Author: virginia.miracle

I am a passionate Word of Mouth Marketing practitioner. The juxtaposition of my experiences in WOMM vs. my time in the trenches of one of the country’s most voluminous direct marketers has given me firsthand understanding of the power of customer conversation and the relative inefficiency of shout and interruption marketing. Currently, I am the Director of Word of Mouth Marketing at Brains on Fire, a national Identity and Word of Mouth marketing company. There, I champion the client services group and intimately shepherded the Fiskateers crafting ambassador program for the first 18 months of its existence. Brains on Fire is a supremely creative and intuitive company. If you ever are in search of examples for how to make every customer touchpoint express your true personality, try calling the Brains on Fire front desk. I was first turned on to the power of conversational marketing through a role I was asked to tackle during my 4 years at Dell, Inc. in Round Rock Texas. I began my time there in Corporate Strategy and rolled through various roles in consumer marketing including word of mouth marketing manager (believed to be the first WOMM title at a F50 company) and leading the company’s online advertising to consumers and small businesses. Before that, I was a proud member of the late-90s phenomenon Trilogy Software and earned a BA in English language and literature from Princeton. I am a member of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association’s Board of Directors. I am also a new mom, a mean Scrabble player, and a (formerly closeted) Bruce Hornsby superfan. I recently completed GH3 for Wii on Medium, but secretly doubt if I’m going to get good enough to go through it on Hard. I’m not sure how many more times I can listen to Metallica’s “One”, anyway.
RL’s Clutter-Free Olympic Email

RL’s Clutter-Free Olympic Email

By |

I guess I always receive the Ralph Lauren e-newsletter, but I never really notice it. Until today. How is this for an elegant & timely promotion of your Olympic integration? Ralph Lauren email

The time stamp was within 8 hours of both the actual opening ceremonies and the US rebroadcast tonight. The callout on the bottom gives me a reason to visit their site and check for images of how the US Olympic team actually looked in the outfits. Now, while I will not be plunking down $125 for one of their super-cool Olympic polo shirts, I may check out the site again on my laptop while watching the games.

In a gmail inbox full of messages from BabyCenter, J.Crew, Banana, eBay, et al, this really stands out.

Lessons from PR Week

Lessons from PR Week

By |

I was lucky enough to talk to Tanya Lewis from PR Week a few weeks ago and to have my headshot and a few paragraphs appear in this week’s PR Week. The article profiles 4 “creatives” promoting greater understanding of social media in PR. Because of the Aug 4 timing, I was very excited to do this as I could discuss the work my team will be doing covering real long-tail athlete stories on the ground in Beijing over at http://summergames.lenovo.com and at www.twitter.com/lenovo2008.

The online article is behind a subscriber-only firewall and the print article is on Page 13 so, being new to PR, I pretty much assumed this would be the veritable tree falling in the forest. Not so. Here’s what I learned this week:

  • Print is alive and well in certain sectors – evidently, I have a lot of colleagues and friends who comb every page of PR Week.
  • News of print coverage travels fast online through social media. Change blogger and former colleague Qui Diaz was quick to tweet her congratulations and I have received emails from a range of folks I hadn’t heard from in a while.Small
  • But most interesting? Everyone who wants to be perceived as creative has their headshot done in front of a brick wall. ALL 4 individuals from the article had done this. I was lucky that mine looked slightly different as it was taken in front of a “Beware of the Dog” mural in an alley in Greenville (thank you Brains on Fire). Evidently, I’m going to have to think of something really nutty – swinging from a trapeze? – to set me apart from the rest of the “creative” PR set. Any suggestions?
Presidential “Word Cloud” in Print WashPo

Presidential “Word Cloud” in Print WashPo

By |

Today’s Sunday Washington Post features a comparison of the “word clouds” created by John McCain and Barack Obama’s respective blogs. The immediate point is that Obama is the biggest topic for both blogs, but that’s not why I care. Tag CloudWe know that reporters use blogs for story ideas and leads on quotes, but seeing something as run of the mill in Web 2.0 as a tag cloud appearing in the Sunday print edition is a very visible example of convergence. Now if only I could somehow use the print terms to sort reading the rest of the zillion pages in the Sunday edition, we’d really be in e-business.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention that these lovely clouds are the creation of Wordle.

Tom’s Walks the WOM

Tom’s Walks the WOM

By |

Ben at Church of the Customer and John at Brand Autopsy have kindly shared the remarkable story of Tom’s Shoes. In a nutshell:

Strategy: Passion + a Simple Mission

For every pair you purchase, TOMS will give a pair of shoes to a child in need. One for One

Ton Shoe’ing a Baby

Advertising Budget: $0. To quote the founder, “It’s hard to do advertising in a personal way” Marketing dollars are spent on getting involving customers in the mission – truly cutting the marketing clutter. In an MSNBC interview, a retailer explains that the shoes started selling after posting a picture of the shoes being handed out and the mission over the display.

Results:

  • 60,000 pairs donated and a goal of 200,000 by the end of 2008.
  • People who think the shoes are ugly on first glance (including me) purchasing them and breathlessly waiting for them to arrive.
  • A growing army of volunteer marketers who want to be asked about their ugly shoes so they can tell the story.

I am equally excited about the shoes, mission and conversational capital that I just bought!

Noise Counter Cuts Marketing Clutter

Noise Counter Cuts Marketing Clutter

By |

Noise Awareness from PSFKPSFK featured a set of European billboards that display live readings of the noise level in the locations where they are posted. I guess we have become to immune to irrelevant clutter – both visual and auditory – that we now need a billboard to remind us of the decibel level and the value of products that can shut it out.

Because the product it is selling – a quiet Electrolux washing machine reduces the noise pollution in your home environment, I’d definitely rate this as efficient, clutter free marketing. Even in billboard form.