WOM UK

Wednesday evening saw the second in our series of WOM UK Thought Leader events – and the first in our new time slot, offering more of a chance for relaxed networking over a glass of wine after the presentation. 50 WOM UK members and friends packed out Grey’s east London offices to hear trnd’s Research Director, Dr Martin Oetting, give an extremely insightful talk on the importance of ‘Empowered Involvement’ in driving word of mouth.

Based on the findings of his doctoral thesis, The Ripple Effect, Martin’s presentation focused on the area of ‘contagious relationships’. He explained that marketers wanting to harness blogs, Facebook and the social web in order to build relationships, both with and between their customers, need to focus on four key drivers of Empowered Involvement – Meaning, Impact, Choice and Competence.

Using several case studies along the way to bring his presentation to life, Martin discussed examples such as Kettle Chips (competence), Livestrong (meaning) and Dell’s Idea Storm (impact) to show where brands have come up trumps, and examples such as Facebook (choice) to highlight where brands have come unstuck.

The presentation was followed by a lively Q&A, which touched on several different issues ranging from WOM metrics to the supposed decline of traditional advertising – see his presentation below and feel free to add any other comments and questions you have in the comments section of this post.

A big thanks to Grey for hosting our first evening slot, and we’d appreciate any feedback on how the later networking event compares to our monthly morning Espresso Briefing sessions. Talking of which, our next Espresso is with Face on Tuesday 24th November, where CEO, Andrew Needham and Head of Social Media & Planning, Francesco D’Orazio will share how real-time WOM monitoring and analysis can enable adaptive brand planning. Check out full details here and register for this event by emailing julian.ferguson@womuk.org your name, company, phone number and email address. As usual, attendance is free to all.