No ad or salesperson can convince you about the virtues of a product
as persuasively as can a friend, acquaintance, past customer, or independent
expert. Suppose you are planning to buy a PDA (personal
digital assistant) and you have seen all the ads for Palm, HP, and
Sony. You even go to examine them at Circuit City and listen to the
salesperson. You’re still undecided and don’t buy. Then a friend tells
you how Palm has changed her life. That does it. Or you read a column
by an expert who tested and describes each one and recommends
Palm.
surrounding their new product launches. High-tech firms send their
new products to well-respected experts and opinion leaders praying
for strong editorial endorsements. Hollywood hopes for a good
Roger Ebert review.
Marketers advertise their new product’s benefits hoping that
they would be believed and carried by word of mouth. But few know
how to use experts and their customers to bring in new customers.
According to word-of-mouth expert Michael Cafferky: “Word of
mouth . . . marches proudly but quietly onward as its Madison
Avenue cousins try in vain to replicate its dramatic results. . . .
Word of mouth is the brain’s low-tech method of sorting
through all the high-tech hype that comes to it from the market
place.”
Companies have been turning increasingly to word-of-mouth
marketing. They seek to identify individuals who are early
adopters, vocal and curious, and with a large network of acquaintances.
When a company brings its new product to the attention of
such influentials, the influentials carry on the rest of the work as
“unpaid salespeople.”
Some companies hire people to parade their new products in
public areas. Someone might park a new Ferrari at a busy intersection.
A stranger might ask you to take her picture; she hands you a
new phone with a built-in camera, leading to an immediate conversation.
Someone in a bar answers his new videophone, and everyone
wants to know more about it. In March 1999, the Blair Witch filmmakers
hired 100 college students to distribute missing person flyers
in youth culture hubs to promote the film.
Today we see the rise of “aggregated buzz” in such forms as Zagat,
which collects New York restaurant reviews from diners (not
restaurant critics) or epinions, where people voice their opinions of
products. Soon consumers will be able to tell the good guys from the
bad guys and no longer have to rely on advertising.