Direct mail, meet word of mouth

Make love, not war

10th November 2010, Mail Media Centre, London

Molly Flat and Benn Achilleas

Warm upWhat the **** is WOM anyway?

Fantasist (in D&D), Snow boarder (goofy), University (revolutionary), new tech hacker (old skool), forum moderator (too nice), forum owner (too much admin), gun for hire, hippy (not enough hair) and now…?

Co-founder @neoco.

@mrbennbenn

Fantasist (in wellies), Vandal, Violinist (badly), English Lit Student, Comic Book Lover (geeeek!), Product Junkie (hello, Veria), Summer Holiday Bartender (rubbish), Actress (only mildly less rubbish), Corporate Coach, Online Journalist (art and tech), and now…?

WOM Evangelist @1000heads. Yes, really.

@mollyflatt

“word of mouth is the best medium

of all”William Bernbach, American Advertising Executive, 1911-1982

27,000,000Number of Britons expected to be a member of a social network by 2012

3.5bnMore than

Pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, etc.) shared each week on Facebook

1,300,000 tph

37 yrs oldThe average social network user is

Of social network users are aged 25+75%

Average ratio of male/female on social networking sites47/53

50%Almost

Of Facebook users earn more than £30k

“Through understanding we have better and more creative

ideas that help foster relationships between

people and brands”

Understanding

2. What the brand wants

Grassroots authenticity, global, challenger, transformer

1. What the brand has

3. What the people have

4. What the people want

Visibility, advocacy, sales, global traffic

Passion, ambition, communities, influence

Exposure, experiences, self-improvement, networking

Ideas

BRAND PEOPLE

Visibility ExposureTour de FranceTour de France

Advocacy Experience

One man and his SKINS

One man and his SKINS

Sales Self-improvement

Product trialsProduct trials

Global traffic

Networking

Parallel global journeys

Parallel global journeys

RelationshipsEm

oti

onal in

dex

NASCENT ADVOCACYLOW LEVEL OF EMOTIONAL INVESTMENT

MATURE ADVOCACYHIGH LEVEL OF EMOTIONAL

INVESTMENT

Time

First post about a brand in an online conversati

on

WOMProfiling /

understanding

Advocacy, peer

recommendation, purchase

strength

Personal and relevant

conversational marketing

Spark(advertising, in-

store, launch anticipation, digital

campaign)

Ignition

Ongoing Fuelling(WOM /

advocacy stream)

Direct engagement phase

Traditionally

Anticipation, excitement

Ongoing gratification

Product launch

Reasons to join conversation

More energy needed

Word of Mouth

Higher spend per capita

Recommending products & services

Embracing future activity

Building passion

Developing offline following

Respected

WOMThemes & Campaigns

Product launch

Round 1DM and WOM: worlds apart?

direct mail

vsword of mouth

direct vs indirect

personalised vs personal

individual vs social

isolated vs sustained

traditional vs disruptive

Round 2Working together

http://www.chrisbrogan.com/my-death-notice-from-frenzied-waters/

http://dailymobile.se/2010/05/12/the-golden-ticket-and-the-nokianav-challenge/

4 big WOM triggers(whatever your media)

 

AuthenticityWOM Spark 1

 

Insight: I love you, man

 

Guru: Bill

 

Case study: Starbucks“Authenticity is

what we stand for. It’s part of who we

are. If we compromise who we

are to achieve higher profits, what

have we accomplished?

Eventually all our customers would

figure it out…

Let’s get back to the core”

Chairman Howard Schulz

First for Fairtrade

coffee and loyalty cards

YouTube videos

highlighting Seattle origins

Ideas in Action blog

My Starbucks Idea social network

Local design cafes

Staff remember regulars’

names and orders and

give freebies

 

DisruptionWOM Spark 2

 

Insight: the Hudson plane crash

 

Guru: Anderson

 

Case study: The $73,000 bar tab

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PiL6sJ325Q

 

GamingWOM Spark 3

 

Insight: we’re all gamers now

Nearly one-half of US social network users now play social games, making it the fifth most popular social networking activity, ahead of watching videos or searching for new contacts

28% of all female internet users play games such as FarmVille and Mafia Wars

http://www2.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007665

 

Guru: McGonigal

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n37v-rDqhEU

Connect with others in a collective experience Be part of something bigger than ourselves Actively do something concrete Feel we’re good at something

 

Case study: Lego Click

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OinrOnjzH_A

Celebrates light-bulb moments

when things just CLICK

Brings together people of all sorts in a

community to develop new ideas

iPhone app: 2mill

downloads in launch month

Award winning short film on

YouTube

Kids of all ages get to

play

Build world’s biggest

lightbulb in Smithsonian

Posters around New

York

 

Observational learning

WOM Spark 4

 

Insight: baaa

 

Gurus: Rogers vs Vejlgaard

 

Case study: Mehndi

Clare Ramsey Trendspotter,

Youth Intellligence, NYC

1990s “I was travelling in India and saw Indian women decorated with mehndi everywhere”

1996 Finds henna in local store, paints minimalist mehndi

1996 Others in her regular café start

asking about them and emulating

1997 Book on street culture mentions

mehndi as a trend1997 Ibiza cafes start offering mehndi

1998 Prince and Madonna seen with

mehndi

1999 National Geographic mehndi is “a very cool thing

to do”

1999 LA artist Paolo Giacomini “now it’s

hugel popular – in Japan, Argentina, Sweden,

Greece, My Guatemalan maid does it”

2000 Estee Lauder offers mehndi kits

Round 3Knuckle down

In pairs, look at each piece of direct mail in turn.

1. Are you using any WOM triggers in your existing DM? If so, list the ways

2. For each piece, pick one of the WOM triggers you think could work best (authenticity, disruption, gaming, observational learning) and identify specific ways in which you could integrate that approach into the DM. Think design, tone, takeaways, method of delivery, packaging, call to action etc etc.

WOM optimising your DM

Thank you

Molly Flattmolly.flatt@1000heads.com@1000heads+7788 746642www.1000heads.com

Benn Achilleas, Neocobenn@neoco.com@neoco+7951 673785www.neoco.com

www.wommauk.org@wommaukjulian@wommauk.org