It’s nineteen seventy-five, you get a knock on your door that startles you from your TV hour show and makes you get up, answer the door in the middle of the day. You greet the door to find a salesman selling you a vacuum that will really “suck up” against brand competitors, and that’s how you have this family heirloom from that fateful day. Lucky for you, you live in twenty-twenty one and never have to open the door to a “salesman” ever again, thanks to your ring cam. The concept was you would buy this said product and then tell your neighbors all about it, creating a “word-to-mouth,” and before you know it, everyone on the block had one! Kind of like that scene in Edward Scissorhands when Edward gives haircuts to all the neighborhood pets on the block, and they all just HAD to try it too! But how exactly do we naturally create a word-to-mouth today to spread brand awareness to others? How is it that someday, some things are off the radar, and the next, it’s trending? Well, that’s it! Digital Trends!
Well, DUH! Everyone knows that!
True, but it’s not how to tie in with foods’ topics on a trend but more about who makes it a fad. We don’t need typical cliche door-to-door salespeople anymore to convince us to buy something today; we can be comfortable in our home with this small handheld computer in our hands to give us what we want. We can also research our products using YouTube and share those videos with friends to check out specs on a product or re-tweet a post or picture on Twitter to create viral threads that start a conversation. The possibilities are endless. But, I think the most effective word-to-mouth is slapping products and their Call to Action into the hands of the most-watched things on the internet: Content Creators and Influencers.
How It Works
In an era that if you don’t have a 1. Ad-Blocker or 2. Pay for YouTube Premium to avoid pesky ads that ruin your casual video watching; you simply just skip them or don’t even bother to watch the video. But because the first thing mentioned exists, how do brands brainstorm the alternative to bring their message to the people? Well, we get it to the videos of influencers that you spend hours upon hours watching weekly and pay them to share and talk about it. This creates a co-op relationship that helps pay for content and free real estate on a product. The reason it’s so effective is that it’s convenient enough not to skip, and it’s also usually very unique according to an influencer’s/content creators brand. So brands can create sponsorships with these popular channels to bring exposure and spread an organic word of mouth to a viewer casually with no expectations. In contrast, they make their fan base through YouTube. An example we can use is one of my favorite YouTube channels, Binging With Babish.
Who’s Babish?
Andrew, or Babish as he is known on YouTube, brings joy to millions of viewers online with his unique cooking of cooking your favorite fandom/pop culture foods. Whether it’s complicated or very simplified, he captures the hearts of many people by bringing his NPR-type soothing voice, unique camera shot, and imagination and fantasy to life! And if you’re not into creating your favorite show foods, he also created a side channel that dedicates to teaching you, a simple folk, how to cook the basics of essential nutrition to impress that special someone or just that special you. But aside from his large fan base, he also ties in in-ad promotions that tie in with the topics of foods. Products vary from food and drink subscriptions that fit with Babish’s brand. It works well because while you leave his video inspiring to break out a pot and pan, it also brings awareness to unique ingredients and products that can highlight your dish even more.
For example, Botanist is a small gin company that focuses on the quality and ingredients in the alcohol that can bring a different taste and experience to your drink. So why not pair it with a homemade Italian recipe brought to you by Thrive Market that brings you the freshest ingredients at a low monthly cost. Conclusion? You get good eats, a good time, and a new product to help you influence your dishes and impress your friends.
With this, you’re creating a word of mouth by sharing links on social media to your friends and followers and bringing exposure to the creator/influencer, and you’re getting exposure to the product and brand. A more simplified way of sharing and bringing exposure.
An Update or An End?
We can not regress to the fact that the world is moving forward. If we turn back to see how to improve the past, we bring back the “old” look but make it modern. Social Media, although not new, has had many phases in its life cycle. Before, it was only available with ads in a newspaper, a quick radio spot, or on nightly watch family tv in the comfort of your living room. But with streaming more widely available now thanks to internet access anywhere and the flame of cable tv subscriptions dying out, we can’t practice those same ways fluently anymore. Marketers and companies need to research what’s hot, what’s new, and what’s up and coming with viewers in all broad horizons. Thanks to YouTube being widely available, marketers can use this platform to keep any brand/product alive. With the help of popular channels on YouTube and creating relationships to pay for content that will expose them easily to millions of viewers monthly. The consumer is on the go, and the highlight of ads needs to be quick and convenient.
Or perhaps you’re in the demographic of YouTube primetime where you just watch for pure entertainment, and we can only target you organically by sticking it into your favorite channels, like mentioned before. It works because it isn’t forced, and it’s in the same theme or style of the video you’re watching, or perhaps your content creator/ influencers made it in their class, and you wouldn’t have expected it.
This way, consumers keep word the mouth alive in modern times, and even if you refuse the ads or the call to action, your search engine will always know how to target you quietly and efficiently. That, of course, is another in-depth article to dive into.
Will word of mouth ever run out of gas? As long as the consumer is always online, we’re always listening to get them to buy our vacuum.
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