Indulge Me – Word of mouth marketing

Word of mouth marketing, is the act of consumers providing information to other consumers. Okay, Say I brought Asda’s new medium priced shampoo, and told my friends that my hair smelt better then Herbal Essences. My friends try this shampoo and agree and tell their mothers and etc etc. The word gets out, in effect we do the the companies advertising for them, giving that the average person see’s over 3,000 advertising messages every day.

All this is well and good, but it helps the company or agency if the product is actually any good. The consumer needs to see that they can trust a company, only five percent of the UK trust advertising. Conversations are the drivers of growth, and naturally people like to share their thoughts and opinions.

My example?

50’s Tupperware Parties, all across the world, women invited their friends over and demonstrated, advertised and praised Tupperware. Thus creating outstanding brand awareness,  the company generated more than $1 billion in revenues in 1998. This rapid success can be thanked to its recruitment of almost 9,000 independent consultants by 1954, most of them women.

This may be deemed ‘old fashioned’, but companies such as Ann Summers use the exact same principle.

Just with different products, Ann Summers have been very clever here though, as it’s difficult to sell adult material widely.