The Word of Mouth Marketing Debate is as Entertaining as Sony’s Awesome New Bravia LCD Digital Color TV

By: Anna Bielejec

According to the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (not-so-shockingly nicknamed “WOMMA”), word of mouth marketing is a legitimate marketing avenue that “empowers people to share their experiences, by harnessing the voice of the customer for the good of the brand.” So what is it exactly? According to the WOMMA website, it’s a type of marketing that focuses on consumer-generated and social media platforms involving buzz, viral, community, and influencer marketing techniques, as well as brand blogging. Visit http://jcrewaficionada.blogspot.com and you’ll quickly recognize what this means. Is it really, as the WOMMA describes, “the only marketing that… pushes marketers to create better products and provide genuine satisfaction?” Or does it raise a red flag by blurring the division between legitimate transparent marketing and deceptive stealth marketing? After all, J.Crew’s attempt to make the blog appear like the work of a devoted J.Crew fan that lovingly maintains her blog as the “place to discuss all aspects of J.Crew,” is completely unconvincing.

Stealth marketing really made the headlines with a 2006 Sony Ericsson campaign that placed T68i cell phones in the hands of 60 paid models with directions to pose as tourists and ask passer-bys to take their picture using the phone. Commercial Alert, a group that dedicates itself to “protecting communities from commercialism,” asked the Federal Trade Commission to launch an investigation into this type of marketing practice. Believing “buzz marketers who fail to disclose that they have been enlisted to promote products are perpetrating large-scale deception upon consumers,” Commercial Alert found the Sony campaign to be deceptive, intrusive, and something that was “designed to take advantage of the kindness of strangers, and erode the bonds of trust.”

So how different is word of mouth marketing from stealth marketing? My opinion, in the form of a fun analogy, goes like this: word of mouth marketing is to stealth marketing, as sweet potato pie is to (blank). If you’ve filled in the “(blank)” with the words “pumpkin” and “pie,” then you are correct. Sweet potato pie is not really that different from pumpkin pie. You can taste the difference and they have different names, but they’re both basically the same tasty dark-orangey-colored sweet pie that pairs amazingly well with whipped cream. Word of mouth marketing supposedly uses “creative techniques to encourage communication,” but I don’t find it all that different from the sneaky techniques used in stealth marketing. The “translucent” communication utilized by both types of marketing mirrors the color, texture and whipped cream on both the pies. It bridges the alleged differences and makes them appear far more similar than certain organizations (like the WOMMAs or… sales-driven bakeries of the world) would like us to believe.

Is it possible for a targeted individual in a word of mouth marketing arrangement to be unaware of the source of a consumer’s product “praise?” I believe it is. So remind me again, WOMMA. This is less misleading from the abhorrent stealth marketing, how?