How Do You Create WOM Creative?

I don't remember any other discipline going through so much analysis that everyone forgot about the heart of the matter - the story!

WOM is all about sharing interesting stories, yet everyone who talks about WOM talks about how it can be tracked or how you find the people that need to be "talked" to, (like a channel)- but what about the stories themselves? Very rarely are we talking or debating what constitutes a great story - what we at the agency here still call the "creative". Yes - it is possible to have authentic stories communicated from one person to the other and still call those stories "creative".

Imagine a WOM agency in the very beginning of a program or effort - where those creative types are manufacturing storyboards or concepts. What if that creative material came from actual customers of yours instead of your agency's creatives? I'm not talking about a contest, (now seemingly a tactic that everyone has done), where people send in a commercial. I'm talking about actually going to talk to consumers and customers to learn about what their experiences are with your brand, your sales force, your delivery folks and ultimately the people in your organization. Are people saying good things about the brand or company? Do they have great stories? What about their needs?

What I'm talking about is having a relationship with your customers and consumers. If you have any type of relationship with them, we, (meaning you, the client and us, the agency), have the ability to creatively nurture the right message - the creative. In our world, that means creating so others can create.

More tomorrow.