Movember, Miss Movember, Lame Mo, best Mo Combo, best Mo team, best Mo fundraiser and many others http://ca.movember.com/prizes/.

The Launch of "You Twit Face"

In the year 3000, Conan has still got it, even in L.A....

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.

The Building Blocks of Word of Mouth - The 36 Reasons Why We Buzz

 
As a follow up to my post back in 2007  and presentation on the 36 Reasons Why We Buzz (inching up to 5,000 views), I have provided an elaboration on the different and sometimes strange reasons (to us anyway) on why customers, fans and influencers and stakeholders buzz stuff about 20 times per day.

The graphic above points to which camp these WOM attributes of your brand characteristics, customer/marketing experience provided and person/influencer interacted with fit. The matrix outlines from most brand/product centric to people-centric (from left to right) and goes from most internally motivated to most incentive-laden (from top to bottom).

Contrary to popular social media opinion,  you simply just don't buzz about stuff or brands that are involved in conversations (although increasingly it helps). That denies a whole area of innovation, creativity, operational excellence, product design and brand dvelopment its fair shake. So, we've identified the 11 inescapable things about your brand or product that start the chatter, the 15 things about the experience shared with your customer/influencer that fire up recommendations and the 10 things about who the individual person is that's being influenced that drive passionate referral.

On each one of three camps, people can get jazzed for intrinsic, extrinsic and explicitly-based reasons.

Intrinsic WOM - "I believe, therefore I buzz" - in this form of word of mouth, people act oftentimes without the added effect of incentives or external appreciation - typically driven by a feeling of connection with the brand or group, a shared affiliation with the brand motives or deeply held belief about the favorable characteristics or values of the enterprise, brand, people involved or inititaive and/or an obligation to a cause or moral responsibility

Extrinsic WOM - "I will be recognized, therefore I buzz" - this type of word of mouth is driven by factors outside the person themselves and can include the non-monetary external incentives of: prospect of fame and being noticed, a feeling of exclusivity or being treated specially, an opportunity to display talents or creativity to a wider or well-heeled audience, a satisfaction of ego needs and/or an ability to achieve greater social connections and status  

Explicit WOM -"I will get something, therefore I buzz" - this is a transactional relationship where the word of mouth generated is driven by some type of explicit reward received, whether that be hard and fast monetary* or product rewards, eliminating a problem, gaining expert knowedge and insider information or receiving the privledge of an aspirational or VIP experience - the idea of talking about your individual reward can be driven by an opportunity to gift/regift, bragging rights or helpful advice/inside scoops to others who might like to receive the same benefit

If you're curious, we've developed a 60 premium WOM survey at Agent Wildfire to tease out what kind of word of mouth building blocks is likely to drive your particular business. Just remember, frequently a successful word of mouth effort mines at least 5-6 of the above attributes.

* to be clear, Agent Wildfire does not support monetary rewards to drive word of mouth unless in rare siutuation where the request for performance (i.e. mystery shopping or content development) consumes a large amount ot time, effort and resources and substitutes for hiring staff to perform the same role

The Time Scale of Word of Mouth - What's the Shelf Life of Your Buzz?

Some of these things are not like the other. Yes, word of mouth-based strategies and tactics have a much different burn rate.

Some people believe that word of mouth is not a campaign or short term thing. Others believe that word of mouth can't be sustained and thus it's confined to being used as a short-term tactic focused on being noticed and talked about for a short interval. I happen to disagree with both of these hardline positions. Depending on what you want out of your people-driven marketing, each may have a role.

I'll share with you instances where each may apply below.

Viral - the online "turn your head and get noticed" strategy is en vogue because of its potential to spread, but typically it has the quickest burn rate measured typically in days and has the highest level of unpredictability - it only becomes memorable and more long lasting if followed up with more tactics or is picked up by traditional media

Relevant occasions where this can be used:  upon launching a new initiative, taking a risk, driving brand awareness or conducting an event

Social Networks - with the crush of competition in social networks, pages, groups or apps typically experience the most intense interest in the first few days/weeks of introduction, trailing off from there and only are sustained by an ongoing set of activities or social network tools that demonstrate something of true ongoing value/entertainment

Relevant occasions where can be used: changing perceptions, holiday seasons or relevant contextual and time-based siutuation

Buzz - the offline version of viral, typically has a slightly longer burn rate given its intent of building up toward something and its less efficient medium of real life conversation - think festival movie premieres launched months ahead of full release of movies

Relevant occasions where can be used: industries that operate on a standard cycle, influencer and taste-driven industries where key stakeholders must be seeded first as part of a two-step approach

User Generated Content - choose your flavour, vote for someone, share your profile, solve a simple problem, customize your avatar - this is the quick and typically playful version of word of mouth, if done correctly and launched as a "create, rate and develop" platform" - word of mouth can be sustained over months, but typically has finite cycle and usually run as a campaign or a successive set of campaigns

Relevant occasions where can be used: deciding on new variants, providing a platform for creative expression, repositioning brand, in advance of major media launch

Referral program - the "shaking hands" form of word of mouth - building on the time wron principle of human interaction "you do something for me and I'll do something for you", however rarely practiced well because the benefits are usually company-skewed - typically has high levels of enthusiasm upfront followed by waning interest, particularly if benefit does not add up to resources invested

Relevant occasions where can be used: with employees or involved stakeholders, in situations where it's easy to do (Amazon affiliate program) or where financial/reward incentives are clear (eBay)

Customer challenge/intervention - attempting to make a direct change in the way people act i.e. change competitive brand, adopt a new behaviour or increase consumption - if executed with three stages of buzz building, challenge participation of members and broadcast back of results/testimonial, focus can last months if not years, typically confined to a season

Relevant occasions where can be used: as the #2 player in a market, where brand benefit is complex and needs to be experienced, where results of using product/servcie are noticeable (Pepsi/Coke challenge) or noticeable over time (Nestle Purina 30 Day Challenge)

Influencer marketing - the process of identifying, incubating and seeding your most valuable audience, typically our infleucner programs last 8-32 weeks - why? Because that's how long they want to be around. Influencers are typically early adopters and tend to lose interest as the underlying product/service starts to get noticed by the mainstream

Relevant occasions where can be used: where the product category is taste or expert-driven, where the product badging/product benefit is visible, where the product/service is not yet caught mainstream attention, where influencers are readily identifiable and followed

Grassroots/cause marketing - where brands act in association with an existing charity (the RED camapign) or their own cause (Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty), although affiliation may last for years, unless companies are truly committed, word of mouth surrounding company altruism is typically confined to a year

Relevant occasions where used: targeting a new or specific audience, building a likable brand perception, wrapping the brand in an idea larger than themselves, disarming reaction to large brand social media/word of mouth efforts by focusing on altruistic motives

Experiential marketing - providing a transforming and immersive experience for a fan, customer or influencer, typically in the form of an event - lasting impressions of what the brand stands for and who it attracts may have ongoing attraction for participants (as only 10% believe they ever receive a positive customer experience anyway, this can come as a nice surprise), however, given experiential nature - feelings and memories do wane off over time unless repeated

Relevant occasions where used: where full scale experience can't be provided to all prospects (automobile sampling), creation of lifestyle brand/sentiment, affiliation with lifestyle property or values and where customers or fans like to congregate offline for entertainment, information, aesthetic enjoyment or escape

Customer collaboration/co-creation - involved exercises of crowdsourcing take awhile to develop - if we use Tuckman's model of development - forming-storming-norming and developing - this type of word of mouth has a considerably longer burn rate than its close cousin of user generated content - Lego's Mindstorm has a year long mission but frequently the passion instilled and formal group connection that last bridge across a number of years

Relevant occasions where used - where users are very involved in the product/category, where users can drive to one right answer, where organizations are transformed by the input and development, where talent on topic is displaced across geography

Social media - the "shiny thing" for clients, agencies and consultants alike - blogs, podcasts, wikis, video sharing sites and other social mashups are the cat's meow as they take considerable talent to build and incubate and to operate effectively, they need to have longevity beyond next month's campaign - most experts advocate you need to take a two year minimum run at your social media effort to truly find your voice, do enough outreach, produce enough content, analyze the results and realize the impact to your business 

Relevant occasions where used - where there is communication or information value to your product/service, where authenticity and transparency of operations exist, where there is a constant variety of news and initiatives, where there is a celebrity factor among your internal employees (ie. Richard Branson), where content can be delivered effective without an expensive middleman (media)

Brand Community - 60% of Fortune 1000s are planning a community rollout before 2010 - one of the big reasons is an ongoing stream of benefits and the longevity of value in brand insight, content, advocacy and support - many experts would indicate that a strong community starts slowly and only begins matures after 2 years and some have been going on for decades (Harley in an offline world and The Well in an online world)

Relevant occasions where used: where the company embraces the voice of the customer, where after market support and customization is required or looked forward to, where people like to congregate online and offline around their interest/brand (BMW Mini), where the company can demonstrate value from a stream of community input, where the brand is likable and attractive

Customer Evangelism - the nirvana of brands seeking community strength - customer evangelism and zealotry, where oftentimes organization of this form of word of mouth is hosted by the fans themselves not the company (Ikea positive fanatics, Apple fans ) - this is truly the area where lifetime value of the customer plays a role as brand loyalty and affinity can span decades - obviously, from an orchestrated word of mouth approach - this takes year over year investment, company-wide embrace of customer/community centricity and dedicated resources to incubate sustainable enthusiasm

Relevant occasions where used: where the customer experience is so good, where  a strong trust bond has been built up between brand and customer, premium and/or well-differentiated brands, brands with a strong point of view and experience that lives it, where employees are as big in the brand as most rabid customers

So as the women bar owner in the Blue Brothers movie responds to the question- "so what kind of music do you have here? Oh we have both kinds, country and western". I find word of mouth is considerably more discriminating and variety-driven.

Word of Mouth - A Prescription for a Bad Economy...and Insanity

Word of Mouth - A Prescription for a Bad Economy

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: future the)

I've usually taken a diplomatic tact when dealing with the traditional-minded world of media, marketing and research people but c'mon, enough is enough....if you can't be startled and motivate to act by a feather to the soles of your feet than maybe you need a blunt force blow to the head.

Trust me - from one who has spent tens of millions dollars on advertising and mainstream marketing in his lifetime, you are peddling fool's gold. The same people who believe a recession couldn't happen are the same ones ascribing increased sales to increased media weight - insanity.

Wake up. Campaigns rarely if ever build brands anymore, price-offs don't build sustainable consumption, shackling yourself to a brand identity manual is "paint by numbers" marketing that denies the reality of what has happened in the last decade to your consumer, marketplace and culture at large. Ask anybody under 27 years old in your department, they will tell you the harsh reality of what's happening - are you prepared to listen?   

With the remote, expansion of channels, PVR, simultaneous multimedia consumption - I would evaluate a TV GRP being 20% of the benefit it was ten years ago. Plus it's at least twice as expensive.

Radio and newspapers are a dying game and whereas I have a lot of heart for well-produced and targeted magazines, who wants to read about stuff that is weeks old in a 24/7 game.

I don't mean to add insult to media injury - there are some fine journalists and media people out of work right now...but the model is irrevocably broken and not coming back. The idea of companies renting out space and being viewed as an interruption to the good content is a horribly outmoded concept.

Even on captive mediums, the communication is all wrong. Very few stop me in my tracks, provoke me to do something or invite me to learn more. I guarantee you if you drive past 20 billboards today and if one even gets you to think about the product being advertised, I would be surprised (yes, I know it's snowing but you should still be able to see them). We hate the bravado, don't trust the promise and likely worse, simply don't care about the entire impersonal selling approach.

Join the real game and stop watching the scoreboard. Although it may lack standards, be slow to scale, be apparently risky, may deny some of your strategic genius and require a new set of skills, word of mouth and all its different variants is the real deal.

Why? Well, you have a Slideshare-favourited presentation in the attached that spells it out for you in precise, well-supported detail. The shorthand version for those not serious enough to care:

1 ) WOM Gets Noticed

2)  WOM Taps Participation Values

3)  WOM Stimulates Action

4)  WOM has Longevity

5)  WOM has Less Cost/More Value

6)  WOM is a Competitive Advantage

7)  WOM Targets Influence

8)  WOM is More Measurable

9)  WOM is More Trusted

10) WOM is More Customer Centric

11) WOM Provides More

12) WOM is the Future

The Canadian marketing groups across this country will spend $20 billion in media next year. We have trained a generation of marketers and advertisers not to rethink the equation- I guarantee ahead of time - most of their efforts will be wasted, that is a given. The big question is what are YOU going to do about it?

Agent Wildfire - There's a New Site in Town and She's Looking Good...

There's an adage in the service industry that you are your own worst client.

I confess, it's true. You spend so much time on your client's work that you take your eye off your own. Crossing fingers and barring no other client commitment, we will be launching our new shiny corporate site later this week and moving past our cobwebby 2 year old site.

Does this change what we've doing as Canada's Word of Mouth experts? Not really.

But with new programs, a new office, new staff and new clients, we thought it was time for a change.

Based on your feedback, we hope you'll find our new site more appealing for the following reasons:

- for the user experience addicts - it will be an easier navigate menu with consistency of layout

- for the design enthusiasts - better, more consistent imagery that's easier on the eyes

- for the marketers who get it or want to get it - we'll be providing better explanations, stats and quotes on what we do and how it can help you

- for the social media crowd - we will be launching a new corporate blog that will be broadcasting what's going on inside Agent Wildfire, freeing up Buzz Canuck to muse about industry devbelopments at large

- for the progressive marketing types - we will be launching and profiling a full ensuite of programs we are launching in time for the holidays and 2009

- for the survey junkies - we will be launching a 100 pt. survey that shorthands how word of mouth-able your brand really is and what type of WOM it lends itself best to

- for the business owner - it will explain to you more clearly the 6 branches of servcies and 30 types of program we offer

- for the word of mouth student - it will provide a resources area and an opportunity to participate in Wildfire groups and associations

- for the directionally challenged - it will provide much better directions to our new pad

- for the people people - it will explain what types of people and partners work with us and given a number of great new hires, tell a story of the hothouse of expertise in the Chateau Agent Wildfire

Shortly on the heels of this development will be the launch of something called Influencers in the Know - a Canadianized version of Alltops, PopUrls, PSFK and Blogs.com mixed together.

We will also be relaunching The Influencers for November - providing superior multimedia content, much better design and RSS links and a superior registration process and profile area and a more continuous stream of activity

That, on top of our impending tour of PR comapnies and ad agencies and four other proprietary programs we're selling in and launching for 2009 is keeping us busy at Agent Wildfire - we're just trying to be a little selfish and service ourself. 

 We hope you enjoy our new site and it's more effective in helping you pick up that banana phone and give us a shout to service your word of mouth marketing, grassroots media and influencer-driven insight/innovation programs.

Agent Wildfire - Creating Fires for Holiday 2008 and 2009

Three weeks since by last post, shame on me...any blogger worth their salt knows that 3 per week is the absolute minimum to maintain the ADD-riddled world of social media attention.

My only excuse...we've been busy starting some fires for the holiday season and next year...for the listing of Wildfire developments and the occasional shameless self-promotion see below.

Beyond a number of new clients that have dropped in our lap the last couple of months and a few word of mouth programs and community launches - we are also looking at a number of new programs that will position us well as Canada's Word of Mouth Expert for 2009.  In no particular order:

- On the social media front, Agent Wildfire will be launching its own blog to deal with the news, announcements, job openings and events that are all about my company, leaving Buzz Canuck to be fancy-free to talk about all the word of mouth subjects under and above the radar

- on buzz media launches, we are planning one micro launch a quarter next year behind Canadian-specific influencer-driven marketing/media initiatives designed to get our clients noticed and talked about:

The Sisterhood of Influence - for connected, savvy Canadian women
Generation GO - for active people who live in the city
TrendCity - for tastemakers and trendspotters well ahead of the mainstream
Alpha Bartender Network - for urban ringleaders who serve up buzz

If you are an enthusiastic outgoing person in any of these areas, please let us know and we would love you to join our efforts in some capacity.

Give us a call, get the details by signing up for our Buzz Report or join our media/PR tour in October/November. Category-exclusive opportunities await.

We are relaunching our Agent Wildfire and Influencer sites to add more functionality and design appeal.

We are also going to be launching the beta of something called Influencers in The Know next month - a hybrid of influencer content and RSS aggregation of only the leading edge content on the web specifically designed for Canadians. We are interested in grassroots celebrities and influencers interested in sharing us their top 10 sites/blogs for the best edgy content - let us know.

We are hiring for a number of key full-time and freelance positions:
- Word of Mouth Program Leaders
- Editorial Interns
- Guest Bloggers
- Graphic Designers
- Web People
If you are to use Sarah Palin's words "mavericky" and Obama's words "say YES WE CAN to client opportunities" and McCain's words "want straight talk in marketing" and Biden's words...what does he say anyway?....send us your best attempt to get noticed and talked about through the stack of resumes - apologize in advance if we don't always get back quickly.

We are also hatching a League of Kickass Network event hopefully for November. I'm quite excited about this as we wrangle a name brand author and CEO to take the gloves off in debate . If you're a senior marketer, media, business executive or digital geek and you are suitably Kickass give us a shout and let's get you on the list.

We will be hosting a road trip across cities Marketing 2.0 for the Executive - a conversation-worthy, safe haven overview for executives willing to embrace this arena but not knowing where to go next.

We are about the finalize our white paper on "Word of Mouth Marketing 2009" - a check in on marketer attitudes and beahviours with WOM, launch our presentation and start our community-based white paper "It Takes a Community to Build a Brand".

I'll also personally be  participating in Marketing Week events and hosting a panel of 6 experts on social media...yikes...look forward to some dust ups, insight and some "keeping them honest" Anderson Cooper like moderating in that one.

And in other predictions - Obama wins by 7 pts, Harper gets in by a slim minority, Green Party breaks past 11% of popular vote, Red Sox win the Series again (yeah!), The TSE bottoms out at 8.500, Leafs win only 24 games this year and retail sales will drop 6% year over year at Christmas (bah humbug!).

So our silence here has not been without productive distraction...apologies to Buzz Canuck Nation - we'll try to let it happen 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.

Follow Your Instinct, You Choose The Direction Campaign

Fjord, a division of Cossette has put out an interesting YouTube campaign on the Samsung Instinct. I had been considering an Instinct as I'm morally opposed to the rates people will eventually pay on iPhone data packages in Canada, this campaign neither helped or hurt that effort - it was entertaining enough though to watch 3 videos  (perhaps it was the curiosity factor - they had used Cossette Toronto's office for most of the filming). I would have thought a direct shot across the iPhone's bow would have been more viral in nature and a clever #2 to market strategy but give marks for innovative use of medium.

More impactful was probably the recent Twitter profiling and friending me - there really is somebody monitoring the shop there...impressive. Addendum - the social media outreach part of this campaign is being executed by Espresso Brand Infilitration. 

Anyway, here's the "you choose the story" meets YouTube (9 videos in all) - the early verdict would be:
- people would rather walk to work than jump in a cab (by a 2 to 1 ratio)
- people would rather go to the mail room than their desk (by a 2.2 to 1 ratio)
- and in a stunner, they would rather go to the party than take the girl home (by a 1.5 to 1 ratio)