WOMMIE TIME
December 15th, 2006
A little tired and a little under the weather. But today I’m back at my pod from attending another WOMMA conference. I would rate this one the best. Lots of energy, some great keynotes, and lots of thought provoking breakout sessions. But as is usually the case, what I enjoy the most is the conversation with my old WOMMA friends and the new ones you meet. Just some highlights from my seat.
It was an honor to accept a WOMMIE for RAGE. It really goes to the RAGE teens that busted their butts to keep this movement alive. And it was an honor to share the podium with the other WOMMIE award winners Stuart Sheldon of Coke and David Binkowski of Hass MS&L, great work guys.
Andy I will miss your energy at the future WOMMA events. Good Luck in the future.
It was great seeing all the new brands and associations at the Summit, it speaks well for the future of WOM. That so many new faces were in attendance, asking questions, and engaging in the discussions.
Now to the highlights.
• I thought John Moore rocked the house. John took us on a lunch tour of his new book Tribal Knowledge, old school style. John took the mike and led the session with some of the best energy and passion I’ve seen in a long time. What made me think? What are the three things you will never compromise on? This made me think about BOF and our clients and myself. I find personally that I can get so flexible that when I reach a no compromise situation it seems to shock people. Sometimes not for the good. Does this same thing happen to brands?
• I’m also a big fan of Jake McKee of Big in Japan. Maybe its because he seems to amplify my internal thoughts whenever I hear him speak. Jake made two important points that rang bells in my ears.
Control through participation, not direction and Everybody goes home happy. Jake put into words some very important points that I try to hard-wire into our thinking for our clients and their customers or advocates. We walk the line everyday with RAGE about getting youth participation over directive orders, like you will go here and do this. We will all do better when we realize that this loyal fans, advocates and customers are prized and they do think for themselves. Co-creation is a wonderful thing, the problem is sometimes it takes longer and marketers and brand owners get impatient. As far as Jake’s other point “everybody goes home happy.” You might think it’s a duh thing, of course everyone should go home happy. But I believe it is a mantra to keep in your mind from beginning to the end. You can’t just give a gift at the end and think everyone will go home happy. I’m thinking more that they should go home happy with some ownership.
In closing, I’m continually amazed by all the smart thinking I hear at WOMMA. I could make a list of smart thinking that would go on and on. So my best advice to anyone that has any interest in Word of Mouth Marketing, go to the next WOMMA Summit and sit and listen to folks like Gary Stein, John Bell, and Dr. Walter Carl. It’s so rare to get so many wonderful points of view in one event, more of us need to take advantage of it.
Other posts by Geno.
olivier blanchard says:
I’m sorry I missed it. Welcome back to G-Vegas.
December 15th, 2006 at 2:08 pmseasarahwrite says:
so enjoyed meeting you all as well. outside of john moore, you all were the highlight of our WOMMA experience. you’re doing some amazing work, and in South Carolina, no less. Whoever said you needed to be in a big city to do big things was a putz.
December 20th, 2006 at 11:16 amWOMMING it up | Open House | Phinney Bischoff Design House says:
[...] All in all, it was an invigorating experience. We saw some incredible case studies about brands established through extremely interesting WOM tactics. By far the most explosive was “Rage Against the Haze” from our friends at Brains on Fire. It’s an anti-smoking campaign on behalf of the South Carolina Dept. of Health. You might think that talking to teenagers about not smoking in the state responsible for producing the most tobacco might be easy. Well, you’re wrong. Brains on Fire (BoF) realized early on that in order to reach teenagers, they would have to be a credible source. Now, these are some cool cats, but not really on the same wave length as junior high/high school kids. They let the kids generate the idea, content and it was the kids that came up with the name “Rage Against the Haze.” They formed a Rage Team that trained on how to lead and facilitate discussuions, but the words were all theirs. Rage Against the Haze became so popular teens across the state were asking for it at their school, so Rage went on tour. It became a movement that was soley kept alive by the passion of youth. You can’t get more word of mouth than that. [...]
December 20th, 2006 at 2:20 pmGeno says:
Thanks for the kind words guys. Sometimes the best things happen when us professionals get out of the way. I hope to see you guys again at the next WOMMA event. Happy New Year.
December 29th, 2006 at 7:20 amexsmoker says:
Hello All,
I was reading around some of the posts here and I found interesting things that you guys talk about, I just made a blog about quitting smoking resources and ideas that you might want to check out.
September 30th, 2007 at 7:33 pmIf someone is interested in this topic just go to; http://endthehabitnow.blogspot.com and let me know what you think. Your honest feedback would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance.