Posted by Graeme Hutton

Have you ever wondered how to maximize the word of mouth from your Super Bowl ad? The Super Bowl remains the most watched annual TV event in the United States – an average of 44% of all homes watched last year. It’s not so much a TV show as a major cultural phenomenon. Its ability to boost a brand’s word of mouth has reached almost mythical proportions ever since Apple’s 1984 commercial heralded the launch of the Macintosh computer.

Let’s assume for one moment that we have a great ad, a creative asset that resonates well with the consumer. Is that enough? Our initial regression modeling suggests that besides a great ad, just maximizing the audience rating may not be enough. Critically, the quarter of the game that the ad appears in and securing the first position in the pod also count. In addition, :5 billboards, those announcements often seen at the beginning or end of an ad pod, may be an unnecessary luxury and, from the perspective of WOM value, possibly not worth the additional investment.

In 2010, UM won the Word of Mouth Marketing Association’s (WOMMY) Gold Award for Research for its paper quantifying how Sony Electronics’ media advertising helped boost its word of mouth. Through a multivariate analysis, we determined two key insights that had never been publicly demonstrated before:

1. Brand advertising has a direct effect on the effectiveness of word of mouth. In this instance, 14% of all Sony Electronics’ WOM was attributable to its own media activity.

2. A brand’s word of mouth is not just affected by its own ad activity. Competitive share of voice is also a critical factor. In the Sony Electronics model, 23% of Sony’s potential WOM was eroded by the impact of competitors’ advertising activity.

If we apply this type of modeling approach to ads in the Super Bowl, what can it reveal? To determine this, we analyzed the reported word of mouth from Keller Fay’s Talk Track Super Bowl study conducted in 2011. Keller Fay takes a unique approach in the world of buzz trackers in that it captures both online and offline word of mouth. Keller Fay was the data source fuelling the award winning WOMMY study. For the Super Bowl, Keller Fay specifically tracked 42 ads in the game with sample of 3000 individuals boosted during the week after the game with a custom survey.

It is well-known that word of mouth levels vary substantially by market category. Additionally, since several advertisers had multiple placements and various commercial time-lengths in the Super Bowl, we decided to focus on one category where these variables would be minimized. We chose to probe the movie sector since not only did this eliminate any cross-category effects, we were able to substantially reduce the variations from ad to ad. For example, there was only one ad for each film title and 30 seconds was the only commercial time-length utilized by all movie marketers. This enabled us to isolate the core media drivers of movie mentions as a direct result of their Super Bowl advertising.

To analyze the effects of the Super Bowl, we built a database of factors such as 18-54 TV rating, the game quarter in which the ad appeared, ad position in pod, use of billboards plus the word of mouth for each movie in the week after the Super Bowl that we applied to each ad. Interrogating this database via regression analysis, this is what the model revealed:

The model’s projection is very encouraging with a 99% fit between predicted and actual word of mouth. While one core factor was audience rating, it was also bolstered by the quarter in which the ad appeared – the earlier the better. We also saw that being first in pod provided great impetus to an ad’s WOM. By contrast, the often highly prized position of last in pod did not materially help WOM; indeed it actually reduced the ad’s effectiveness!

The jury remains out on billboards. In our best model, displayed in this column, billboards did not help word of mouth reach, i.e. the net number of people discussing the ad, but in other models, the gross volume or frequency of conversations were helped by billboards.

For UM, the surprising reveal of this analysis is the low value of word of mouth derived from being placed last in pod – a media position which, otherwise, can often be highly regarded. We hope to build and share on this analysis in future years. 2012 should be another great year for Super Bowl advertising and its legend ability to motivate consumers to talk about brands.

Graeme is SVP, Director of Consumer Insights & Research, Graeme is responsible for ensuring that all appropriate proprietary and syndicated research tools and resources are applied in the development of consumer insight strategies, for a total communications research platform–from TV to chat rooms–which informs the efforts of Universal McCann and its agency partners. Graeme can be reached at Graeme.hutton@umww.com

Posted 26 January 2012 – 3:32pm | by Ishbel Macleod

Consumer research on brand word of mouth (WOM) by the Keller Fay Group has found that Baileys Irish Cream had a 311% increase in conversations over the Christmas period, while there was an over 40% increase for Waitrose, John Lewis and Morrisons.

The research found that in November and December, average daily brand conversations rose 12% compared with July-October, even in areas not associated with Christmas, such as healthcare.

Keller Fay data suggested that while the John Lewis advert may have helped its WOM rating, which had a 43% increase, strong customer service and creative in-store merchandising also played a role.

Steve Thomson, managing director of Keller Fay UK, said: “Brands which generated significant positive word of mouth at Christmas were able to cut through the advertising clutter more effectively; outperforming your competitors for WOM in this crucial period has to be the goal for all brands.”

However, not all increases in the WOM rating came from positive discussions about the brand – a high proportion of X-Factor’s 103% increase came from negative comments.

We know that our customers talk about us, brands.

The average American consumer mentions specific brand names 60 times per week in conversations, according to the Keller Fay Group. And since most of them happen online and, frankly, it is easier to track them there, we understandably are in awe of social media that focuses on online conversations. We analyze and pay attention to online influencers and focus on numbers of fans and followers.

But what we forget is that less than 10% of word of mouth conversations happen online. Keller Fay stats dating back to 2006 have consistently shown word of mouth conversations disproportionately happen offline in face-to-face and voice-to-voice settings. That 90% of all conversations Americans have about products and brands take place offline is a startling statistic. Is it possible that we are focusing too much on influencers and ignoring a ‘regular’ consumer?

We all hear those amazing stories of extraordinary customer service. Zappos, for example, is continuously cited as the leader in this department. Whether you are looking for shoes or the closest pizza joint, you will get help in finding it if you call Zappos. However, the unfortunate truth is that most of us have not experienced it very often. What’s more disappointing is that some of us have never experienced it.

For my mother-in-law, it took 68 years to encounter amazing customer service.

A couple of years ago I bought my mother-in-law, Lauri, a bra from Soma Intimates. It was exactly what she was looking for. This year, Lauri decided to replace it. The store was three hours away for her house, but not far from where I live, so I offered to take her next time she was in town. Which I did, without success. We went to the store only to find that Sofia bra that she was looking for was discontinued. Lauri was disappointed. For some of us, it’s the little things that matter the most. And so it was for my mother-in-law.

Unbeknownst to me, Lauri wrote a letter to Soma to express her sadness. It was a handwritten letter–Lauri is in her 60s and doesn’t use social media.

Imagine her surprise when two weeks later, she received a call from the company’s representative informing her that they received her letter and discussed it at the corporate office’s weekly meeting. The result: They were going to look in every store across the country and see if they can find the bra she was looking for. And a week later, she received a package containing seven bras–the last seven left in the country! With it came the handwritten letter from one of the store managers, an appropriate way to communicate with the woman of Lauri’s age. It said:

“Dear Lauri,

Our corporate office called saying you had been searching for a Sofia bra. I was happy to find these at my outlet for you! They have been discontinued and perhaps are the last ones in our company. I hope you enjoy these. They are being sent to you complementary from our corporate office.

Our love and best wishes,
Sue Peters
Store Mgr #5287, Jersey Shore Premium Outlets”

“I started being rather disappointed with the company,” my mother-in-law told me afteward. “Now, I would never say anything negative about them. Actually, I will be recommending it to all my girlfriends. What a delightful experience!”

To me what is most remarkable about this story is the company’s attention to an elderly woman from a small town–a woman who isn’t an ‘influencer’ with thousands of followers, and the fact that it didn’t matter to them. They treated Lauri with the same respect and consideration as they would give to their elite customers. That is the true definition of an amazing brand.

Lauri’s satisfaction is first and foremost with Soma. Lauri’s daughter-in-law sharing her experience with thousands of other people through this post is just icing on the cake for them–as are all of the additional customers our family will refer to this brand in future.

By Jeff Koyen
Posted November 22, 2011
Adweek

Is the mouse mightier than the mouth? That’s the debate that’s taking place in word-of-mouth (WOM) marketing circles. On the one hand, social media has altered the landscape of WOM, helping spread buzz faster and more efficiently than face-to-face communications. On the other, most conversations about products and brands still take place away from the Internet. Word-of-mouth marketing is based on the simple premise that a recommendation from a friend carries more weight than an ad message. But social media has blurred what that means. Is a “like” on Facebook as valuable as an unsolicited recommendation shared in person or on the phone? Are fans and followers as trustworthy as friends (the real-life kind)?

It’s not an either/or situation. When combined together, word of mouth and social media become a dynamic duo. Conversations begun online continue in person and recommendations spread more quickly, allowing communities built around brands to gain traction. Influencers have broader reach. That’s how a web-driven campaign such as U by Kotex (see page W12) could turn the brand into the leader in feminine care word of mouth among women 13 to 44. Or why Coca-Cola is turning to social media to turn up the volume on stories its customers will be sharing around the upcoming London Olympics.

“You start conversations in one channel, continue them in a second and finish them in a third,” says Karin Kane, vice president of client services for evolve24, a Maritz Research company, which uses business analytics and research to measure brand perception, reputation and risk. “When the communication is happening in so many channels, it becomes almost impossible to separate online and offline.”

Moreover, social media has given WOM marketers a clearer way to measure the impact of their campaigns. Certainly “likes” and tweets are a start. But social media can also help marketers see how far an influencer’s opinion spreads by analyzing retweets or shares. It also becomes easier to see if an influencer’s discussions are relevant and in line with positioning. Plus, all this can occur in real time.

Social media has done more than simply turbocharge word of mouth. It has also brought this “alternative” form of marketing into the mainstream. Brands, in their effort to engage users, now routinely use WOM tactics to bypass traditional ads and go directly to influencers and consumers. Public relations firms, once charged with focusing on pitching professional influencers in the media, are now spending as much time going directly to bloggers, tweeters, YouTubers and general consumers, who are becoming powerful brand advocates. Media buys and messaging can change quickly depending on what topics are trending at any moment.

With more brands recognizing the direct impact WOM has on brand image and product/service success, spending on buzz marketing has increased substantially over the past several years. For 2011, WOM spending in the U.S. is forecast to hit $2.48 billion, according to PQ Media, whose econometric models are used by the Word of Mouth Marketing Association and media investment firm Veronis Suhler Stevenson. That’s a growth rate of 21.5 percent from 2010’s $2.04 billion. By 2015, spending on word-of-mouth marketing could hit $5.5 billion.

DEFINING A CONVERSATION

Social media chatter has become the bellwether of word-of-mouth engagement. Today, Facebook’s servers handle upwards of 50 million “likes” each day. Google indexes some 200 million tweets every 24 hours. Tweets and “likes” are being used as measures of marketing efficacy because they promise to go beyond mere followers; they are proof positive that a brand’s message is getting across.

But according to Keller Fay Group, whose TalkTrack has become a de facto standard in measuring brand conversations, the overwhelming majority of word of mouth still involves, well, a mouth. The New Jersey-based research firm continues to claim that more than 90 percent of brand-oriented conversations are held face-to-face or over the phone.

“It’s not that the online numbers are wrong or unimpressive in any way,” says Ed Keller, Keller Fay’s CEO. “It’s that the offline numbers are much, much bigger than most people realize.” With more than two billion brand impressions created by word-of-mouth every day, he says, “You can see that the 50 million Facebook ‘likes’ is indeed just a small percentage of that total.”

Not everyone is convinced. “I’ve been hearing that exact same percentage for the past 10 years,” says Pete Blackshaw, global head of digital and social media for Nestlé, “and it just doesn’t make sense in light of the explosive growth of social media conversations. I do agree offline plays a dominant role, but can we at least agree the online conversation owns a growing share of the mix?”

Delivering accurate WOM figures is still more art than science. Foremost, there’s the question of definition. For example, are brand-generated tweets really word of mouth just because they’re delivered through social media platforms or are they ad messages masquerading as conversation? What if that same tweet is retweeted by a consumer?

Kane of evolve24 goes a step further: “Is a ‘like’ really a conversation?”

Whereas marketers once worried about multitasking consumers, they now wrestle with multi-channelers. “An online newspaper article may influence a number of readers to discuss the brand online, to experience the product in a different way or to discuss it with their friends offline” says Kane. “The key to truly understanding brand perception is to recognize all of these—posts and comments, customer experiences, news stories—as important contributors, and measuring and weighting them all appropriately.”

The preponderance of online reviews and other customer-generated content further extends the concept of word of mouth. “User-generated content is insight-rich social data that enables analysis at every level of focus and all degrees of granularity,” says Erin Nelson, CMO of Bazaarvoice, which provides platforms for managing and analyzing customer reviews. “But these learnings are only as powerful as the actions they drive and the customer-centric choices they inform. The companies who can truly integrate their social insights across the business are the only ones who will fully capture the value of social data.”

In itself, data isn’t necessarily the challenge; never before has such highly granular analysis been so widely available to marketers. Chat Threads, for example, tracks consumers in real-time as they come into contact with brands; Keller Fay’s TalkTrack—which is based on interviews with a nationally representative sample of some 36,000 Americans each year—gives shape to nearly one trillion annual brand conversations. The issue for many is choosing the right metrics.

For Keller, large offline volume carries more weight than smaller online engagement. In the U.S. every month, he says, an estimated 860 million offline conversations involve Coca-Cola; about half (442 million) are active recommendations to buy or try products. Meanwhile, the brand boasts close to 36 million Facebook “likes” on its page, but only a relatively modest 56,000 are active Facebook fans, he says. “Which one sounds more like ‘word of mouth on steroids’?” he asks, referring to Facebook’s description of social media.

Blake Cahill, president of Banyan Branch, a Seattle-based social media agency, considers yet another variable. “While the number of offline brand conversations is likely still occurring, what has certainly changed is the nearly two hours per day that people are spending online in social platforms communicating with each other instead of face-to-face.”

Social platforms, he adds, “have made it easier for people to like, love and dislike brands at a more prolific rate.”

NURTURING ADVOCATES

The real challenge for word-of-mouth marketers is finding and nurturing the right voices, online and off—whether they’re called advocates, evangelists or just passionate customers.

“There are many ways to identify influencers, both old-school approaches and new-school approaches,” says Nestlé’s Blackshaw. “Online, I pay lots of attention to who consistently indexes in search results. This tells me the influencer’s content is consistently shareable and worthy of links. Serious influencers often lurk in the first page of search results against a product query.”

But influencers are not always advocates—and vice versa. “True advocates might not have a huge following, have a high Klout score or be online much at all,” says Ekaterina Walter, a strategist at Intel’s Social Media Center of Excellence, “but they have the power to spread their passion and change people’s minds or rally them around an idea or a brand.” Many marketers, she says, mistakenly focus on “influencers” and “neutrals” when instead they “need to be focusing on those few who truly love your brand and are willing to share that love with everyone around them.”

Moreover, companies need to avoid segregating online advocates and real-world influencers. Instead, they may be better served by ignoring labels and focusing instead on common activities. “It comes down to audience and behavior,” says Kevin Sangsland, sales and marketing director of Airfoil Public Relations. “An online community isn’t different from the people offline. It’s a mistake to put people in these neat little boxes in terms of channels. You get a different company voice and that detracts from brand value.”

Once advocates are identified, they need to be cared for and retained. Crowdtap, for example, maintains a community of influencers that its clients can target with content, coupons or product samples for word-of-mouth engagement. It keeps members interested using Foursquare-like features such as badges and other rewards. “The key to the technology platform is game mechanics so that people have more fun,” says Brandon Evans, Crowdtap CEO.

Nurturing online advocates in advance of problems can also aid with damage control. Just as satisfied customers share their insights quickly, negative word of mouth now travels at light speed. Dissatisfied customers can become situational influencers, defined by Blackshaw as “consumers who gained influence or notoriety because they happened to be the first ones to test a product or discover a product defect that went viral.” Blackshaw wrote a book on the subject of negative WOM, Satisfied Customers Tell Three Friends, Angry Customers Tell 3,000.

Despite the digital world’s reputation for unrelenting snark, there’s actually more positive than negative brand feedback online. “That said,” Blackshaw adds, “extreme levels of dissatisfaction or anger can trigger extraordinary levels of pass-along.” To manage damaging WOM, “We all need to re-script our rules of listening and responsiveness. Online community management is a must. We also need to rethink customer service [as] a top ‘talk driver’ of both offline and online conversation.”

Intel’s Walter agrees. She’s keenly aware that “every single person out there is an influencer to at least 50 to 300 other people offline.” The best strategy, she says, is to “provide the best customer service and real-time response—online and offline—and your WOM/sales will take care of themselves.”

Above all, brands shouldn’t panic when things go wrong. She points to a January 2011 Retail Consumer Report from Harris Interactive that indicated that of those consumers who were contacted by retailers after posting negative reviews online, 34 percent deleted their critiques, 33 percent wrote a positive review and nearly a fifth (18 percent) actually became loyal customers.

“Customers wouldn’t be reaching out to you if they wouldn’t want to have a relationship,” Walter says. Whether the WOM occurs online or off, there’s always opportunity for real-world conversion.

Brands may not have a choice for much longer. As Ann Jurmain, principal at Miami-based MagicBuz, which specializes in online conversations, explains, “The precision of search engines, coupled with the willingness of consumers to become review publishers in their own right, means that participating in word of mouth is now essential for all marketers.”

When it comes to word-of-mouth recommendations for brands, it appears that good, old-fashioned in-person and on-the-phone conversations still rule the day — at least according to research conducted by Tremor and the Keller Fay Group.

Tremor, the Procter & Gamble marketing unit that focuses on the so-called “influencer” segment of the consumer base, and word-of-mouth agency Keller Fay unveiled research this week that shows that over 90% of conversations about brands occur in person or on the phone.

The results were first disclosed in an article penned by Tremor CEO Chris Laird for Forbes that posted on the publication’s Web site Nov. 15. Laird and Brad Fay elaborated on the study’s findings at the Word-of-Mouth Marketing Association’s Conference in Las Vegas the following day.

In the Forbes article, Laird reported that Keller Fay recruited 32,000 participants to keep daily diaries about the conversations they had about brands over of a 12-month period. During that time those respondents had 10 times as many offline conversations about brands as online chats.

Another key finding from the research was that 60% of the participants reported a “high likelihood” to make a purchase based on a face-to-face conversation. The results also showed that 67% of offline conversations are mostly positive.

Laird wrote that the results showed the importance of having a “balanced” approach to word-of-mouth marketing, despite all the attention and focus on digital media and tactics.

“There is no ‘mouth’ involved when you post or tweet. Digital is important but not sufficient, and brands must strive for that well-rounded plan,” Laird wrote, where digital is used to “drive real world conversations and vice versa.”

The marketer’s task would probably be easier if brands were discussed more often online than off, just given the online tracking and response capabilities that the industry has today, Laird suggested. “It’s hard work to systemically drive offline conversations about your brand,” Laird wrote in the Forbes piece. “It’s funny that the term “word-of-mouth” can sound quaint and old-fashioned as today’s perception is that consumer engagement happens more digitally than at the water cooler.”

Pursway, Ltd., the pioneer in Influencer Marketing Management and the Keller Fay Group, a leading firm in word of mouth research and consulting, today announced at the 2011 Word of Mouth Marketing Association’s annual summit a strategic alliance to combine and deliver the expertise of the Keller Fay Group’s Word of Mouth (WOM) Marketing and Pursway’s Influencer Marketing Management (IMM) software platform.

“We are very excited about this alliance,” said Ran Shaul, Executive Vice President and co-Founder of Pursway “to be able to offer the marketing expertise and consulting resources of the Keller Fay Group to customers in the U.S. and Europe will significantly enhance our value proposition in the marketplace. The alliance represents an important strategic move for Pursway as it continues to grow its influencer marketing ecosystem.”

Social influence can no longer be ignored by companies, whether they be financial service providers, telco operators or retail marketers. The majority of consumers buy based on the conversation and recommendations of trusted friends, family members, and colleagues. Companies that are able to harness the power of the influencers and turn them into advocates for their brands can see a significant boost in the success of their marketing efforts, in the order of 5-10x compared to their return on marketing today.

“We’re excited by the opportunity to work with one of the true pioneers and technology leaders of influencer marketing” said Ed Keller, CEO of the Keller Fay Group. “This agreement opens the door to greater market penetration in our existing space, as well as attractive to new business opportunities in related areas.”

The alliance is the latest in the company’s growing ecosystem that enables the marketplace to quickly adopt Influencer Marketing Management as a core component to an organizations marketing strategy by providing rich and valuable insight into consumer behavior.

About The Keller Fay Group
The Keller Fay Group is the first full-service market research company focused exclusively on Word of Mouth (WOM) Marketing and offers a complete array of research and advisory services related to WOM and influencer marketing. The firm’s CEO, Ed Keller, is co-author of The Influentials and has a forthcoming book with Brad Fay. Launched in the US in 2006 and the UK in 2011, Keller Fay’s TalkTrack® program is the only continuous study of WOM in all channels (online and offline) designed to closely monitor and measure the marketing-relevant attributes of actual consumer conversations. For more information visit http://www.kellerfay.com

About Pursway
Pursway empowers consumer-facing organizations to close the gap between how they market and how people buy. The Pursway patent-pending technology enables companies to identify, measure, and impact how opinion leaders shape their followers’ purchasing decisions. Using the Pursway solutions, leading global organizations in telecommunications, retail, and financial services are realizing 5-10x improvement in the ROI of customer acquisition, cross-sell, and churn prevention efforts. Pursway is led by a team with an innovative track record in consumer marketing, social network analytics, advanced algorithmic development, and large scale data mining. For more information, please visit http://www.pursway.com

11/15/2011. This article is by Chris Laird, who has marketed some of Procter & Gamble’s most well-known brands including Tide, Olay and Gillette. He is currently the CEO of Tremor, the WOM marketing division of P&G, offering online and offline WOM marketing services for brands inside and outside P&G using its Vocalpoint network of more than 600,000 women.

When I recall my stint as a brand manager for Procter & Gamble’s Bounty brand six long years ago, I wax nostalgic at how relatively one-dimensional and easy-to-measure our plans were: TV, print and coupons, with some CRM and digital thrown in as below-the-line afterthoughts.

Now with the consumer’s attention infinitely fragmented and technology enabling participation and real-time connections, the work of marketers requires much more agility, integrative thinking and, frankly, instinct. In this fragmented world, unquestionably the most powerful marketing tool is recommendations from trusted sources, a channel over which we have less control.

On Wednesday, Nov. 16, I will participate in a panel discussion at the Word-of-Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) Summit in Las Vegas to talk about the efficacy of online versus offline word-of-mouth (WOM) marketing campaigns. Sharing the stage is Brad Fay from The Keller Fay Group, a leading research agency in WOM marketing with whom we recently partnered on a comprehensive study on brand conversations.

Over the 12-month study, Keller Fay asked more than 32,000 participants to keep daily diaries about conversations they had where they talked about brands. The study showed that despite our industry’s focus on digital engagement, the vast majority – 91% – of conversations about brands occur in-person or on the phone. Among Keller Fay’s survey participants, there were 10 times more offline conversations daily about brands versus online. The study also found that 60% of respondents reported a high likelihood to make a purchase based on an in-person interaction and that 67% of offline conversations are mostly positive.

This is the primary reason we passionately coach brands to strive for a well-rounded approach to WOM and consumer participation, starting with the message itself. Does your communication idea give her a reason to engage, a reason to care, and a reason to share? If you can achieve something sharable, then your entire marketing plan can be amplified through consumer participation.

Next, do you have a way of finding and engaging your loyal, passionate, and connected fans? How are you putting your idea in the hands of those fans in a way that makes it their own? Are your tactics proportionally focused on driving on and offline conversations? Are you using digital engagement to drive real-world conversations, and vice versa?

It’s hard work to systemically driving offline conversations about your brand. It’s hard to execute and measure real-world experiences that lead to real-world participation, but it’s critical for well-rounded engagement. It’s funny that the term “word-of-mouth” can sound quaint and old-fashioned as today’s perception is that consumer engagement happens more digitally than at the water cooler. There is no “mouth” involved when you post or tweet. Digital is important but not sufficient, and brands must strive for that well-rounded plan.

8 November, 2011. London. The average UK adult talks about brands 78 times per week, which translates into 3.4 billion brand impressions each week that come via word of mouth. And, 94% of those brand conversations take place offline, primarily face to face, while only 6% are online. These are among the major findings from an ongoing study of word of mouth by the Keller Fay Group, revealed today at its WOM Everywhere conference in London.

The conference featured new, just released information from Keller Fay’s TalkTrack Britain study, an ongoing research programme that tracks word of mouth in the UK on a continuous basis. It is the only such research that looks at both offline as well as online conversation and was launched in the UK in July 2011. A similar study is run by Keller Fay in the US, where it has run continuously since 2006.

According to Keller Fay’s research, positive word of mouth outweighs negative by a 6 to 1 margin, with positive word of mouth more likely to be seen as credible and more likely to be passed along to others.

The most talked about brands in the UK, according to Keller Fay, are:
1. Tesco
2. Sky
3. Apple
4. Virgin Media
5. BT

Media and marketing play an important role in triggering word of mouth, with half of all conversations including references to media or marketing. Advertising is the most talked about contact point, with about 1 in 5 conversations including references to advertising.

In summarising the research results, Steve Thomson, Managing Director of Keller Fay UK, said “the main message to come through in our research is that word of mouth matters to all brands, not just those that are hot and sexy. Everyday brands are also talked about frequently, and brand marketers must understand the forces that can stimulate word of mouth and not just wait for it to happen.”

For more information, contact:
Steve Thomson (sthomson@kellerfay.com)
+44 7769 289590

About Keller Fay
The Keller Fay Group is the first full-service market research company focused exclusively on word of mouth (WOM) marketing. The firm’s CEO, Ed Keller, is author of The Influentials and has a forthcoming book with Brad Fay. Launched in the US in 2006 and the UK in 2011, Keller Fay’s TalkTrack® programme is the only continuous study of WOM in all channels (online and offline) designed to closely monitor and measure the marketing-relevant attributes of actual consumer conversations. TalkTrack is sponsored by leading agencies, brands and media organizations.

For marketers, the rise of social media has helped crystallize the importance of word-of-mouth. But lately, “social” has become synonymous with a platform, when in reality it’s a fundamental human behavior. In fact, 90% of consumer conversations happen offline, far away from what we currently think of when we say “social media.”

Every day, people talk to each other, providing guidance on which experiences to embrace and which to avoid. It’s no wonder that nearly 50% of consumers are likely to purchase products as a result of word-of-mouth*.

So, as a marketer, how do you influence those conversations? Sure, digital channels work for sparking conversations that your target consumers can continue online or take offline. But how can you guarantee that those individuals will share and endorse your brand?

The answer is by reaching the right social audience. After all, not all audiences are equal. If you’re putting your brand messages in front of individuals that don’t talk and share, that’s not going to help your word-of-mouth. You want to go beyond platforms to build real relationships with consumers who are social and likely to speak favorably about your brand.

To provide more audience insight for those of you thinking about social campaigns and word-of-mouth, Microsoft Advertising partnered with the Keller Fay Group, a leading social research firm. Keller Fay found the MSN audience to be a highly attractive audience for word-of-mouth, outperforming competitor audiences in many categories.

I’ve included some of the key reasons why MSN consumers are ideal for social advertising. For those of you interested in more insights and detail, please check out our social advertising pages and download our our recent word-of-mouth research paper, Influencing the Influencers! (PDF)

Thank you!
Natasha Hritzuk, Director of Ad Sales Research and Analytics
________________________________________
* Keller Fay Group, Custom Research “The Power of the MSN Audience to Drive Word of Mouth,” February 2011

26 October 2011 | By Steve Thomson

What was the last brand you really liked? I mean liked as in clicking the Facebook ‘Like’ button on the brand’s fan page, which immediately shares that information with your friends. Perhaps they liked it too.

Depending how many friends you have on Facebook, and how many friends your friends have, those two actions have the potential to reach hundreds of people. Little wonder brand owners have taken to referring to social media as ‘word-of-mouth on steroids’.

Even without the social media boost, the power of WOM and its importance to brand owners have been demonstrated over and over again. Most recently the Gunn Report from the IPA noted that “buzz is strongly linked to [advertising] effectiveness”, and it’s free – so more buzz equals greater marketing ROI.

Social media WOM offers the promise of even greater returns. It takes a lot more effort than two mouse clicks – and a lot more money – to reach hundreds of people in the offline world. Some big brands have made big bets on social media – notably the Pepsi Refresh campaign in 2010. And so WOM marketing is increasingly about gathering Facebook likes and positive mentions on Twitter and other social media platforms – meaning social media monitoring is becoming the main, and often only, measure of word of mouth reach and effectiveness.

This, however, is a narrow and one-dimensional view of WOM which overlooks the fact that most conversations about brands and companies still take place offline. Keller Fay’s TalkTrack – which measures consumer WOM across all sources – indicates that face-to-face conversations account for 81% of brand-related conversations while 11% takes place via phone. Online in all forms accounts for less than 10%.

The other 90 per cent
Brands that ignore other modes of consumer advocacy are potentially ignoring all kinds of opportunities. Julian Ferguson, operations director for the trade organisation WOMMA UK, says: “Successful WOM is about making your brand part of your target audience’s social fabric so that talking about it comes naturally. It doesn’t matter whether conversations are online or offline, recreational or business-based, just so long as they are happening and positive.”

An effective WOM-stimulating approach is to carry out an offline activity that is expected to fuel WOM of all types. That’s typical for the new product sampling programmes conducted by firms such as BzzAgent. McNeil Nutritional’s relaunch of Splenda sweetener in the UK used the classic BzzAgent seeding model, where ‘agents’ are given product samples and information to share and tips for spreading the word. That campaign was a clear success, with significant WOM generated on- and offline (estimated 860,000 conversations) and a sales uplift of 86,000 new users.

But WOM can be achieved in many different ways – it all depends on the business objectives. Our data shows that traditional advertising, despite its detractors, plays a surprisingly large role in stimulating word of mouth. Similarly, offline buzz can come from online activity and vice-versa. Recent research by Keller Fay for NBC Universal in the US found that different tools in the marketing arsenal play a different role in sparking word-of-mouth advocacy, depending on where consumers are in the purchase process. We found that word-of-mouth plays an increasingly important role as consumers get closer and closer to their final purchase decision, and so does the importance of advertising as a part of that discussion.

Seeing both sides
Successful WOM campaigns require brand owners to understand the interplay of online and offline, social and traditional media, virtual and real-world activity.

Researchers must challenge the temptation to rely solely on social media metrics – you can’t pay shareholders and staff with Facebook likes. WOM should link to broader business metrics

The launch of F-Secure’s Internet Security 2011 product is a good example of this. WOM marketing specialist 1000heads sent personalised material out to influential bloggers in Scandinavia to help build awareness about John Knowles, a fictional character who is intent on giving away his bank details. At the same time credit cards with more of John’s details written on them were dropped in city centres. The offline activities were designed to generate online and offline WOM, drive traffic to the F-Secure Facebook page and generate hard sales. All three were achieved, with £300,000-plus revenue growth and Facebook views up 687%.

But even a focus on integrated marketing is missing the bigger picture about word-of-mouth and brand reputation, reckons 1000heads CEO Mike Rowe. He argues that “Brands still think in terms of campaigns… they’re still imposing traditional marketing techniques [and] need to move away from that. The real power is peer-to-peer [networks] and getting people talking about things they want to talk about.”

Keeping up with the gossip
This all has implications for how researchers measure WOM. Social media monitoring has many advantages, providing detailed real-time measures of WOM volume and sentiment with all the richness that verbatim comment can provide. But there are drawbacks. Irony and sarcasm are still a challenge for sentiment analysis, though it is improving, and the inability to overlay accurate talker/listener characteristics is a frustration for many. Car manufacturers, for example, want to know what prospective or recent new car buyers are talking about, and are less interested in aspirational chatter among teenagers.

And online WOM is not reflective of all consumer buzz. Our data suggests offline WOM is often more positive and there is a growing body of evidence that consumers tend to be more extreme when commenting in social media, where it’s easy to have a rant or play devil’s advocate. Research also suggests that conversations are heavily dominated by a minority. Sysomos analysed 11 million Twitter users and found that 5% generated 75% of all activity.

There is then a strong case for complementing social media monitoring with other measures, and here the more conventional MR solutions have a role to play. Survey-based approaches can provide a broader perspective, either focused on WOM tracking specifically or including questions on WOM in general brand tracking studies. But of course survey research is not a universal solution either. It relies on recall or diary measures rather than the real-time data of social media monitoring. So it’s reasonable to argue that best practice incorporates social media monitoring and traditional research approaches.

A similarly broad perspective is critical for assessing the impact of buzz. Researchers must challenge clients’ temptation to rely solely on social media metrics – you can’t pay shareholders and staff with Facebook likes.

Ideally WOM measurement should link to broader business metrics such as brand health and equity and – best of all – actual sales or market share. BzzAgent’s Brian Cavoli notes: “Everyone talks about ROI in a zillion different ways, but if your purpose is to launch a product then ROI has to be a financial metric.”

Steve Thomson is UK managing director of the Keller Fay Group. He is a past director of the Ipsos consumer goods practice and a former Roper ASW executive.