Reflection #4: Viral Word-of-Mouth Marketing and Memes

While there is much to be said about the importance of word-of-mouth and viral marketing when selling a product or service, the current state of this form of marketing remains extremely vague, albeit, the observation that new technologies are accelerating the spread of word-of-mouth and 'viral' concepts or communiques is correct.

Many authors have been quick to recognize the importance of this form of marketing, including Emanuel Rosen whose book The Anatomy of Buzz (2000) provides a kind of introduction to the concept of 'buzz' marketing that is steeped in concepts of viral marketing and word-of-mouth information flows. Broken into three parts, the book covers the essentials of what 'buzz' is and how it relates to networks, certain fashion leaders, and so on; how to be successful in different 'networks' especially through 'contagious' products or accelerating 'natural contagion'; and finally, in a typical marketingesque fashion, the book ends with a section on how to 'stimulate buzz.'

Similarly, in Naked Conversations (2005), the authors Robert Scoble and Shel Israel offer a kind of near marketing pitch for the destiny of blogs as a kind of end-all, be-all tool that is required for survival by any right thinking or 'sane' business today. Write the authors:

"Slowly, over time, that something impacts other things and before you know it the world a different place. Blogging is one of those “somethings.” It is vital and strategic to the future of business. Some who ignore this fact will face the same fate as the village blacksmith of the last century."

It is this kind of hyperbole and self-adoration of those who are blogging and using this technology that has the non-users and traditional media users and believers more or less wondering if anything has changed. That is, it's unlikely that an attempt to 'market' a new paradigm for 'marketing' whilst using the same hyperbole that has resulted in the more 'grass roots' dimensions of viral or word-of-mouth communications channels - 'marketing' channels if you like - will turn out successfully. More likely, the marketing professionals reading this kind of exaggerated account of blog culture and its significance for the institution will assume that the marketing puff effect is under way.

The real problem currently with the concepts around 'viral' and similar types of marketing is the near religious over- and undertones that this 'community' has struck; one that rings of a kind of corporate culture infiltrating the very purity that is word-of-mouth marketing - one that rose out of a basic peer-to-peer community of users that couldn't find the truth within the product provider's channels and support systems. This kind of 'webagoguery' appears self serving and a shallow attempt to gain contracts for book orders, company workshops, and speaking engagements - but not as a sincere effort to nurture real and meaningful feedback loops, new strategies for connecting with customers, and accelerating and strengthening such efforts. This near-religious fervor comes out in the 'Customer Evangelist Manifesto' and the 'code of conduct' for word-of-mouth marketing according to the WOMMA organization and its six items that constitute 'WOMMA 101.'

The real give away that this discussion of 'viral marketing' is something of a capitalist, money making scheme seems most obvious in the '95 Theses' from the Cluetrain blogsite. Here, you can read a list of everything and (virtually) anything that could possibly have an affect on your business - and that you should take these 'anythings' into account when communicating with your customers - and above all else - BE HONEST! Well, these 'theses' are all well and good; but aren't they a bit self serving and self righteous? I mean really, is someone going to read these and then turn around, and head into a meeting pontificating the importance of all of these 'theses'? Who is supposed to be reading these and deciding how to change? Or was this written for the writers and their circle or network?

'Ten Predictions for the Future' (2005) from the 'Connected Marketing' blog offers something of a more solid set of predictions, and suggests strongly that change will accelerate, and we will become more dynamic. I believe that the prediction around mobile technology "Prediction 9. Cell phones will develop rapidly as an important medium for spreading connected marketing promotions, such as mobile invitations, SMS barcode discounts, etc." is both simplistic, and true. It is simplistic because it ignores the dynamic nature of this medium, and how it relates to the flow of people and things and how these are essential to the context of messages on this medium. But the prediction is true, in that we will see growth. This is likely visible today with the rapid rise of Twitter.

This week we saw the emergence of a kind of 'live' YouTube; but not from Google - rather from Yahoo! and it is now active: Live.Yahoo.com In light of the phenomenal growth around YouTube and the seeming voracious appetite for immediacy in communication - it will be interesting to see whether this service morphs into a viral marketing tool, or just a blip in streaming and web history. I think that I'd be interested if there was a solid mobile piece, for true device interoperability and access --

Viral marketing and the concepts around 'wom' marketing are also not original, and go back to at least the concept of 'memes' as presented by Richard Dawkins (1976) in his book The Selfish Gene in which he describes the mimicry that is associated with how people form their ideas and opinions. Such mimicry is an innate part of humans, according to Dawkins, and later media author Doug Rushkoff picked up on this theme in his books Media Virus, Cyberia, and Coercion (1994, 2000) and presented a convincing case that the 'mediascape' was changing profoundly, and that it was no longer possible to create the kinds of illusions and monolithic (dis)information campaigns associated with broadcast television, radio, and other highly controlled, top-down media structures. Indeed, Rushkoff predicted the dissolution of these media and the rise of informal networks.

It would be interesting if the WOM marketing and 'viral' marketing communities and proponents could and would consider the self evidence of their observations, and to consider the real implications of such immediate and more efficient information dissemination and feedback loops -- beyond, 'tell the truth and be honest and listen and ... blah, blah, blah.'