Consumers: the next big player in consumer media?

August 20th, 2004

A interesting article in MediaPost today about the power of the power of consumer-generated media (CGM). It relates the story of Peter Blackshaw, Intelliseek chief marketing officer, who had an unusual firsthand experience with the impact of online word-of-mouth.
Blackshaw purchased a hybrid car that was so good that he did what many early adopter/influential types across the globe now do on a day-to-day basis: he blogged about his experience on HybridBuzz.com.
Later Blackshaw discovered that his mileage was falling short of the car dealer guarantee and he expressed his displeasure on his blog. Others responded with similar complaints and by the end of the day there were 2,000 messages on his blog posted in response. Wired magazine and Slashdot journalists requested more information and within a few days he was fielding calls from CBS Evening News, which was poised to do a 3-minute segment on hybrid cars.
Blackshaw makes his living analyzing the effect of such online word-of-mouth on brands. At an ARF Webcast entitled "Consumer-Generated Media: The New Metric for Quantifying Word-of-Mouth," Blackshaw presented evidence of CGM's impact, discussing both the threats and opportunities it poses to brands.

The Web, really, is first about listening and consumer dissatisfaction, in the digital age, can be detrimental to a brand if it strikes a nerve in the wrong kind of person. These wrong kind of people are called speakers–and they represent roughly 10 percent of the population, but trickle through to influence 90 percent of the population, called seekers.
Speakers are finding reach in ways that have never been experienced before through various online mouthpieces such as blogs, bulletin boards, public/private discussion boards, forums, reviews and opinions on product pages, and consumer feedback on branded Web sites.

And we say, you'd better engage them

Bookmarks: