Unilever embraces WOM, but will need more than social media to trigger it
February 10, 2012By Steve Thomson, Managing Director, Keller Fay- UK The UK’s Marketing magazine this week posted an intriguing article outlining how Unilever was “shifting focus from social media to word of mouth”. In fact, as the piece acknowledges, it’s not that Unilever is turning its back on social media as such, but that the global fmcg power is demanding more from it. Unilever’s Debbie Weinstein is quoted as saying “We are now looking . More >
Your Facebook Fans are “1 Percenters”
February 2, 2012Ed Keller With this week’s Facebook IPO filing, a lot of big numbers are being bandied about: An estimated $5 billion initial offer, and perhaps between $75 and $100 billion for the total market valuation. Facebook also represents big numbers to brand marketers: An audience of nearly 1 billion consumers, and the growing legions of brand fans – often tens of millions –marketers have accumulated on Facebook. Social media pundits often liken . More >
Why Brands Must Care about Both Offline and Online Word of Mouth
January 27, 2012By Ed Keller I have written previously about a groundbreaking academic study that highlighted how fundamentally different online conversation is from offline word of mouth. The headline finding from that research, released in late 2010 at a conference convened by the Wharton School and the Marketing Science Institute (MSI), was clear: “Online data does not reflect well the offline behavior. Word of mouth is not channel neutral. One cannot automatically . More >
Content-sharing not an end in itself
January 24, 2012By Steve Thomson, Managing Director, Keller Fay- UK UK department store John Lewis hit an apparent bulls-eye over the Christmas season, achieving the kind of viral success with its seasonal TV ad that all marketing directors crave, with four million hits on YouTube. Most brands today are desperately figuring out how to create content which is also shared widely and quickly. Is this a realistic strategy, or is it the marketing equivalent of hoping . More >
Email Marketers Claim “Email is the New Social Media”: Fact or Fiction?
December 20, 2011By Ed Keller As the trade press continues to focus on the year that was in 2011 and forecasts for the year to come in 2012, social media remains a hot topic of conversation. Two reports have come out recently making the case that email remains a big and effective part of the social story. In his keynote address to MediaPost’s Email Insider Summit, Tynt CEO Derek Ball noted that despite the growth of Facebook, sharing via email has gone up over . More >
Are you Maximing Your Word of Mouth at Retail? Lessons from Apple
November 17, 2011By Ed Keller In Steve Jobs, Walter Isaacson talks about the seven industries that Steve Jobs revolutionized: personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, digital publishing, and retailing. As we approach Thanksgiving and “Black Friday,” the most important day in retail, let’s consider how the Apple Stores changed business retail, which is the topic of Chapter 29 in the Jobs biography. It’s easy to forget how dismissive . More >
Traditional Media Is Social’s “Rock in the Pond”
November 3, 2011By Ed Keller Imagine you have an important marketing investment decision to make, and you have what you think is clear and compelling evidence. Then, you subsequently learn that in fact you are overestimating the impact of your investment by as much as 40%. You’d be pretty upset. This is what may be happening today as marketers seek to understand and quantify the impact of their social media investments, according to a new analysis by MarketShare. . More >
Social Media is “Word of Mouth on Steroids”: Or is It?
October 24, 2011by Ed Keller At a conference earlier this year, an executive from Facebook declared that social networking sites like Facebook deliver “word of mouth at scale.” He went on to say, “This is what marketers have always tried to bottle up. The social web is finally allowing us to do that. This is word of mouth on steroids.” The notion that social media is word of mouth on steroids is a comment I frequently hear others make, as well. Last week, . More >
Word of Mouth Infographic
October 20, 2011Thanks to WOMMA for creating this infographic on “The Word and the World of Customers: Word of Mouth Marketing Offline and Online.” We at Keller Fay are pleased to see our research featured, along with others.
Showing Emotion is the New Black
October 6, 2011by Ed Keller At a recent event in Seattle sponsored by the Word of Mouth Marketing Association, Heather Oldani of McDonalds told the audience, “For brands, showing emotion is the new black.” It resonated with the audience, and was one of the most tweeted takeaways from the event. Oldani’s comment was a continuation of thoughts she had shared in September when she was the keynoter at the PR News Platinum Awards luncheon. At that event she . More >
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