October 25, 2007

Flipping Out Is In!

Are advertisers and marketers reaching the young girls/Gen Y market? Not according to the team at 3iYing. Its' offensive, insulting and plain stupid! Who i 3iYing, what's a Flip? and what has this got to do with Word of Mouth? Plenty!

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October 18, 2007

What Word of Mouth Can Learn from Cartoons

What do Powerpuff Girls, Spider-Man and Disney's Cutie line all have in common? These US cartoon characters have all been re-invented by a process called transcreation. Far more than just dubbing in another language, these icons of the cartoon world now have relevance in the global markets they enter. Can transcreation help build stronger WOM programs? Read on.....

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October 04, 2007

Intergenerational Friendships- An Untapped Marketing Opportunity

On the Couch, Dr. Gail Saltz, one of the specialty blogs offered through iVillage had a very interesting article about women and their friendships. The article discusses the benefits that come to women who become close friends with those much older and/or much younger than themselves. The blog comments were very telling AND if viewed through a marketing lens, show the power these intergenerational relationships could have on a company's Brand and bottom-line.

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September 24, 2007

Cause Marketing and Word of Mouth

Are all Causes equal? Could supporting a Cause that fits a company's products or services generate more goodwill than supporting one that is done just 'beCause' it is easier to operationalize and requires no new creative thinking?  Lastly, can a Cancer Cause program generate more Word of Mouth for their Brands AND stand out among the 'sea of pink'?

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June 25, 2007

WOM Enabling - For Increased Brand and Customer Voice Power

How can WOM be incorporated into your current marketing strategies to gain more bang for your bucks? Today, and for the next several postings, I am going to talk about some great ideas that could have benefited by the addition of WOM strategies... or in our words - being WOM-EnabledTM. Today, lets look at Haagan Dazs' sponsorship of a hotel room.

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June 05, 2007

WOM Enabling- Moving From Traditional to WOMtastic Marketing

Daily, I read about the launch of campaigns using traditional media to promote products and service. In today's YouTube, Consumer Generated Media (CGM), mobile & Instant Messaging (IM) world, one has to ask...what would be the result if these same campaigns were WOM-enabledTM ?

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May 31, 2007

The Power of Voice to Build Buzz, Brand and WOM

During the 2006 holiday season, gift cards sales reached $27.8 Billion , exceeding the estimated of the National Retail Federation by 3 Billion dollars! So how do you make plastic gift cards more personal? The answer comes not from a well known card company such as Hallmark, but from Wisconsin retailer - Lands End

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May 29, 2007

What Can Product Development Learn from a Purse?

Over the long holiday weekend, I took time to catch up on a number of articles that have been piling up on my "to read" file. Over the next few posting I will be talking about a wide variety of topics, but today I want to mention a comprehensive study which was done on the inside articles found in your average women's purse. Part ethnography, part qualitative and very informative, this hands on activity can teach us plenty.

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May 15, 2007

Blogola - Another Name for Shilling?

Question - Mainstream news outlets have strict rules governing to what extent their palms can be greased - but not blogs. Should blogs follow the same rules?

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May 01, 2007

Using Education to Build WOM And Sales

How do you get people interested in products that they have little experience with? What do you do when the cost of your products represent a real monetary risk if your buyer is makes an uneducated purchase? And what if your product requires an environmental condition to deliver the experience that you are selling? Educational based WOM strategies may be your magic bullet.

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