Marketing guru Jack Trout argues that word-of-mouth marketing "isn't new much less 'the next big thing'" in a recent article in Forbes Magazine. Trout feels that a third-endorsement of a product or service has always been the marketer's Holy Grail. However, he demonstrates skepticism that this can be engineered or controlled.
I like how Trout emphasizes that buzz can kill you if you don't have a good product or service. He uses some great examples of products that got lots of buzz but never took off such as the recent King Kong movie, the Segway gyroscopic scooter, and the Pontiac G6 (remember that Oprah giveaway?).
As a guy who made his fame and fortune in the advertising industry, it's hardly surprsing that Trout is uncomfortable with word-of-mouth marketing since it is much less controlled than the classic way of marketing which involved creating ads and buying expensive media coverage.
Yet, with consumers drowning in 10,000 commercial messages/week, they are looking to escape from traditional marketers. Not surprisingly, they're turning in droves to TiVo (and other DVRs) and satellite radio so they can avoid commercials. Word-of-marketing is not the marketing flavor of the day; rather, it is the only way to reach a large (and growing larger) swath of America. Businesses that experiment with word of mouth marketing now will be much better positioned to compete in a world where the 30-second television spot and large display ads in newspapers are dead.
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