Are Agencies Walking the Talk?

Adweek had a thoughtful article on word of mouth marketing last month that I bookmarked and re-read this weekend. Notable were the comments by Pete Blackshaw, chief marketing officer of Nielsen BuzzMetrics who said, "Most brands do a pathetic job listening to consumers vis-a-vis existing tools, whether it's through 800 numbers, call centers, 'contact us' feedback forms." He then added "The reason I say 'pathetic' is those listening tools aren't terribly assimilated into the new Web 2.0 culture, where people talk with audios, photos, videos. Most companies assume consumers speak in one language and that language is text, when consumers actually speak in a much more robust language."

Blackshaw is spot on with those comments. Too many companies think of web based interactions as text driven sales or customer service channels. But customers want to engage with the the brands on a more personal level earlier in the marketing funnel before they are ready to make purchases. They want to draw the brand into their own conversations and decision making processes. They want the companies to participate on their terms. The current tools simply don't allow for that. Few websites are defined to put the conversations at the epicenter. Most focus on the product. That worked for a long time but not anymore.

Blackshaw also said, "there is such a viral effect being created by what brands do -- whether it's through products that work, customer service, the way employees behave -- that we also need to listen to understand the cause and effect between brand experience and consumer conversation." That's really the million dollar question. We're all trying to understand the relationship. Making it harder is the fact that the brand determines the type of conversation too.

I know I'll be spending a lot of time thinking about the relationship between brand experience and consumer conversation in the next few months.