Wednesday, March 08, 2006
Jack Trout on WOMA
Jack Trout, the father of Positioning, writes in his Forbes column about WOMA (word-of-mouth advertising). John at Brand Autopsy is mad about his comments. (Probably because it doesn't have to do with Starbucks, which seems to be nearly all he can talk about). And George Silverman, who calls himself the father of WOMM, weighs in on how out of touch Trout is. George and John neglect to mention that WOMA mainly works for REMARKABLE products and services, like ipods and Starbucks. How many remarkable things are there? The Segway did indeed get buzz, but it was all negative. Looking at DSL Reports (or ApartmentReviews.com or TripAdvisor or Amazon book reviews), people want to offer their opinions. But how much weight should that opinion had? Some people love something at the same time other people hate it. George points out that WOMA is really about "Decision Simplification in the Age of Overload: Making it easy for the customer to find a solution to a problem (or desire or need), sort through the BS, try successfully and use your product pleasurably." In other words, we have too many choices, so you tend to listen to people you know and/or respect for a testimonial. And Jack is right: You can't control that.
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2 comments:
Thanks for adding to this interesting WOM conversation. I ain't mad at Jack. I'm more perturbed than mad. I'm perturbed that Jack is so into wanting to control the entire relationship with customers. That seems to be an unrealistic goal today.
While marketers cannot control the opinions and conversations of customers, we can help to control the remarkability of the products/services we offer to customers.
That's why I advocate allocating marketing dollars to make the product/service better and more unique. Why introduce another mundane "me-too" product? I'd rather introduce unique products that will make unique contributions. If a business does that, WOM will happen naturally with little to no prodding. After all ... remarkable things get remarked about.
Sorry for infusing so much Starbucks marketing chatter into Brand Autopsy. I tend to write about things I’m knowledgeable about. (By the way, I did a quick tally and it seems like 7.5% of my Brand Autopsy posts have heavy SBUX content.)
Thanks for adding to this interesting WOM conversation. I ain't mad at Jack. I'm more perturbed than mad. I'm perturbed that Jack is so into wanting to control the entire relationship with customers. That seems to be an unrealistic goal today.
While marketers cannot control the opinions and conversations of customers, we can help to control the remarkability of the products/services we offer to customers.
That's why I advocate allocating marketing dollars to make the product/service better and more unique. Why introduce another mundane "me-too" product? I'd rather introduce unique products that will make unique contributions. If a business does that, WOM will happen naturally with little to no prodding. After all ... remarkable things get remarked about.
Sorry for infusing so much Starbucks marketing chatter into Brand Autopsy. I tend to write about things I’m knowledgeable about. (By the way, I did a quick tally and it seems like 7.5% of my Brand Autopsy posts have heavy SBUX content.)
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