A rockin' word of mouth story

WOAH, before you click away, this is not a post written by some crazed seventies rock fan. This is about a great little word of mouth story that I heard spun just the other day.

For those of you not in the UK, you probably haven't heard that the rock giants Led Zeppelin are performing a one off-concert in London on November 26th. I've got to confess that this leaves me pretty cold (aging rockers with big hair) but what grabbed my attention was when I heard a sound-bite from Harvey Goldsmith, the famous promoter of the revival.

Harvey showed the skills of the cunning marketer he is by crafting a nice little word of mouth story. He obviously instinctively realises that people think and talk in stories, not bullet pointed sales messages. Hey, I'm no LedZep fan, but even I can remember the story weeks later. Quoted on the radio (and below on the BBC website here) about the concert even before details were announced, he said (I loosely paraphrase):

"I originally asked the guys if they would get together and perform for 30 minutes, but they got together together and after a week's rehearsal, things sounded so great that they decided to do a full set. It was all really sparked off by Jason, the son of the original drummer (John) who'll complete the original line-up"

Why's this so clever? What Goldsmith could have done is just list the key selling points of the band; number of albums sold, bands influenced, etc. But instead, he created a story about how they reformed and the role that son of the original drummer has played in this. "Aging, out of practice rockers" becomes "they've aged like wine", and "stand in drummer" becomes "carrying on the rock dynasty".

If you're a marginal LZ fan, or even just a general follower of guitar based rock, you already knew about the band's status and achievements. But now there are extra points of interest; the chance to be a part of this magical reformation and see John Bonham's spirit live on. Just as important, you've got an interesting story to pass on to someone else like you, who might also decide to go, and even pass the story on again.

This one concert is so popular that there have been 25 million (yes, million) ballot applications and over 120 million hits on the website for only 20,000 tickets.

So what's the takeout in pharma?

Have an honest look at your marketing messages. Are they in the form of a genuinely interesting story that a customer would want to listen to and pass on, or are they a list of bullet pointed sales messages? If they're the bullet points then take a leaf out of Harvey's book.
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Drug-Blog interactions: do blogs have a place in pharma marketing?

To understand the role blogging could play in pharma marketing, you need to understand the implications of web 2.0; where customers are no longer talked at through promotion, but for the most part just talk between themselves.

To fully appreciate what this means you must participate first hand in the ‘blogosphere’ (how well could someone who’s never watched TV understand TV programming or advertising?). Scanning a few blogs (like this one) doesn’t count. You need to get your hands dirty, by at least engaging in conversation through leaving comments, or preferably even starting your own blog(s). It’s easy and free; choose a mix of subjects, from work to outside interests, and if you like remain, anonymous.

Having done this for a few weeks, you’ll start to grasp the fundamentals of the medium. In essence, blogging is about informal conversations rather than promotional lectures, and there are different categories of these conversations.

While a ‘blog conversation’ between a pharma company and consumer is extremely difficult to create (regulations, speed and style of medium), a closed ‘blogversation’ between a company and health care professionals is far more manageable, although not without steep challenges; e.g. does your subject area have the scope to generate a daily or weekly blog post, and who’s going to write it?

The blogversation that most marketers tend to want to get in on is the one between consumers or customers themselves. Trying to infiltrate this blogversation through fake blogging (flogging) is marketing suicide. See my own blog post on that here.

However, observing and learning from those conversations, and even reacting positively to them, is becoming a crucial piece of the marketing mix. Basically, if these people are successful at blogging, they have become opinion leaders, and need to be treated the same way you would treat other key opinion leaders.

In short, blogging, while still in its infancy, is a preview of where modern communication and media is headed. As such, even though there are many barriers (including our own mind-sets) in the way, it’s crucial to really understand this medium rather than either ignore, or crudely trample all over it.

This is part of a fuller review of pharma blogging which you can find here. Read more....