What We Talk About When We Talk About Love

Raymond Carver, in his eponymous short story collection, goes not just for the concept of love but for how we think and feel about love. I like Jayne Anne Phillips characterization in her review of the book: we speak not of love itself, but of the delicate structures and distortions that support love.

That's why I was struck by the Advertising article in the NY Times today by Louise Story on W-O-M, word-of-mouth marketing. She notes how a new word-of-mouth firm, the Keller Fay Group, seeks to demystify consumer conversations about brands. Keller Fay asks people to keep a diary of conversations that mentions products or brands and later asks them for the details. She quotes Ed Keller as saying, "When you talk about engagement, as a lot of marketers are, people talking about your brand is the ultimate engagement." On average, Story writes, Keller Fay finds that people discuss dozens of brands each day.

Keller Fay is doing great work that can be very valuable to marketers. The challenge, though, is how do you go deeper to understand what those brand mentions mean. Like Raymond Carver's short stories, how do you understand the structures and the distortions that support the dropping of brand names?

I would recommend building on this initial research by seeking to understand the psychological and cultural nuances beneath the structures of the words. Wal-Marting in Texas is certainly different from Wal-Marting in New Jersey, especially when, from town to town and from state to state, the income levels and the needs of those customers can vary widely.

How do you contrast the power of highway billboard with that David Ogilvy-inspired long ad copy in The New Yorker?

Building up the context is critical in really getting to the heart of how consumers think and feel about your brand. Word-of-Mouth is a powerful tool. When I put together the marketing plan for Listerine Pocketpaks (and this was before Gladwell's The Tipping Point), I knew that no 30-second ad was going to convey the power of the product. My whole plan was predicated on buzz and sampling.

As marketers have become more sophisticated about using word-of-mouth to launch and build brands, the challenge is no longer how to surf along on the cresting waves of conversations. I think Keller Fay is doing a great job and providing a needed service. The goal should be to dive deeper into that sea of chatter and to understand what consumers mean when they talk about their brands. That is when you will get pearls of wisdom.