This document discusses how to create talkable brands that drive sales and recommendations through word-of-mouth marketing. It provides an overview of how word-of-mouth is the most powerful marketing medium and examines how brands can become recommended. Specific strategies are presented, such as identifying influencers, creating engaging content, and measuring word-of-mouth impact using tools like the Digital Footprint Index. Examples are given of how brands like Starbucks and Zappos are successfully implementing word-of-mouth strategies. The presentation concludes with a discussion of transparent disclosure guidelines.

1. 10 Brazilian Congress of Digital Communications
Creating Talkable Brands:
Driving Sales and Recommendations Through
Word of Mouth Marketing
With Dave Kissel, Partner of Zócalo Group
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2. The Power of Word of Mouth
“Word of Mouth
is the best
medium of all”
- Bill Bernbach, DDB
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3. The Power of Word of Mouth
“Word of mouth…is manna
from heaven, but nobody knows
how to do it on purpose.
At least I don’t.”
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4. Word of Mouth is Quickly Gaining
Industry Recognition
“The rewards of pursuing excellence
in WOM are huge and it can deliver
a sustainable and significant
competitive edge few other
marketing approaches can match.
A New Way to Measure
With so few companies actively
Word-of Mouth Marketing managing Word of Mouth - the most
powerful form of marketing - the
April 2010 potential upside is
exponentially great.”
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5. Today’s Agenda
At the end of this session, you will:
Appreciate Know Explore
Understand
how to make your where/how Social
the value of
the definition of becoming a
brands the most Media/WOM could
a talkable brand talked about and be used to drive key
talkable brand recommended in objectives of your
your category brands
A B C
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6. My Company
In Mexico, it translates Headquartered
It’s pronounced
to “Town Plaza” or in Chicago with
ZO-kahl-oh
“Conversation Square” Global Capabilities
A Division of Ketchum,
Specializing in B2B and Omnicom’s 2009 New Media
B2C Word of Mouth only agency solely Agency of the Year
and Public Relations dedicated to Word of (Holmes Report)
Mouth Marketing
2009 Social Media Society for New
Zócalo Group CEO is Communications Research
Campaign of the Year,
President of Word of recognized our Digital
Gold Winner – B2B Footprint Index as Best
Mouth Marketing
(Business Marketing Social Media Measurement
Association
Association) 6
Suite in Industry

7. Why We Are Here
• Brands want this mom* to put their products into her
cart, and to do so on an ongoing basis
*or whoever is your specifically-identified target consumer
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8. What We Know
• The rise of social media* and the decline of
traditional advertising have made it more
competitive and more confusing than ever
before to find the right ways to convince
(and keep convincing) this mom, and most
consumers, to choose your brand
•And all other social/technological innovations
(i.e. Twitter, FourSquare, Mobile, etc.)
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9. Social Media and Mobile Channels Are Increasingly The Key
Arenas In Which Purchase Decisions Are Won or Lost
The internet has become moms’ #1
source (77%) for recipes, significantly
more than cookbooks (36%)
63% of moms use social media
regularly, a 562% increase over the
past few years
Fifty-four percent of B2B respondents
currently use social media for marketing - up
9 % from November 2008 and about 4% from
June 2009, showing a steady increase in B2B
participation.
-- Source [NovaQuant, eMarketer]
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10. But At The End of The Day,
One Critical Insight Remains All Powerful
92% of people say that the recommendation
from a friend, family member, colleague or expert is the most
powerful determinant of their purchase decision.
-- Roper Reports
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11. Recommendations Play The Single Most Pivotal Role in Driving
Purchase in the Food Category
Recommendations
are the #1 Driver
of which new
meals/dishes
consumers buy –
and are nearly
three times more
impactful than
traditional paid
advertisements.
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12. In This Context…
The True Opportunity For Your Brand
Become recommended.
The ability and opportunity to become a truly “talkable” and
recommended brand is more critical now than ever before.
It’s not It’s not It’s not
It’s not
enough to enough to enough to It’s not
enough to
just be just drive just be enough to
just be
covered buzz engaged just be
persuaded
(PUBLIC (SOCIAL received
(ADS) (DIRECT)
RELATIONS) MEDIA) (INTERACTIVE/
EXPERIENTIAL)
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13. A Deeper Look at Becoming Recommended In
The Frozen & Refrigerated Food Category
…Through The Lens of Frozen Pizza
13

14. People Are Talking About Frozen Pizzas…
Tag Cloud – Frozen Pizza – Last 30 Days
Conversation in
this category is
often emotional
and focuses on
family, time,
and recipes or
ingredients.
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15. Conversation is Driven
By Key Category Influencers
Chefs Mommy Bloggers
Associations Restaurant
Owners
Nutrition Experts Event/Party
Planners
School
Foodservice Food Buyers
Professionals
15

16. Across Specific Vertical Channels
Chefs Mommy Bloggers Restaurant Owners Event/Party
Planners
Food Buyers School Foodservice Nutrition Experts Associations
Professionals
16

17. A Closer Look: How People Talk
About the Frozen Pizza Category
Frozen Pizza + Keyword Topic Analysis – Last 30 Days
People are
discussing
specifically
what they like
about frozen
pizza, using
emotional
words like Best
or Favorite in
the
conversation.
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18. A Closer Look: How People Talk
About the Frozen Pizza Category
Frozen Pizza + Keyword Topic Analysis – Last 30 Days
Consumers are
describing
specifically
when, how and
with who they
share frozen
pizzas.
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19. Which Brands Are Leading The Conversation?
Brand Name + Frozen Pizza – Last 30 Days
Market
leaders,
Digiorno and
California
Pizza
Kitchen, are
generating
nearly two
times as
much
dialogue
than other
brands.
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20. Consumers Are Actively Talking About and
Recommending Their Favorite Brands to Others
On Twitter/Facebook/Blogs/Forums
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21. But Not All Frozen Pizza Dialogue is Positive – and Negative
Brand Recommendations Are Going Unchecked
On Twitter/Facebook/Blogs/Forums
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22. What Does This Mean For Your Brand
• If you are a leader in your category [like CPK and
DiGiorno], how do you uphold and grow your current
market share; if you’re trailing, how do you differentiate
from competitors in order to rise to the top?
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23. How to Make A Brand the
Most Talked About and Recommended Brand
in its Category
23

24. The Influencer Ecosystem:
How Sustainable Conversations and Recommendations Are Driven
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25. The Roadmap to Creating a
Truly Talkable and Recommended Brand
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26. Know Who, What, Where, When, Why
and How People are Talking about You
• Assess how many people are talking about a brand
• Understand how they talk about the brand
• Measure if and how it’s being passed along
why it’s so important
• Provides insight into how a brand is talked about
online, beyond its paid digital marketing efforts.
• Provides a benchmark for measurement
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27. VCA Animal Hospitals
What We Can Learn From Listening
• Situation Overview
– VCA, operator of over 500
veterinary hospitals across the U.S.,
sought to launch an integrated
marketing campaign to tout the
impressiveness of its latest technology
• What we learned by listening
– VCA customers didn’t care about technology. Instead, we uncovered
that the #1 driver of positive or negative recommendation was the
“friendliness” of the VCA staff
• Solution
– VCA repositioned its approach to foster trust in its technology by simply
driving awareness of its friendly, thoughtful, attentive and caring staff
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28. Change the Conversation to the Right One
Organize, prioritizesession among your key leadership, we
In this facilitated and deliver your
brand’s key messages todeliver your brand’s key messages to
organize, prioritize and explicitly
articulate the “reasons to
explicitly articulate the “reasons to recommend” your brand –
recommend”embedding in suitableand offline conversations.
suitable for your brand – Online
for embedding in Online & Offline
conversations.
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29. Focus On the Right People: Identify, Forge &
Track Relationships with Industry Eminents
Proprietary screening process focuses on
multiple qualification criteria:
– Reputation
– Reach
– Visibility
– Accessibility
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30. Create Content and Incite Experiences
to Fuel Online/Offline Recommendations
Content
Creates news, information and engaging content to spark earned
conversation and bring to life the reasons to share.
Interactive
Develops web and mobile content delivery and engagement tools
that enable WOM and recommendations
Experience
Brings to life word of mouth through in-person experiences,
whether in the street, at the store or at a friend’s house
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31. Launch a Conversation Engine to Sustainably
Engage Eminents and Consumers – Online
MEASURE: Ongoing measurement
tools explicitly track and measure LISTEN: Daily online tracking identifies trends,
the increase in conversations & stories, posts and influencers
recommendations
DEVELOP: Formalize messaging and
finalize relevant creative content
PROTECT: Negative chatter
is identified, tracked and
responded to based upon a
pre-determined protocol
ENGAGE: Transparent requests ask influencers
and advocates to discuss, post, reviews, give
OPTIMIZE: New and existing content is tagged feedback, conduct contests and share
to make brand discussions easily searchable recommendations with others
and sharable
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32. Cricket Wireless
Using Social Media to Monitor and Solve
Customer Service Complaints
Situation Overview
• Two blogs entries were posted within 72
hours of one another by the same author on
the blog c2photo.blogspot.com
• Customer was having major issues with service
and could not get resolution through customer
service in-store or on the phone
“Do yourself a favor and avoid the drama. Avoid Cricket
Wireless like the Black Death”
“I am amazed that a company spending millions
of dollars to build a brand has no mechanism to
regulate and protect the brand from the actions
of the franchisee”
“Avoid Cricket Wireless like the plague!”
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33. Cricket Wireless
Using Social Media to Monitor and Solve
Customer Service Complaints
The Solution & Outcome
• Cricket’s Customer Care contacted the
blogger directly in order to discuss his
service issue and rectify the problem.
• By monitoring key social media channels,
Cricket was able to negate negative
conversations about the brand and solve
customer service issues directly.
“To my utter shock I actually got a live body with
Cricket Wireless on the phone. She even seemed to
care about the damage being done to the
company’s reputation.”
“They (Cricket) have a vested interest in
making sure you are treated properly”
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34. Extend the Conversation Engine to Create Original,
Memorable, and Engaging Experiences – Offline
In-Market WOM events are a smart way to empower your brand to reach dozens or
hundreds of thousands of target consumers in34
your priority markets

35. Integrate with all other marketing disciplines to
deliver the specific brand/customer experience you seek
Zappos.com - The “Engaged” Brand
“Zappos consistently ranks in the top 5% for
customer service right along the Ritz Carlton and
other luxury brands. Before they reached their
10th birthday, Zappos became the largest shoe
store on the planet with over $1 billion in retail
sales..” -- 4/6/2010
“You may have learned of them via Twitter and
count yourself among the 400,000+ people that
follow the CEO…No matter how you heard of them,
we wager to guess that you did so through word-
of-mouth.” -- 4/26/09
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36. Track and Measure The Impact: Digital Footprint
Index (DFI) + Word in the Square Reports
– quantity of current social content and conversation
– level of engagement and sharing with brand-related content
– which channels conversation is occurring
– where and how conversation is spreading
– adoption of key messages and conversation tone
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37. Who is Getting Recommendations Right?
An Example of a Truly Talkable Brand
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38. A Talkable Brand
38

39. Starbucks Mission Statement
• To inspire and nurture the human spirit – one
person, one cup and one neighborhood at a time.
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40. How Starbucks is Bringing This Mission to Life
• Brand is smartly leveraging new media channels to
engage customers beyond point of sale – inspiring,
leading and participating in two-way dialogues
Nearly 1M actively-engaged Through a proprietary online
Twitter followers community dedicated to
issues customers care about In an open
community for fans to share,
Over 6M Facebook Fans vote and discuss suggestions
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41. Starbucks Extends Its Efforts Offline As Well
• Not only is Starbucks working online to engage
consumers, but they’re offline activities are reaching
people where it matters
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42. Thus, Empowering Brand to Reap and
Retain Category-Leading Outcomes…
Those brands most actively engaged with consumers in social media demonstrate a positive correlation
in revenue, gross margin, and net margin growth - contrary to competitors with little to no engagement
Source: Wetpaint/Altimeter Group Digital Engagement Report, Ranking Top 100 Brands
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43. In a Way That Continues to Pay Off…
March 25, 2010
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44. Considerations
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45. The Need for Transparent Disclosure
and the New FTC Guidelines
• In early 2009, the Word of Mouth Marketing Association began
working with its members and the FTC to submit comments
regarding the Guide to Endorsements and Testimonials in
Advertising on behalf of the Word of Mouth industry
• WOMMA launched their own Ethics Code in 2005 to provide
consumers with insight into ethical standards online
• Through WOMMA’s “Living Ethics” project and in anticipation
of the FTC Guide update, changes to their Ethics Code re:
compensation and transparent disclosure were announced in
2009
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46. Questions
Contact Information:
Dave Kissel
Email: dkissel@zocalogroup.com
Twitter: @DaveKissel
Phone: 312.596.6276
Website: zocalogroup.com | womma.org
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