According to Word of Mouth guru Andy Sernovitz "advertising is the price of being boring!" Sernovitz goes on to say that if you create cool, exciting stuff then everyone will write about you. But if you're boring, well then you'll have to pay them to write about you. And of course it's usually easier to buy the ads than it is to be consistently interesting and remarkable!

Surveys show that consumers are saturated with traditional forms of advertising. Moreover they are no longer enjoying this traditional, mostly TV, advertising in the same way as they did a generation ago. With the fragmentation of media that has accompanied the growth of the digital communications, and the Internet in particular, they now have more interactive viewing choice than ever before.

No surprise then that marketers have started to latch on to new ways of generating of word of mouth (WOM): viral marketing, consumer generated media and buzz marketing are all the rage.

As an example, take a look at two of the more successful viral campaigns in recent months. The first, called Dove Evolution is already one of the most watched films on the Internet and has supported the global brand's 'campaign for real beauty'. The second campaign for the surfing brand Quicksilver, called Dynamite Surfing appeared on 95% of surfer websites within four days on its release.

But as market researchers, how can we track the Word of Mouth generated by such campaigns or for that matter any buzz marketing activity?

The first challenge of tracking WOM is to do so in such a way as to generate results that are comparable with those for other promotional activities as diverse as TV, print, POS and CRM. This way relative ROI from the various investments made can be gauged.

In fact WOM can be considered as being a just another type of brand touchpoint, to be compared with others such exposure to marketing (TV, print etc commercials), seeing the brand at point-of-sales or seeing someone consuming the product. As such the Touchpoints-ROI tracking system is ideal for obtaining measures of WOM that can be benchmarked against all other brand touchpoints - in terms of volume, timing and the impact on consumers.

Real-time tracking using mobile phones

The basic methodology is that consumers use their mobile phones to log touchpoint data in real time. This allows for a more realistic measure of WOM verses traditional mass media, especially when comparing with delayed tracking surveys conducted via the Internet.

This is because when consumers recall from memory at a later date, during such tracking surveys, they naturally tend to default towards the more dominant media (usually TV). This typically overstates TV versus other sources of awareness.

The latter point is illustrated in the following charts that compares Internet tracking of Coca Cola media awareness with 360 brand interactions logged in real time over consumers' mobile phones.

In contrast to the traditional media tracking approach, we see that WOM becomes the fourth most important brand touchpoint, not far behind TV commercials.

Frequently, the favorability of WOM touchpoints is more polarized than for other touchpoints, as is the case the technology brand shown below:

This polarization effect is easily understood in so much as consumers generally need to hold some firm opinion about the brand (whether it be positive or negative) in order to be motivated to speak about it to others. This can be contrasted with passively receiving mail for the same brand, which is not polarizing at all in relative terms.

Touchpoints-ROI also provides important insight data regarding the context of the WOM. This can be seen in terms of the precise timing of the WOM as shown in the following case tracked for a breakfast cereal brand.

So while we see that the WOM touchpoints among adults peaks equally around meal times, children are much more likely to speak about the brand at breakfast time.

In addition, by studying the open-ended comments provided, we can uncover the content of the WOM at a specific time and explain how this may be driving an overall the positive or negative attitude towards the brand, via this most sensitive of touchpoints.

Getting consumers to talk about your brand (and sell it to their friends!) is a key target of marketers in the 21st century. Increasingly this involves using 360-degree communication packages and non-conventional marketing support aimed at deepening the relationship between brands and consumers.

Now there are research tools, such as Touchpoints-ROI, that can capture such WOM in real-time, providing both quantitative and qualitative insight. In doing so, it positions WOM as a consumer-brand interaction among all the other touchpoints that are taking place into today's ever more complex marketing space.

Touchpoints-ROI (TROI) was developed in by UK-based agency MESH Planning and is exclusively available in Japan under license from JMI. For more information, contact:

For Japan Jeff Matsui

For other markets - Fiona Blades