The funny old world of word-of-mouth measurement
A great editorial article from Brand Republic in response to Mckinsey’s recent “A new way to measure word-of-mouth marketing” piece. If nothing else, proof that it is possible to pick apart any WoM measurement methodology.
Measurement based on such disparate discussions is a necessity of our marketing world, but it will never be perfect. It’s an approach that tries to add control to the uncontrollable. I mean, we’ve been OK with the fuzzy logic of brand tracking and TV ads for decades, and yet marketers now have to be held accountable for tracking sentiment? They might as well say “measure society” and look at the mess governments make of that!
So, instead of continuing to approach word-of-mouth with some kind of control as our raison d’etre, which leads trying to measure and quantify impacts, do we acknowledge that in an open setting, meaningful participation is our raison d’etre? After all, that’s what customers ultimately appreciate.