P&G, Online, and Word of Mouth

Hi Heather.
The debate of online versus offline word of mouth is misguided. With disclosure, I work for a company that measures online. But here's the reality:
1. Online word of mouth is a proxy for offline behaviors...behaviors period. Online just becomes a data collection platform.
2. Online does have biases and the CGM trail it leaves behind is not representative of the total human population (whatever that means). And that's precisely what makes it so important and valuable. People who create word of mouth (or consumer-generated media) online actually are self-selecting, engaged people -- typically influencers and early adopters. They organize themselves and become visible to others according to very important criteria: affinity, lifestage and psychographic attributes.
3. Online word of mouth is not static and is potentially most impactful precisely because online word of mouth has super Google mojo -- it is extremely prolific in the search engines and increasingly dominates top search results. Who uses search engines? Influencers and engaged stakeholders, such as: 1) journalists like you; 2) current and future employees; 3) customers; 4) competetitors; 5) partners; 6) laywers; 7) government and agencies; 8) investors, etc. These highly engaged stakeholders -- in information seeking mode -- are precisely the ones who are most likely to discover and be influenced by CGM indexed online.

I'm not discounting Ed Keller's work. In fact, I respect it deeply and cite it all the time. But the online versus offline debate has gone astray.
My colleague Pete Blackshaw has a great reflection on this debate, which he wrote following a presentation with Ed Keller last week. He raises the notion of Intimate versue Incidential Word of Mouth:
http://notetaker.typepad.com/cgm/2006/05/intimate_versus.html

Cheers,
Max

In the world of small business, at least on the local retail and services side, hasn't it always been about the "intimate" -- one-on-one conversations over coffee, during school dropoff, or over the proverbial backyard fence? No word of mouth is stronger than a recommendation from a friend who shares your needs or concerns.

Hey Heather, The battle of ownership over which channel owns word-of-mouth originatio seems to have begun. The process of initiation, consideration, and termination of a marketing-related conversation is likely to be triggered by a number of channels and ad exposures online or offline will contribute to the overall process.

I believe we're likely to see the number and frequency of word-fo-mouth exchanges online increase. Here's why: According to Pew Internet & American Life Project 25 million American's have sold something online and approximately 45% of American internet users, or about 60 million Americans, say that the internet helped them make big decisions or negotiate their way through major episodes in their lives in the previous two years. What's clear is that people are simply finding new ways to share their conservations.

I also want to let you know about another word-of-mouth study published by our firm -- BoldMouth.com and Osterman Research titled Perceptions, Practices, and Ethics in Word-of-Mouth Marketing. Here's a link to the pdf: http://www.boldmouth.com/studies/word_of_mouth_marketing_research_boldmouth.pdf

Many thanks,

Todd Tweedy
CEO
BoldMouth.com

Offline WOM being predominant over online WOM is not unusual to me as most people feel it's easier to talk than write, and they prefer NOT to be put on written record for positive or negative reviews of anything, in my opinion.

This only goes to prove that institutionalized WOM works best when there is no "paper trail" of disclosure or non-disclosure. I also believe that a certain (slightly larger) percentage of the population believes that "if you don't have something good to say about something or somebody, then don't say anything at all." Therefore, I believe that most people will feel more at ease in openly spreading the "good news" vs. the "bad news". However, this depends on how much of a "loss" the initial WOM person felt when the WOM process started. Why? Because, if the initial person felt a personal loss of some kind, that negative WOM could spread faster and wider than positive WOM depending on the perceived severity of the loss.