Hispanic Marketing & Culture Blog

Click to read the entire (and oh so fascinating) chat with Chris.

At Mercury Mambo, we’re Word Of Mouth Marketing freaks. We drink the Kool-Aid. Those companies that are doing it right are getting huge returns on their investments by building an army of evangelists.

Most of the traction that’s being seen in this arena is with General Market marketers. The prevalence of Facebook, Twitter and other social media sights and tools has brought WOM marketing to the forefront of every interactive and marketing conversation I’ve been involved in in the last year or so. What I find most interesting though, is that there are very few Hispanic marketing departments paying close attention and using the techniques.

I think there are a few reasons for this:

• Generally, Hispanic marketing departments are already trying to do more with less. There is a highly disproportionate amount of Hispanic marketing dollars being spent compared to the population and buying power.
• Traditional marketers think of WOM as experimental or “emerging” media. It’s something they can’t control, it’s something they don’t understand. Brand advertising is about shouting, you get to tell customers who you are and what to think. WOM is about a conversations. Conversations get messy and require long-term commitments.
• In general, many brand managers are risk-averse, especially in a recession. Telling your boss you want to run an experimental WOM campaign makes you stand out.  Right now, brand managers seem to want to keep a low-profile.
• WOM Marketing is a corporate commitment. It takes time and buy-in corporate-wide. This means that it takes more than a marketing department to make it happen. The customer service department needs to be on-board, the sales department needs to be on-board, as well as everyone else in the company.

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