Good vs. Evil Word-of-Mouth Marketing

A few weeks ago in Chicago, Ben McConnell and I attended an exploratory meeting of the new Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA), which was formed in May.

It's high time for an organization dedicated to legitimizing word-of-mouth marketing and evangelizing it as a standard marketing discipline, and we salute the three amigos who had the foresight to launch it: Dave Balter of BzzAgent, Jonathan Carson of BuzzMetrics, and Pete Blackshaw of Intelliseek.

The meeting's "interested parties" featured notable people from PR firms, ad agencies, tool vendors as well as b-school faculty and authors.

A good chunk of the discussion among the assembled group was how the association would declare standards for ethical word-of-mouth marketing. There were palpable laments that too many companies and agencies are already miles down the slippery slope of seeding chatrooms and hiring actors to create buzz and stimulate word of mouth. Within this assembled group, no one supported those tactics, thankfully.

WOMMA is currently putting together a "code of conduct" to delinate the group's view on ethical and unethical word-of-mouth marketing.

What's your opinion on where the line should be drawn? Got any examples of good, bad, or just plain evil word-of-mouth marketing tactics? Please post here and I'll feed the comments back to WOMMA.

P.S. Snaps to Heath on the FC Now Blog Jam! Honored to be a part of it.