Tag: word of mouth

Are F&B Flops Uber Unlucky?

February 16, 2007 • Blog • 16 comments

Over the years, we have seen quite a few high profile F&B failures in Singapore. They include Rainforest Cafe at Liang Court, Hello Kitty Cafe at Downtown East, and of course the numerous bubble tea shops whose bubbles have popped.

The latest casualty in the scene is Uber Burger. This uber upmarket joint has folded on 7 February 2007 barely 10 months after a much-heralded opening. Famous for their S$101 Wagyu Burger stuffed with truffles, foie gras and all things decadent, they claimed to offer unique mouth watering experiences that you can never get at cheaper chains.

Word Of Mouth in a Nutshell

February 15, 2007 • Blog • 9 comments

Word of Mouse in Action!

I am currently reading the Secrets of Word-of-Mouth Marketing, a book by George Silverman, which I borrowed from the National Library. Fascinating stuff in there with some explanation of how one can make Word Of Mouth (WOM) marketing work.

Let me highlight two key learning points. First is the Buying Decision Process. Those who studied Marketing 101 may be familiar with this. The stages are as follows:

Why Are We Still Neglecting Word Of Mouth?

January 30, 2007 • Blog • 8 comments

Church of the Customer’s Ben McConnell pointed to this interesting bit of research by BIGresearch recently. Apparently, advertisers have been making all the wrong investments in mass media advertising when most people still relies on family and friends to give their recommendations on what to buy.

According to BIGresearch:

As more marketers seek to make media expenditures accountable to the bottom line growth of their company, the consumers in the survey don’t seem to be on the same page as advertising expenditures. When asked which media most influence their purchase decision for various product categories, consumers’ choices are rarely in line with advertisers expenditures.

Making Purple Cows Sneeze

January 19, 2007 • Book Reviews • 4 comments

Lately, I have been reading a little more than usual. Have only just picked up Purple Cow by Seth Godin.

It isn’t exactly brand new but some of its insights are still worth considering.

December 5, 2006 • Blog • no comments

Came across this very useful post for those obsessed with defining how Word Of Mouth (WOM) marketing and its various incarnations work. Quoting from the Media Guerrilla and Word Of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA):

Buzz Marketing Using high-profile entertainment or news to get people to
talk about your brand.

Viral Marketing Creating entertaining or informative messages that are

Read More

November 23, 2006 • Blog • 2 comments

Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba has created the 4 Fs of citizen marketers. This is an elegant idea which distills some of the types of bloggers and new media activists you find in the blogosphere.

The 4 Fs are:

1) Filters

Value through Videos and Virals

November 22, 2006 • Blog • no comments

I came across this fascinating post from Marketing Sherpa about how one can use both blogging and video logs (or vlogs) to generate word-of-mouth interest. While the subject matter is about golfing equipment and apparel, the same principles can be applied across other “experience-rich” businesses. They include sports retail, travel agencies, leisure attractions (especially zoos and theme parks), restaurants, and maybe even museums.

Everyone’s talking about all of the things you can do with online video — and why not? Once production completes and the clips are on your site, it’s essentially a 24/7 downloadable TV commercial.

But the space is becoming more competitive, and marketers will have to find ways to cut through the video clutter sooner rather than later as the medium matures.

See how one golf-club manufacturer used original programming in a blog and in merchandising to build their email database from scratch.

It would be great if Singapore businesses can explore leveraging on the power of youtube, Yahoo! video and other such channels.

Link

Are We Still Clean and Green?

November 20, 2006 • Blog • 3 comments

It is sad but true. Singapore’s claim to fame as a clean and green city may be under threat if we do not buck up.

In a recent news report on Channelnewsasia, it was cited that littering is on the rise in Singapore. In the first 10 months of this year, a staggering 4,800 were caught littering compared to only 3,800 for the whole of last year! One only has to look into the grisly photos submitted on STOMP to verify that we are indeed degenerating in hygiene and civic mindedness.

What is alarming is that education apparently has little impact on “filthy” attitudes. A recent Straits Times poll show that more than 50% of youths are nonchalant about littering and feel that it is either the government or somebody else’s job to clean up after them.

Certainly, they cannot plead ignorance. A recent study conducted by the National Environment Agency cited that most students were aware of environmental issues, scoring 90 out of 100. Yet, it seems that dirty habits still persist.

Stop Disturbing Me!

November 16, 2006 • Content Marketing • no comments

As a marcoms professional, I often fall into the stereotype of thinking of customers as “targets”, “demographic groups” and “segments”.

Ad men and women are especially prone to this, and an entire discipline – media planning – was hatched with the sole purpose of cornering prospects every which way they go. We want to make sure that our entire arsenal of Weapons of Mass Distraction (also WMD) are trained to hit as many vict….sorry customers as possible.