THE NEW
WORLD OF
WORD
OF
MOUTH

w w w. c u l t b r a n d i n g . c o m
CREATED BY aaron shields DESIGNED BY melissa thornton
©2009 The Cult Branding Company

The
mad
men
shout:
“
Help! I can’t reach my drones with my
”
message; they’re talking on their own!

“
It took me 3 spots to reach 80% of women
”
18-49. Now it takes more than 97!

“
I can’t buy first weekend gross—
bad word of mouth drowns out my
”
$35 million advertising budget!

“
I’m lost in this
new world. My
budget no longer
controls the
drones!
”

Sorry Mad Men.
THIS
WORLD
ISN’T
NEW: You just haven’t been paying attention.

REAL
“
Consumer skepticism has become a
THREAT
”
to advertised brands.

REAL
“
Consumer skepticism has become a
THREAT
”
to advertised brands.
—BusinessWeek 1939

“
Do you know that
85% of ads don’t get
looked at?...They
ignore us...We’re right
about everything, but
nobody looks.
”

“
Do you know that
85% of ads don’t get
looked at?...They
ignore us...We’re right
about everything, but
nobody looks.
”
—Bill Bernbach 1968

SO
WHAT’S
CHANGED?

larger &
TECHNOLOGY has given people
larger
bullhorns to drown out the
messages of advertisers.

Casey Neistat’s iPod battery dies but
Apple’s battery replacement costs as
much as a new iPod.
Casey
posts an
anti-Apple
video and
sends it to
a few
friends.

A few days
later his
website has
40,000 hits.
By the
end of the
month it
has over
1,000,000
hits.

Apple changes its
battery replacement policy.

ENABLED
So how do you get the
CONSUMER
to talk about your brand?

You can’t unless you want to be another
RAGING COW.

Dr Pepper/Seven Up
hired people to blog positively about Raging Cow,
leading to consumer outrage and the failure of the product.

Dr Pepper/Seven Up
hired people to blog positively about Raging Cow,
leading to consumer outrage and the failure of the product.
“
This website is FAKE. When
you are advertising under false
pretenses and not being up-front
about what you’re doing … that
isn’t just wrong, it’s immoral
and disgusting.

Mixing your message with the
consumers’ authentic opinions
POLLUTES the word-of-mouth stream.

HARNESSING
the power of word of mouth isn’t about telling people
what to say or giving them incentives to talk.

It’s about giving them something
THEY WANT to talk about.

So why
would they
naturally
want to
TALK
ABOUT
YOUR
BRAND?

THE CRUX OF
WORD OF MOUTH
People talk about brands because it benefits them.

By talking about your brand, people provide
NEW,
VALUABLE
INFORMATION to their peers.

People who provide valuable
STATUS
information gain
in their communities.

Amazon provides a place where people
can come together, give their opinions on
millions of products, and achieve status as
a top reviewer.

People only want to achieve status in
CENTRAL
relation to brands that play a
ROLE in their lives.

Harnessing the power of
word of mouth starts with
WHAT YOUR
learning
CUSTOMERS
TRULY WANT.

Once you know,
you can design
your brand to play
MEANINGFUL
to what’s
to your customers.

“
The philosophy we’ve
taken from the
beginning is if you do
build a great
experience,
customers tell each
other about that.
Word of mouth is very
powerful. —Jeff Bezos, CEO Amazon.com

But the
EXPERIENCE
most companies provide isn’t the one
their customers want.

80% of companies think they’re offering a
superior experience, BUT ONLY 8% OF
CUSTOMERS THINK
THEY DO.

“
You must decide what you stand for,
and then you must align every one
of your systems to reinforce it. You
RECRUIT FOR IT, you SELECT
FOR IT, you ORIENT FOR IT, you
TRAIN FOR IT, you REWARD IT,
you PROMOTE FOR IT, and you
TERMINATE THOSE THAT DON’T
HAVE IT.
”
—John Young, former EVP, Human Resources, Four Seasons

Most hotel
chains
promise
superior
service. AT THE FOUR SEASONS,
part of the employees’
orientation program is
geared towards
helping the employees
understand how they
can delight their
customers.

A superior customer experience fosters a
SENSE OF
BELONGING
between the CUSTOMERS and the BRAND.

POWERFUL BRANDS
provide platforms for
their customers to come
together and form
communities...

...and provide their customers ways to STAND OUT
and WIN PRESTIGE AMONG THEIR PEERS.

If your product only lives up to the
hype, there’s no reason for people
to talk about it. TALK-WORTHY
BRANDS
KNOW HOW TO EXCEED
THEIR CUSTOMERS’
EXPECTATIONS.

“”
Very good
isn’t enough to generate talk.

Talk-worthy brands
establish a new level of
WOW!

These brands allow customers to discover
some of their best features on their own.
THE ELEMENT
OF SURPRISE
gives customers something to talk about.

Zappos often surprises its customers
with free overnight delivery upgrades.

“
Our goal with every
interaction is for the
customer to walk
away saying, Wow
‘
that was the best
experience I ever
had.
”
’ —Tony Hsieh, CEO Zappos

THE HOLY GRAIL
OF MARKETING
is not attained through manipulation.
GREAT BRANDS become talk-worthy by serving
their customers better than anyone else.

REMEMBER,
people only shout your virtues when two conditions are filled:

REMEMBER,
people only shout your virtues when two conditions are filled:
When providing information about
1)
you gives them status in the eyes of
their peers.

REMEMBER,
people only shout your virtues when two conditions are filled:
When providing information about
1)
you gives them status in the eyes of
their peers.
When what you supply is meaningful
2)
to them.

Never forget, you must
LISTEN
to your customers before they’ll be
willing to talk about you.

visit the
word-of-
mouth
learning
center @ www.cultbranding.com/wom

from the creative minds @ www.cultbranding.com
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