The fine line in word of mouth marketing

Keller and Fay pose an interesting debate in Chapter 7 of The Face-to-Face Book about the ethics and efficacy of transparency in word of mouth marketing. Throughout the entire book, the authors have discussed how the power of word of mouth is the most important marketing channel brands can utilize.

They give the example of Kraft Foods hosting “house parties” across the country in 2011. Through a marketing agency, Kraft rounded up some of their most social consumers and supplied them with “party packs” filled with new Philadelphia Creme Cheese products, cook books and cooking utensils. Kraft asked the party hosts to gather 13 guests and socialize while enjoying the Kraft products. The result: after the parties the attendees talked to 8 people about their experience, and those people talked to three more people, and so on. Overall, the house parties resulted in about 6 million offline conversations about Philadelphia Creme Cheese’s new cooking creme and each person-to-person conversation yielded about 26 cents profit for Kraft.

Word of mouth is powerful, but what happens when brands don’t disclose their word of mouth marketing efforts?

In 2002, Sony Ericcson launched a new mobile phone that could also double as a digital camera. This technology was extremely innovative at the time, and they knew how powerful word of mouth could be if the right people were exposed to the product. They wanted the product interaction and the resulting word of mouth buzz to appear natural, so they hired actors to take the product with them to touristy cities and ask passerby to take their pictures by large attractions like the Empire State Building and the Space Needle in Chicago. When the unsuspicious tourists got ahold of the phone they thought they had happened upon a trendy new product, but in actuality, they were just the target of a fake word-of-mouth marketing campaign. Eventually the word got out and the Sony Ericcson brand received harsh feedback.

Would you consider such a marketing campaign clever or deceptive? I can understand both sides. I can understand how marketers would think, “Who cares how consumers stumble upon products if they are happy with the product and find value in what we are exposing them to?” These marketers clearly understand the power of word of mouth, but is it ethical for brands to generate word of mouth themselves without publicly disclosing that they are doing so? Both Kraft and Sony Ericcson created buzz for their new products; Kraft did so honestly and transparently and Sony Ericcson did so secretively and undercover. Sony Ericcson wanted their consumer-product introduction to seem natural, but once consumers found out that the buzz wasn’t genuine, the lack of transparency from Sony Ericcson overpowered the consumers’ appreciation of the innovative camera phone. As a consumer, I think I would much rather be aware of the fact that I was taking part in a word-of-mouth marketing campaign like Kraft’s house parties than to be duped by actors at Sony Ericcson. Transparency is always key.