WOM Micro Talks: CTO, Francis West, on Building Fairer Brand Marketing Models
We started this project because we saw a purpose for a token that could meet the mutual needs of everyone who plays a part in product marketing — from the brands, retailers and platforms, to the people they all want to reach.
We couldn’t see why some $335 billion a year was being funnelled into ever-smarter tools, such as retargeting, cross-device tracking and micro-fencing, when these same practices never address the fundamental dilemma of digital marketing: the us vs. them divide between brands and consumers. Of all the metrics they deliver fairness isn’t one of them. So why isn’t fairness a key marketing metric, and who said building marketing campaigns that track against fairness doesn’t pay off?
The notion that people want to be passive advertising consumers is as out of date as black and white TV. More than 2.1 billion people recommend products they find useful to one another over the internet on a daily basis and 68% of people trust the opinions of other consumers. Word of mouth has conversion power precisely because it doesn’t create an us vs. them dynamic between consumers and brands, it’s a consensual collaboration. It’s also fairer, if someone likes something, why shouldn’t they recommend it, and why shouldn’t they in turn receive compensation for their otherwise free marketing?
This is the future direction for digital marketing — getting away from invasive advertising and into fairer marketing models where everyone gets rewarded, where everybody has a chance to participate, where there are no obvious barriers to entry and where opportunity is equal for all.
In our latest micro talk with WOM CTO, Francis West, we look at where we are in terms of developing our marketing model for brands.
How are we currently developing the WOM ecosystem for brands?
We have just launched a campaign manager for brands to see and follow the power and performance of each WOM video. Through the campaign manager they can engage by promoting and pushing those videos. This enables the community of creators to benefit from the brand’s deeper wallets.
And how do all the participants within the WOM ecosystem benefit?
The basic Protocol is of course decentralized or approaching decentralization, which means the power is in the hands of the community. Anybody joining in has the same opportunities as everyone else. The rules do not bend for anyone and all participants, including brands, are moderated by the process.
If someone creates word-of-mouth content that is impressive and the community likes it, they benefit right away by earning rewards. Brands can also feel the immediate benefits by engaging with the community, looking at the content that they like and putting some of their money behind it. This payment then makes its way into the larger community of creators and validators.
What opportunities does the campaign manager give brands that they didn’t have before?
Brands now have access to an organic marketplace of very, very strong content. So in a way, they can reach inside real markets, which is something I know most brands want to do. But again, they can do that fairly, because the Protocol itself is fair.
Brands are able to see the wisdom of the masses — to see which of their products people really want to promote — and incorporate this content into their campaigns with the explicit consent of the creator. Everybody can be involved without any fear of monopolization.
Right now we have a trust problem between consumers and brands, so how are we addressing that?
There really is a great lack of trust these days and a pushback against content that is becoming too invasive.
In contrast, we have a community that validates its own content; content that passes this authentication process is personal to that community, and something that they, presumably, really do enjoy, otherwise they would have voted differently.
You can watch the micro talk with Francis here:
