The Kevin Bacon Factor in Marketing

Brandweek, June 14, 1999 by Bob Kenney

Bob Kenney is president of Context Marketing, a marketing and public relations firm located in Sausalito, Calif. He can be reached at bkenney@contextmarketing.com

Many marketers have become so focused on developing a relationship with the consumer that they overlook a relationship that matters even more: the relationship between consumers, and what they tell each other about a brand.

Call it the Kevin Bacon Factor, named after the Six Degrees game that shows how we're all somehow connected.

The Kevin Bacon Factor says that when you sell a product to a consumer you also sell it to that person's family, friends, co-workers, acquaintances, neighbors and even the stranger next to them at the supermarket check-out.

You're tapping into consumer relationships, not creating them, and what should concern you is what links consumers: word of mouth, or buzz.

Most marketers discount word of mouth because they don't know how to account for it in brand planning. That's unfortunate. Word of mouth is crucial to positioning, building and maintaining brands.

The experience consumers have with a brand--good, bad or indifferent--directly fuels the brand's word of mouth. It's even more important now that many Americans are hard-wired to each other through e-mail and chat rooms.

Word of mouth is also a tool for busy consumers trying to keep up with new products.

Americans may be cautious about advertising claims, but they have great confidence in each other's opinions.

According to a recent Yankelovich study, 65% of consumers say they seek advice from friends when considering the purchase of a product they know little about. A 1997 Roper Starch study reported that the number of consumers who say they get product information from friends increased by 6% over five years. That study also noted that the narrowing gap in quality differences among competitive products has made it harder for consumers to spot differences between brands.

This leads to speculation that we may be seeing a shift in brand choice from brand advertising claims of being "the best" to brands recommended by family and friends.

Being proactive about word of mouth will greatly increase the odds that consumer buzz is working for your brand and not against it.

Word of mouth is not the responsibility of any single marketing discipline, although pr seems to have the best understanding of how it works. Rather, word of mouth should be considered in the context of the entire marketing program: all your marketing communications tools can support it. Here are some ways to build good brand buzz.

Cultivate informal influencers. We're talking here about the people who have credibility in your marketplace: the user groups, the product loyalists and other informal yet credible sources of product information. Treated like partners, these people will spread the word about your brand. This is a lesson understood by performance and luxury car manufacturers. Ford solicited feedback from Mustang clubs before it redesigned that model. BMW, Lexus, Mercedes and others stay in touch with the opinion-shapers in their marketplace.

Sample strategically, creatively. Getting an innovative new product into the hands of the right people before product launch can create excitement.

This was a productive strategy for Palm Computing, which managed to place its Palm handheld organizers into the palms of many technology industry insiders prior to launch, sending it on its way to category leadership.

Expect more from publicity. Publicity is hardly a new tool, but using it for maximum brand advantage is still rare enough to be noteworthy.

Publicity can do more than build awareness, it can also get people excited and talking about a product. It wasn't a recessive "Beetle gene" that caused young adults to spontaneously start piling into the new VW Bug for news cameras when it re-appeared. Good publicity planning creatively reinforced the idea, stated by the advertising, that owning a VW Beetle is as much a lifestyle choice as a transportation decision.

Think bottom-up. We're still reflexively thinking "mass media" even though research tells us consumers are increasingly adept at cultivating their own sources of information about goods and services. Build bottom-up communications that intersect with consumers in their everyday context, not just through media.

Community exposure adds credibility to brand positioning messages. In the 10 years after 1987, as Starbucks grew from six stores to more than 1,300, the company spent less than $10 million on advertising (total, not annually).

Instead, it concentrated on developing relationships in the communities it entered. This involved creating evangelist employees who promoted the cult of coffee: connecting with community leaders early on, staging local events for openings, actively supporting local causes, and working closely with local media. All of which sparked good word of mouth in the communities where their customers live.

Be outrageous (but carefully). Behavior that is way out of the norm will get a brand talked about, but be careful. The goal is good word of mouth.