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	Measuring the Impact of Buzz on Brands By Douglas Brooks, Vice President at MMA

Go to any marketing conference and you’ll likely find topics such as buzz, word of mouth (WOM), and social networks on the agenda. We have all heard the stories of brands impacted (positively and negatively) by consumer-generated content delivered through blogs, message boards, and photo and video sites. You know it has reached critical mass when Time Magazine awards “You” the Person of the Year award, and Advertising Age awards “You” Agency of the Year.

Word of mouth and peer recommendations have always been powerful drivers of sales. From bus stop discussions, to college campus activities and casual encounters at the water cooler – the person with the loudest voice or most forceful manner can rule the day. Today, however, the sheer pace and scale of WOM has changed thanks to the Internet, cell phones and other technologies that  allow a person or group to quickly communicate with and, in turn, influence a large number of people.

Consider a few examples:

• One consumer products company we work with found that nearly 7% of its 2007 sales growth was driven by WOM and buzz. The company was able to quantify the impact of WOM and buzz side-by-side with the impact of all their other marketing vehicles by using econometric models. This approach also allows marketers to identify opportunities to amplify WOM and buzz through various marketing communications.

• And then there is the amazing back story to the movie March of the Penguins. Two stay-at-home moms running a podcast on parenting called “Mommycast,” www.mommycast.com, contributed to $25 million of the film’s $100 million in revenues simply by talking up the movie on their podcast.

The result is that the effect of WOM and buzz has increased exponentially, and for some brands, traditional media may not be carrying its old weight. Any marketer worth their salt no longer has the option of avoiding the impact of WOM and buzz; they must apply the same analytical rigor to these as traditional media.

So how exactly do you measure consumer-generated media?

The good news is that the same technology that allows consumers to become influencers also provides a rich data set that was unavailable before WOM and buzz were enabled by this technology. Companies like Cymfony and BuzzMetrics have sprung up to collect data from blogs, messages boards, and other social networks. This allows marketers to understand the volume of positive, negative, and neutral conversations regarding their brands and those of competitors.

This data fuels analytics (such as econometric models) that allow marketers to do a few important things:

• Understand the impact of WOM and Buzz on their brands
  A few industry leaders are including this data in econometric models to inform their marketing strategy, and answer questions like: What is the impact of WOM/Buzz on the brand? How can marketing be used to amplify WOM/Buzz? That is, what are the synergies between the two? How do you distinguish the contributions of WOM from that of your other marketing?

• Track for leading indicators and trends
  WOM and buzz can help you spot trends by opening a window into what your consumers are discussing. This is particularly important because typically there is a lag between consumer sentiment and behavior. The WOM and buzz data may reveal some early changes in sentiment toward the brand, allowing marketers to quickly address any problems before they lead to any negative impact – which can be costly and in some cases irreversible.

• Inform innovation and product development
  WOM and buzz used smartly can act as a quasi-product development research team. Starwood hotels are a great example. The company is currently using social networks to capture consumer feedback on hotel designs, amenities, and features. That consumer intelligence, in turn, is impacting the look and feel of future hotels.

• Understand the strengths and weaknesses of a brand and competitor brands
  WOM conversations can provide marketers with timely and valuable information about the strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities for their brand and competitor brands. By including competitor WOM and buzz data in an econometric model, marketers are now able to understand the impact of a competitor’s WOM and buzz on its brand. For example, a competitor may be stealing revenue from you because of positive consumer feedback, and this allows you to quantify that.

Today, research in the area of social networks is considered leading edge, but soon it will become required research for many brands. As marketers continue to discover new sources of information that close the gap between them and their customers, the need for creative solutions that combine new data sources with advanced analytics becomes even more important. Getting ahead of the curve in this area will provide valuable insights and a competitive advantage to those who establish the capability early.

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