The ROI of WOM: A first look at “WOMMA’s Return on WOM” Brand Data Study | Ruth Ogbeab


As a winner of the Social Media Week annual Scholarship Program, today I had the opportunity to attend Social Media Week, which runs from February 23rd to 27th 2015 at Highline Stages. My first session was "The ROI f WOM: A first look at "WOMMA's Return on WOM" Brand Data study.                           

What is the true value of word-of-mouth (WOM), online and off, relative to other marketing and media? In 2014, the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) gathered some of the world's leading brands and researchers and launched "Return on Word of Moth," a landmark study to finally answer these questions:How much of a brand's sales are driven by WOM?
  • Does WOM amplify marketing and, if so, by how much?
  • How do the impacts of online and offline WOM compare?
  • What are the best practices for including WOM in the marketing mix models?
  • How do WOM and paid impression compare in their power to drive sales?

 Participating Brand and Research Partners:

Beth Rockwood, Discovery Communications
Jim Totten, PepsiCo
Lee Hurley, Weigh Watchers
Erin Tavgac, Converseon
Brad Fay, Keller Fay

Key Takeaways:
  • WOM drives a significant portion of sales, across categories, an averages of 13%
  • For context, paid marketing in total drove 20-20% of sales, on average for the brands participating in the study
  • Categories in the study included telecom, personal care, software, TV programming, FMCG
  • WOM's impact is greater for higher-consideration categories, smaller for lower-consideration
  • WOM's impact was lower for brands in the study whose KPI was "total sales," as opposed to a subset of total
  • 13% of consumer sales in the US was $6 trillion in 2013, according to the Department of Commerce
  • Two-thirds of WOM's impact is from offline WOM, one-third from online
  • WOM plays both a direct and indirect role in driving business performance
  • WOM directly impacts business performance
  • WOM is driven by and amplifies online and offline media, which then impact business performance
  • WOM also drives Search and Website visits, which then impacts business performance
  • Two-thirds of WOM's impact is direct; one-third is as amplifier of paid media
  • WOM amplifies the effect of paid media by 15%
  • WOM has a more immediate impact than traditional media
  • About 90% of online WOM's impact is in the first two weeks
  • About 73% of offline WOM's impact is in the first two weeks
  • A WOM impression had much more impact than a paid media impression
  • An offline WOM impression, and much more (as much as 200 times more) for higher-consideration categories.




Popular posts from this blog

2020 Adobe MAX Conference | Shadiq Williams

Image
Session: “Smarter Social Storytelling | Gary Vee Interview” | linkedin.com/in/garyvaynerchuk/ Notable Quote: “Stay Agile: be ready to pivot … Be Human: focus on being empathetic … Serve: be of service to others … Play more: experiment; explore; worst thing to do is to not try new things” Gary is already so well known for this expertise in media strategy and his raw, unfiltered delivery, but this particular interview gave me a much stronger understanding of how he thinks and why his mind is so valuable. One of the most noteworthy things that Gary shed light on is how he is able to land on his insights that often feel near psychic. He explained that his main strategy is to study cycles of human habits in order to predict what should be expected in the future. The example that he gave was in response to why he so heavily advocates for collecting baseball cards. Gary’s explanation is that if you look into the generation that collected baseball cards, you will notice that they are now beco
Read more

Brand Film Awards and Workshop 2020 | Starley J Sandez

Image
 The year 2020 has definitely been a game changer for our society and as a result of these changes, the 2020 Brand Film Awards and Workshop were broadcasted through a webinar event. The awards were transmitted live on May 7, 2020, by Campaign US and PRWeek US. The event highlighted the best brand films and showed three significant workshops with distinctive professionals from the production, communication, advertising and marketing industry.   Building Brand Love into Organic Creativity was the first workshop presented. The workshop was hosted by James Gregson, Head of Lego Social Studio and moderated by Lindsay Stain U.S. Editor for Campaign US. James spoke about how Lego has transitioned from the physical product and store to a more digital world that aligns with the changes that we are experiencing nowadays. He explained that Lego wanted to support their consumers who were facing the stress of lockdown by providing them with content that will inspire them to create at home. They cre
Read more

AdWeek 2018, 1 Year Later | William Howard

Image
I fully anticipated attending ADWeek 2018 as soon as I moved to New York. I did not expect AD Week 2018 to come to me. I was living on West 70th Street and AD Week 2018 was a short 3 minute walk from my bedroom, so I had the privilege of attending multiple sessions and dropping in and out as I saw fit, able to return home with ease. I attended sessions each day of ADWeek, but attended the majority on opening day. I wanted to get a wide perspective of the industry at that very moment, and was not disappointed. The first session I attended was hosted by Fer Machado, CMO of Burger King. I was sure to live tweet his session, as his focus was on the power of creativity for brands that are not the leader in their category. I left with a refreshed understanding and appreciation of risk, and the necessity of risk with regards to creativity, you cannot be a cautious creative. If your brand wants to stand out, you have to be willing to take creative risks, to get the attention your brand needs,
Read more