Andres Wittermann on international media relations trends

Watch Your Mouth - WOM, the new marketing approach

Yesterday I attended a breakfast event where Germany's first word of mouth marketing agency, trnd, presented this new marketing tool. Some may already be aware of this new approach, there already have been many campaigns in the US, in Germany, even in Poland already.

The idea is to involve a selected group of opinion leaders in your marketing campaign directly. They receive products to check them out - and to talk about them to their friends. These may even also receive some product samples - because the idea is they again talk to their friends and these to their friends - an so on. There are blogs being created as part of the campaigns (like this one about an Opel campaign) and generally the WOM'ers are creating lots of stuff around the products they review and talk about (like videos, pictures etc who then will be sent to the usual platforms like Flickr, Youtube, Sevenload etc).

WOM (Word of Mouth) marketing is taking PR directly to the opinion leaders and let them do the marketing for you (you don't even have to pay them directly - although I have been told in the end WOM campaigns are far from inexpensive).

Interestingly with many products traditional WOM really had a strong impact on buying decisions - because people trust their friends more than ads or even journalists (!). My fear is that once people realize that WOM is now being part of a professional marketing campaign and the WOM'ers are directly supported by the vendors, the value of WOM is decreasing fast. Like no-one today trusts ads anymore and people even start disbelieving TV. Still, it will be interesting to see how WOM is going to develop and how we will come across some of the campaigns in the future.

Why Linguists Are Needed In Marketing

It seems there is a new victim of Names You Should Have Checked In Every Language Before You Use Them For Your Latest Product.

The German netzeitung writes that Microsoft's iPod challenger - the Zune - shares its name with the male sexual organ. At least in the French-speaking part of Canada, Quebec. It actually seems that in Quebecois it is called Zounzoun or Bizoune. There are also comments on the web that there is a Hebrew word for f******, which phonetically comes dangerously close to sounding like Zune.

Here is the challenge: Can you remember this happening before? If I remember correctly a former client was a d*** in some language. So Microsoft is not alone in this, but you certainly would have thought this does not happen anymore.

Empty Spaces

It has been a long time again since I last posted something on this blog. I have to admit it is hard to keep a blog while being so busy with work and family.

Even longer ago I posted a piece about the bad mood in my country about the upcoming footbal World Cup finals. It has only become worse. Not only that we are not sure about the quality of our team - but even worse, it seems like in Japan and South Korea four years ago, we will see empty seats in our fantastic new stadiums.

Sueddeutsche Zeitung is warning this event becomes an exclusive one for sponsors, politicians and very rich people. And winners of competitions run by the sponsors. So we are all waiting for our ordered tickets still (especially my son and two of his friends which I wanted to take to a game). Even PR Blogger is writing about this today (he and his son are also waiting for tickets yet).

It is a shame how these formerly great events for people have turned into money machines where the real fans are watching the games on their recently bought plasma and LCD flatscreens. Or is it a conspiracy of the manufacturers of these who have bought all tickets and don't distribute them? That would explain everything.

VW Delivers Great VM

So far BMW was the leader amongst German car manufacturers when it came to using the web for marketing - everyone has seen or at least heard of the famous BMW Films.

Today I received a great example of viral marketing videos from VW (thanks to PR Blogger for letting us know). Nice entertainment before the weekend.

Germans bitter about the World Cup Finals already?

The opportunity to host a global event like the Olympics or the FIFA World Cup may initially look very attractive So everybody is fighting for them.

Living in Germany I can now see though why the people living in the hosting city (Turin) or country (Germany) often get frustrated over time. The more we learn about how (little) local business may benefit from the 'opportunity' the more we see it will be the Official Partners who will benefit the most - and local companies (like the Bavarian breweries) are more or less excluded. Also, the consumer is getting frustrated as they don't get any tickets. In the end we will all end up watching this event in front of our recently bought flatscreen at home - if you are living in the US or in Germany.

What does this mean from a marketing / PR perspective? The public should have been prepared much better on what the actual business / ticketing etc. opportunity would be this summer. The OC seems to have too much to do to get the people 'in situ' involved and excited. The disaster with the now cancelled opening show is just a good example for what I mean.

Don't get me wrong. The Germans are really happy to have been chosen as the host for the FIFA World Cup. But if the only opportunity to buy tickets is to spend Euro 55,000 (that's more than $60,000) for 10 tickets in a hospitality package (I received that offer last week), this doesn't make you a big fan.

Am I personally disappointed? Yes (I still don't have a ticket). Is this why I write this? No. I write this because it is one of the hottest topics in ANY public or private discussion I see going on at the moment. And therefore is an increasingly important national issue.

Beijing 2008, London 2012, South Africa 2010 - you all better learn from this before big business and bad preparation ruin your hig hopes.

Europe - an introduction

I was recently asked to put together a list of European speaking opportunities for a client. Also, as an agency we are often asked to put together proposals for basic campaign in Europe.

This makes me often wonder if people know that there is nothing such as Europe. Europeans themselves stil wonder where it begins and where it ends. Do you mean EU? The region? The market? EMEA even? SEMEA?

Looking at a map on my wall I count at least 43 countries within the European geography with many more languages, nations, ethnic groups etc. So first of all when you want to address this whole group, you will struggle already to find a language everyone understands. English helps - but already in France, Spain and Italy you should not count on it, even less so in Eastern Europe, where Russian was a lingua franca for half a century.

So when you go to Europe (for holidays, with your business idea or whatever), think about a very focused approach. Choose your market and concentrate your resources there. The main economies still certainly are Germany, the UK and France. But there are countries which are far advanced in certain areas - like the Nordics with telecommunications. I personally think Europe still offers some of the best opportunities in the world - most of all this is still a really politically stable region. I just realise that from the outside the challenges and hurdles often look bigger.

But once you are successful here, you can be successful anywhere. That's what we prove at LEWIS every day.