” Advocacy Is NOT A Media Buy “

By Ted Wright April 18, 2008

Justin Cooper has an interesting piece* out today on the effectiveness of compensating advocates.

What really grabbed us was Justin’s headline which is a not so opaque dig at an entire swath of the WOMM world. Having spent some time recently with BzzAgent’s (thanks again Dave and team for the interesting work) March and April white papers on valuing WOMM we have been thinking quite a bit about the “WOMM is a media buy” philosophy and have come to the following conclusions.

·         Using units of measure that marketers understand already (CPM, CPC, GRP,CPA) is very helpful when selling in the idea of WOMM into traditionally educated or older marketers.

·         Turning around the equation to compare the effectiveness of WOMM vs. broadcast is also very helpful when selling in the idea of WOMM.

·         There is a continuum of Influencers out there that range from the “I like free stuff ‘cause it’s free” to “’ Passionate’ but I wouldn’t call it ‘stalking’”.  Those Influencers who live on the “passionate” half of the Influencer continuum are the focus at Fizz because they are predisposed to find the work of spreading word of mouth to be fun and interesting rather than something for which they have to be paid.

In the end we believe that WOMM is not just another media channel. You can’t buy impressions with WOMM like you can in broadcast because WOMM is not a share of voice medium. It is an advocacy medium that works best when three criteria are met:

1.       The story is Interesting, Relevant and Authentic .

2.       The marketing program around that story creates a platform for fans to share with the unaware.

3.       All activities are inviting not disrupting.

Thanks for the interesting thought starter Justin.

* http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.san&s=80854&Nid=41684&p=414196