Word-of-mouth marketing has always been around, so let’s take it back to basics

Honesty, transparency, and trust.

These are three simple values that every consumer craves and yet the very thought of honest, transparent, trustworthy marketing sounds like an oxymoron.

In these ad overload, product placement, fake news times they are also three values we crave in the world at large. If the post-war 1950s wanted idealized escapism from their TVs and radios then the post-Snowden, post-Cambridge Analytica scandal 2010s want more straight-talking online truth.

Marketing needs a remodel. Only the big monopolies are being rewarded and brands and consumers are caught in an awkward chase of cat and mouse that is costing brands ever more to try and target consumers running in the opposite direction.

Times of mistrust

There’s a growing groundswell of mistrust towards the social media platforms to which consumers were once devoted. Facebook, in particular, has come under serious scrutiny as the extent to which consumer data is used for commercial purposes has risen in public awareness. The fallout is that people are tired of being the product.

This is by no definition a fair relationship because consumers are being used, brands are being forced to compete against each other on over-saturated mediums and platforms are left looking like the bad guys with no other obvious way to (necessarily) monetize. These are realizations we are all becoming aware of, and GenZ — the digital natives born in 1995 or later— even more so.

Even influencer marketing, which seemed like the next logical step to reach elusive consumers, is loosening its grip on credibility. Take, for example, Zoe Sugg aka ‘Zoella’ — known as the most famous female YouTuber in the UK. In 2017 she released a £50 Boots Zoella 12 Days of Christmas Advent Calendar. It received a lot of backlash online and through reviews with many labelling it as exploitation of young children by their YouTube idols. Some feel she misused her access to teen fans and their cash and this pushback video by YouTube personality JaackMaate is an example of the backlash.

Ads are an inevitable part of YouTube channels, but the lines between authentic product recommendations and recommendations purely for self-gain have become blurred.

The key to YouTube monetization through ads is an engaged audience, but the problem is that trust in YouTubers is dwindling. This has a knock-on effect for all influencers, regardless of whether they jumped on a great deal and are weaving a story around a product, or whether they are truly passionate about the product in question. The same is true of Instagram and the new wave of Instagram influencers. Many would prefer the term ‘storytellers’ as the story and the product often become one.

The trust in digital marketing is broken. And yet trust is the glue that cements connections, sells products and most importantly creates an emotional connection that keeps us coming back. So how does it mend?

Getting back to basics

People are yearning for honesty. At present, GenZ, who are even more switched on, are fed up with the current model. For GenZ, loyalty is a given and if they don’t feel appreciated or if they feel that the wool is being pulled over their eyes they’re going to move on. Everywhere they look online now ads are in their face and this wasn’t something in their control, it’s just invasive.

They might not trust brands and they might not trust platforms, but they trust one another. While their ad blockers are fielding off phoney brand messaging, their decisions are being influenced by genuine recommendations given by people whose opinions they trust and admire — word of mouth is the primary factor behind 50% of purchase decisions.

Past generations of marketers were taught to rely on word-of-mouth marketing as a reliable strategy for promoting their products and services. Since then sophisticated tools like retargeting, cross-device tracking and micro-fencing have pushed performance marketing to the forefront and word-of-mouth marketing has taken a backseat in digital marketing strategies. That’s despite 2.1 billion word-of-mouth product recommendations being made online, among friends, every day.

To get back to word of mouth, marketers need a way to incorporate these kind of everyday interactions among peers into their strategies in a measurable and scalable way. And, most importantly, in a way that doesn’t compromise the honesty of the content. As we’ve already seen with the influencer marketing industry, paying people upfront to promote products they may have no connection to or affinity with doesn’t go hand-in-hand with honest content.

Consumers don’t want to be served fake ads and they are definitely tired of being the product. Brands don’t want to keep wasting budgets on channels that aren’t delivering ROI — nor do they want to keep paying people for fake brand love. And platforms certainly don’t want to keep alienating their users.

This is really the central problem WOM is out to address. We are building a blockchain-based Protocol with the mechanisms and incentives in place for people to share genuine product recommendations with one another safe in the knowledge that the recommendations have been quality-checked by other community members. Brands have a way to access and measure the impact of the recommendations and platforms that choose to integrate the Protocol have a monetization model that won’t disrupt their user experience.

Marketing needs a remodel. If we take it back to basics using blockchain then honest, transparent, trustworthy marketing can stop being an oxymoron and start becoming the new model.

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