Word-of-Mouth Marketing: A New Mandate?
Jonathan Carson
Mediaedge:cia's in-house think-tank, MediaLab, released a fascinating white paper last year on word of mouth. The report, titled Where's Debbie, is loaded with interesting insight, but it was a quote in the introduction that was especially noteworthy:
'Word of mouth is acknowledged to be one of the strongest drivers of market-place influence, yet it remains an enigma for marketers [because] intuitively accessible theories on how word of mouth works do not connect with research methodologies which allow for accountable planning, implementation and evaluation of word of mouth strategies.'
From this, media...