The Path of Action: WOM lessons from Confucius

Google have been re-appropriating their logo to commemorate great moments for aeons (well, seemingly); on 28th September they even paid homage to Confucius on the anniversary of his birthday. Confucius, as you may know, was a chap who liked a good quote, and Google’s doodle sent me scrolling back through some of his best bon-mots. And I found one that I think applies rather well to our industry:

The people may be made to follow a path of action, but they may not be made to understand it

Let’s treat the action as word of mouth and social media, and the people as marketers.

These days, pressure is on marketers to try to integrate social media and/or word of mouth into what they do. This supposedly ‘free’ media is too much to ignore. Their boss has heard of Groundswell, read The Tipping Point and wants to put the one-to-many, influencerapproach to work getting their brand positive WOM. Then of course, there’s the PR / Advertising / Digital / Media / Promotional / DM agency that needs to hire a social media specialist to help them win pitches.

However, two things prevent these groups understanding the path of action and thus, prevent them from choosing the right one to follow.

The first is time.

The brand needs to send out video assets as they have spent thousands on something that nobody is watching and they need results by the end of the quarter. The agency sees competitors are all over Twitter, and feel like they are missing a trick by missing out, or worse, in danger of being considered a bit slow.

The second is knowing who needs to own ‘understanding the path of action’.

There is a frankly embarrassing dismissal of the word of mouth industry in its own right. There are a small number of individuals within brands and agencies that have lived in this space and are completely dedicated to this path of action. Until this is acknowledged, too many brands are going to miss maximizing the success of integrated and sustained WOM projects, which will not only hurt the industry but also the real people.

The people may be made to follow a path of action, but they may not be made to understand it. These old guys knew a thing or two.

Brought into the world on Friday, October 9th, 2009 and filed under Uncategorized.