WORD OF MOUTH MARKETING COMES OF AGE

Wired.com notes that, later this month, hundreds of corporate and ad agency executives will come together for what may well be the first conference devoted to word-of-mouth marketing. Wired adds:

"That a conference is being held on such a topic -- not to mention that there are now multiple trade associations for word-of-mouth marketing and its cousin, viral advertising -- is testament to the rapid growth and success of these forms of advertising, which until recently were the province of a very few maverick practitioners. "Every company we've spoken to already has somebody working on this," said Andy Sernovitz, CEO of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association, or WOMMA. "It's called different things -- viral, buzz, customer satisfaction. But in the four months since we started, we've got 60 corporate members, and 3,000 people on our mailing list."

If word of mouth is such an effective means of communication, the IPKat wonders, why does WOMMA need a mailing list?

Spreading information by word of mouth here
Other things spread by mouth here
Chinese whispers here