Creating conversations around your brand
One afternoon, a parcel of 12 chocolate bars arrived at a Surry Hills office of 10 PR chicks. The next five minutes was about as calm as feeding time in a shark tank. Similar parcels were sent to 400 women around Sydney and Melbourne along with emails asking interesting questions about the parcel. What happened next was pure marketing gold.

Consumers are getting savvier, more cynical and they have a voice. That is both exciting and frightening. On one hand, they hate being treated like idiots. At the same time, they like being marketed to – provided it is done in a way that appeals to them. Involving consumers in your brand is a smart way to take advantage of this phenomenon.

Much like PR, word of mouth marketing ignites conversations about your brand. It works by tapping into a simple human psyche – we want to know that we matter, and our opinions matter. When we are involved, we feel empowered and we claim ownership.

In word of mouth marketing, strong consumer brand ambassadors are involved in spreading the word of your product or service. They are usually early adopters, persuasive and have a large social network. A good word of mouth campaign involves understanding the network of your target market, spotting who the influencers are, finding the right way to engage them, working out the message to be spread (or the conversation you want started), and giving them a good incentive to spread the word.

Which brings us back to the chocolates.  Sent out before the products were launched, the recipients knew that what they said would shape whether the chocolates will make it to the stores, in what form, and even what the tone of the ads would be. So every time they saw this product on the shelves, on TV, or anywhere else, they would feel ownership of this brand, and they were the first to tell their friends about it.

The result of this simple exercise was that each of the 400 women told at least 20 friends, who then spoke to some more friends. Just imagine, what would all those positive, voluntary conversations do for your brand?

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