Or “DIY Advocacy” perhaps? With all this talk about advocacy, wouldn’t you like someone to be YOUR advocate? Well, like anything else, probably the best person to do that is YOU and entrepreneurial German artist Markus Kison is offering just the solution with the Vanity Ring. When you pop the ring into a docking station attached to your computer, it will update how many Google results your name generates and display it on the ring. Then you can undock it and wear it about town for everyone to see how popular you are.
PS – adornment of brand names and logos is one of the hallmarks of an Advocate. Our multi-market New Wave of Advocacy research found that 63 percent of Brand/Product Advocates wear logos or carry branded products to show their brand allegiance. That’s more than double the number of our overall respondents (30 percent).
STOP THE PRESSES!
Eight years ago I left a promising FMCG marketing career to join the PR industry. At the time my colleagues couldn’t understand why. On Tuesday I was able to share with some of them the results the Advocacy Study that we have recently conducted with Dr Paul Marsden. It identifies that today, across Europe, advocacy is five times more effective at driving brand sales than advertising. That a third of brand trial is driven by advocacy. That advocates believe that when they promote a brand, it results in a sale every other time. And that brands in Europe have only activated just over half of their available and clearly very effective advocates.
It’s compelling stuff that should put advocacy at the heart of every marketing agenda. But do you know what’s more interesting? It’s that these advocates don’t talk to each other about brand onions, one word equities or indeed advertising. They tell stories - simple, compelling, credible stories about their experiences. And do you know who is best placed to help you create, test and seed these brand advocacy stories? You’ve got it … it’s the PR industry!
One of the most interesting news bits from the Word-of-Mouth Marketing Summit this month was the PQ Media report that proclaimed WOM spending will top $1B in 2007, and grow to $3.7B in 2001. Time to party? Not so fast. Despite the “meteoric rise” that Ad Age reported, WOM spending is still less than 1% of the $254B marketing services industry.
The real question: Why is WOM spending still so ridiculously low? We’ve all seen the data that says a friend’s or colleague’s recommendation has more sway than marketers do when it comes to trying, buying, registering, voting, etc. We’ve also seen that people are spending more time in front of their monitors than their TVs. And we’ve also seen the *real* meteoric rise of Facebook, MySpace and other social networks.
So what gives? Part of it is definition — PQ specifically excludes in-store sampling, event marketing, PR and other categories to “avoid double-counting.” While that’s admirable, I can equally argue that most if not all PR and events work could be counted within WOM. At least PQ recognizes that WOM is intertwined with other disciplines — which takes me back to an academic “is it the objective” or “is it the strategy” debate.
Beyond definitions, the other barrier to WOM is good ol’ habit. Traditional advertising is still very comfortable for most clients, and marketers love the appeal of 30-second spots. As a relationship and reputation function, PR is arguably much better at fueling WOM — but it doesn’t package up so neatly in a pitch. The “big idea” is more easily consumed as an “ad” than it is as a “conversation” or as a “community.” But while old habits die hard, the times they are achangin’…
I was reading a book that just came out titled The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor, and Privacy on the Internet by Daniel J. Solove, an associate professor at George Washington University Law School. He is an expert in privacy law and has tackled the loss of privacy in our personal lives due to technology.
He has a discussion about gossip and how the Internet fuels gossip as if on steroids. Solove quotes Albert-Laszlo Barabasi in his book Linked: “[It] isn’t the overall size of the Web. It’s the distance between any two documents. How many clicks does it take to get from the home page of a high school student in Omaha to the Webpage of a Boston stockholder?” The answer is about 19 clicks on average.
Makes one realize that championing a cause or product or company takes fewer clicks than typing “Today is Tuesday Nov. 27th” to get your recommendation or non-recommendation across. Advocates and their friends, the Badvocates, move at lightning speed. No time to waste.
One of the first thing that comes to mind when I think about Advocacy is rock star and activist Bono’s “Red” campaign. Bono launched a new push to fight HIV and AIDS in Africa on Thursday, unveiling a partnership with American Express and other companies to offer products under a brand called “Red,” some proceeds of which will be funneled to the cause.
A new wave in communications is taking hold that is fundamentally transforming communication from providing information to promoting and driving advocacy. At Weber Shandwick, we understand the critical role that advocates play in igniting enthusiasm and building momentum, while influencing the opinions of others in their personal networks. As a result, we are highly focused on creating advocacy for our clients’ issues, products and services, organizations, and brands.
Welcome to the premiere of All About Advocacy — a blog written by and for people who believe in the accelerating power of Advocates in society today. Contributors will include a wide range of Weber Shandwick Advocates who will share their unique perspectives about this new wave of communications. We encourage comments from our readers…that’s what advocacy is all about!
Or “DIY Advocacy” perhaps? With all this talk about advocacy, wouldn’t you like someone to be YOUR advocate? Well, like anything else, probably the best person to do that is YOU and entrepreneurial German artist Markus Kison is offering just the solution with the Vanity Ring. When you pop the ring into a docking station attached to your computer, it will update how many Google results your name generates and display it on the ring. Then you can undock it and wear it about town for everyone to see how popular you are. 
