The Secret Sauce Behind Word-Of-Mouth Advertising

It's day 2 of the
Future of Consumer Intelligence conference and one big trend is forming: Word
of Mouth is important' very important. Several of the speakers have touched on
the relevance of Word of Mouth in today's advertising playground. On day 1 we
had a panel of Millennials that discussed things they're interested in and what
makes them tick. Almost all of them mentioned how they rely heavily upon Word of
Mouth platforms like Yelp and YouTube. The groundwork was set around this topic
and Jonah Berger drove it home in this morning's keynote presentation.

Author of the book
Contagious: Why Things Catch On, Berger shared a few key points from his book. Here
are a few of the things that struck me:

Berger made the point that
people error in thinking that trying to reach out to a targeted group of
non-users is the best way to increase Word of Mouth. In other words, finding
people who match the profile of your current customer. Berger argues that the
best way to increase Word of Mouth is to let the people who already know and
love you do it. To explain this view, he used an example from his work as a
professor. Berger mentioned that publishers often send professors free books in
the mail, with the hope of including the book in the curriculum. One time he
received a package from a publisher with two copies of the same book. The books
came with a note, 'We think you'll know someone who will love this book too'. This
publisher knew that Berger would be the best advocate for the book and would be
able to target and share the book with someone who would really enjoy it.

Berger gives two
examples of this concept. The first example was a bar in NY called Please Don't
Tell. This bar has no advertising and requires people to go into a phone booth
and use a rotary dial phone in order to enter. The bar is so popular that to
get in you must have a reservation. This bar leverages the element of secrecy
to grow its Word of Mouth advertising. People enjoy being able to be the first
person to introduce someone to the bar.

The other example he
gave was the McRib at McDonalds. Berger states that the McRib was introduced to
help defuse the demand for chicken nuggets. Over time McDonalds has kept the
McRib on the menu but never at the same time in each region. By strategically
altering when and where the McRib is featured has created a rather humorous
following. There is actually a website designed to help people know when and
where the McRib is on the menu.

Berger points out that
one of the key attributes of successful Word of Mouth advertising is getting
people to think about your product or service indirectly. He believes it's
important to link yourself to things that are used frequently. A good example
is peanut butter and jelly. When people say peanut butter, most people begin to
think about jelly as well. Another is example is how Corona has tried to
position itself with the beach. The idea is to get people to think about Corona
when they visit the beach.

I think Berger did a
great job at trying to put a 'formula' behind a popular strategy. The bad news?
It's only a matter of time before this strategy is diluted. Marketers are
famous for beating a strategy to death. Think of email'. When email first came
out, email open rates were ridiculously high. Now-a-days most people are happy
with an open rate in the single digits. How long will this strategy be
effective? It's hard to put a number on it but don't wait around because it won't
be long.

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