Word of mouth is no longer just mums at the school gate - it's global conversation that can be accelerated by specialists.

Word of mouth is the best recommendation a brand can get. A friend mentioning that brand X is best is a lot more effective than a TV ad. But while this has always been the case, digital media has provided marketers with a way of accelerating the process of gaining genuine consumer backing.
 
New channels, such as buzz agents and bloggers, combine with social networks in the form of Facebook, MySpace and Bebo, micro-blogging services, such as Twitter, and social bookmarking sites, like Digg and Del.icio.us, to develop the medium.
 
An up-to-date moniker would be Word of Mouth 2.0 and it’s a strategy that has been adopted by blue chips such as Sony and Procter & Gamble.
 

At the core of successful WOM is a change of mindset at advertiser level. WOM must be transparent because with the rise of the “fifth estate” – citizen journalism – there are few places to hide if you try and deceive or spin the consumer.

According to Leo Ryan, director at digital strategy consultancy RMM, which works with clients including Sony, the Discovery Channel and the WWF, brands need to deliver on the promises they have been making for years. “Brands have tried very hard to become people and be more than a product; now the consumer expects them to behave like people by engaging in conversation, responding interacting and listening,” he says.

Ryan worked with Sony on the Sony Bravia campaign. The aim was to harness the buzz created by the filming of the iconic “Balls” advert in San Francisco after consumer footage of the shoot leaked out online. Professional “behind-the-scenes” footage was seeded online in order to continue the conversation with brand involvement. “We turned up with a metaphorical plate of canapés and a tray of drinks and linked to people who were already having that conversation,” says Ryan.

Sony Paint and a new relationship 

As Sony developed its campaign via a new creative execution “Paint”, the aim was to proactively connect with Sony Bravia’s digital audience using content that could be used by bloggers, influential media and forums.

Specialist agency Immediate Future worked with Sony on the project. Managing director Katy Howell says the key to successful WOM marketing lies in identifying the right influencers online and working out what will allow you to carry on the conversation. “The ethos is social currency,” she says. “People talk through brands and if you give them the tools and give them more insight they have more social currency.”

 
Sony offered this social currency in the form of exclusive content in order to take part in the conversation online, enhance its marketing message and give it life beyond the advert.
 
FMCG giant P&G has operated a WOM network in the US since 2000. Tremor Network, a marketing programme is focused on teenagers, while Vocalpoint is aimed at mums with kids aged 0-19-years-old.
 

Brands such as Toyota and Coca-Cola are believed to have used the service. The concept is simple: give the consumer early access to new products and you give them social currency. “Word of mouth is a perfect example of how we build relationships.

P&G's Dawn Direct 
We offer teens and moms information that helps them nurture their social networks,” says a spokeswoman. Tremor has had great success and once the ball is rolling it provides insight than can be reused to better target its consumers. One example of this in action was for Dawn Direct Foam in the US.
 
Tremor found that the product – which is designed for people who wash dishes without a sink full of water – was considered so easy to use by mums that their kids would want to help with more chores. Vocalpoint developed a programme around the idea helping to nearly double the brand’s business.
 
BzzAgent is a WOM network with more than 300,000 volunteers in the US, UK and Canada who are willing to receive and promote your product. Working with clients such as GlaxoSmithKline, American Express, Kraft Foods and AOL across North America and Europe, BzzAgent says it has three golden rules: It never pays its volunteers, they have to disclose their involvement and programme in the US thirdly, they are free to express their own opinion.
 
Dave Balter, chief executive and founder of BzzAgent, says that the network is used by brands as an accelerant for marketing campaigns.
 
“We are there as a catalyst for the conversation. Word of mouth is the oldest form of marketing dialogue. We try and tap into that by giving consumers tools and information to talk more effectively, but really we just give people the power,” he says.
 
Adding between 1,000 to 5,000 new volunteers per week, the network is growing in strength, but Balter admits that as the company exerts no influence over opinion, WOM can have negative feedback. “About 10% of any campaign is negative comment. Consumers will talk how they want no matter what you do, but you need to know what they are saying in order to better serve the market,” says Balter.

Traditional ads get consumers talking 
Digital WOM is still in its infancy, but research is in the pipeline that should cement is position. Universal McCann is about to embark on a global study to measure the effectiveness of digital WOM against face to face. “The general feeling is that all conversations online are not as valuable as direct conversations,” says Tom Smith, research manager at Universal McCann. “But the first thing people do now before they buy anything is go online to research it.”
 
Universal McCann measured the WOM created by a recent campaign it ran for Xbox 360 in Europe. The agency booked every ad in an issue of Metro and ran a different game in each spot. It ran across multiple European territories, but in the US the gaming message boards went crazy with 25,000 posts a day.
 

Scott Holmes, strategy and innovation manager, client services at Universal McCann, says that the ads should be enough to create the WOM element of any campaign, without the need to rely on organised networks.

“Using a WOM network is forcing it a bit and I would like to think that we would always come up with something that works naturally,” he says.