Word-of-Mouth Marketing (Trend Watch)

There's a new wind blowing through the marketing arena. You will be hearing more about Word of Mouth Marketing.

It really is nothing new. People have been telling their friends about good (and bad) commercial experiences since Eve told Adam about the forbidden fruit.

What's different about this new wind is the intentionality of the approach. There's even a Word of Mouth Marketing conference sponsored by the WOMMA - Word of Mouth Marketing Association.

Seems like someone is finally trying to control the organic path that WOM messages follow. My advice is to keep an ear open for dialog about WOM. The same way you paid attention to noise about the "World Wide Web" and "One-to-One" marketing a few years back. This is going to grow for a while and the things we learn as a result will change the way we tell stories about our products and services.

For a good discussion thread on WOM, visit John Moore's Brand Autopsy blog.

Question: Is this a different thing? Or, a thing done differently?