A 2 part interview we shot at WOMMA's WOMM-U last spring: Above, Chris Pan discusses: Achieving goals via WOM | Facebook page as a voice | The engagement factor | Walls, tabs, microsites | Lenny Kravitz on Facebook | Tags | Brands with low follow rate | Quantifying business results. Part 2 is below.

In part 2 Chris talks about: Fan pages as an authentic voice | Brand fan pages by fans | Content is king | What people want to hear vs. what you want to tell them | Facebook marketing solutions | WOM is long term | WOM works best when integrated with social media.

Heidi Browning of MySpace talks about: Harness your advocates | Finding brand friends on MySpace | Hyper-targeted advertising | Advertising engagement | What is the impact of advertising in a social networking environment | Cultivation of creativity, that's what MySpace is all about | Creators and social activities | Cherry Coke example | Creating closed/private communities | Apply social learning to future campaigns | Video shot by coBRANDiT at WOMMA's WOMM-U conference, May 2009, Miami Beach, FL

Here's a compilation of the Q&A from the video distribution webinar we recently ran on behalf of WOMMA. Thanks again to all who participated, and if you have further questions don't hesitate to get in touch.

Q: Basic question: What is the optimal place for your video to reside (generally)? On your site, on YouTube, both, etc.

A: There really is no one "best place", though there may be places that drive more traffic than others based on your use of the social web. In practice, many of my clients place their vids on youtube (and perhaps a few other video sharing sites) and then embed the vid in facebook, their site/blog, etc. and then tweet about it or otherwise publicize it. Kinda depends on what you're trying to achieve with the video, and where your audience resides.

Q: Do you convert all video for IPOD downloads?

A: We do not convert video for iPods unless we believe there is a good reason to. The fact of the matter is that getting your vids set up to run in iTunes is kind of a PIA, and unless you're producing a stream of content it really makes no sense. Discovery is tougher in iTunes, so you really have to market your channel aggressively. Furthermore, iPhone users can watch on YouTube already, so they're covered. I think iPod conversion makes sense if you're making vids that really are about portability, like a city travel guide or something that people would need to have with them.

Q: Do you know of any media companies effectively using video to retain/gain audience?

A: Of the big media co's i think NBC is the leader. The example I used in the webinar is the site/content they've built around Heroes: Check it out. You've got to dig around a bit but they've got different levels of content for different levels of interest. I think this is a strategy that could work for any brand/company using video. Here's an interview on the subject we did w/ Matt Allen, the guy behind NBC's digital strategy.

Q: Is there any way to get Street Team Flip video content to download to an office a few hundred miles away?

A: There are license-able platforms available for sharing internal video on a large scale (see VidiTalk for ex.), or you could set up an FTP hub for street teams/editors to use. In practice we use yousendit.com which can be a hassle content management-wise but is fast and cheap.

Q: I'd like to some tips for shooting good video...it appeared on one of the slides.

A: If you're doing Flip vid/street team work you might be interested in our shooting tip sheet:
Check it out here, there's a download-able .pdf at the bottom of the post.

Q: If you have a video posted on YouTube, which is off your site or on a blog, how do you generate a click through to your site? (Since you can't post an actual clickable link on a youtube video). Is it simply them reading the web address on the title of the video and typing it to their browser manually?

A: Yes, if the vid is embedded in some site/location where you have no control over the related text or metadata that's about it. YouTube viewers have to see the title and then manually enter it. But if you're open to using another video sharing platform you can embed a clickable link. See Viddler for ex. Viddler allows you to insert clickable links and messages in the time line. Pretty cool feature, and returns great SEO results.

Q: Is it a good idea for businesses to accept friend requests from individuals on Youtube?

The answer depends upon whether you want to actively engage YouTube viewers in that way or not, and i would advise you to treat YouTube community members the same as any other community platform you may be engaged in (twitter, facebook, etc.) Friending people in any of these environments can help you get your message out, but it does potentially open you to spammers or worse. It's really a community management function, many companies create basic guidlines and have their PR/mktg department monitor comments and friend requests uniformly across a variety of channels.

Q: I'm looking to create a video contest, how do you suggest getting consumers to submit video, social, TV, or radio or all of the above?

A: This is a biggie for which i have no short answer besides: Make the reward good, focus your message, and be prepared to actively market the contest thru paid placements and vigorous community management/outreach. It helps if your contest/promotion is about something that has an enthusiastic, technically savvy fan base. Contests are notoriously tough to get traction with. It's usually music acts that are successful, or mass culture efforts around movies or something.

Q: My blip.tv account was deleted for "advertising." I know that this is one of the sites supported by tubemogul. Should I go back into all of my videos and remove any traces of my company's name, contact number, email, etc?

A: Different sites have different policies concerning the types of content they will support. Blip.tv is particularly focused on episodic, storytelling content and "shows", their business model depends in part upon selling video ads within a popular series. While Tubemogul supports numerous sites, not all of them are appropriate for all types of content. (Tubemogul is a service for batch uploading video to numerous sites simultaneously). I wouldn't worry about cleaning titles, etc. from your videos on other sites. There are plenty of options for free video hosting out there, if one site has a problem and you can't use it, no big deal.

Q: Are any of these "Video Widgets" open source or are they all custom/paid?

A: One good widget building solution I have used is SproutBuilder. Not really open source (or free) but it is inexpensive and very flexible. It's basically a WYSIWYG editor that allows you to build multi-functional widgets, with or without a video component. Sharing features are handled by Gigya/Wildfire, so you can buy paid placement for your widget through their network if desired.

Q: Demographic stats on YouTube (as shown in your example)...do they cost anything?

A: No, they're free. Check "Insights" related to your channel (also available from your "my videos" page), see also the "Statistics & Data" drop down under your individual videos.

Q: How do you get a video featured on YouTube or another video sharing website?

A: Each site has their own methodology for picking featured videos. Some of them are paid, some of them adhere to an algorithm (typically a mix of views/velocity/engagement), some rely on human editors. Such is the case with YouTube. YouTube has 10 people sitting in a secret bunker in an undisclosed location making decisions on what to feature. There is no way to game YouTube's featured front page vids.

That's it. More questions? Get in touch with coBRANDiT!

Related Links: Webinar Q&A Re: Video Distribution, Jeben Berg of YouTube on How to Make Your Videos Successful, Flip Video Shooting Tips for Distributed Production Teams and Novices, Matt Allen of NBC on their innovative online video approach: They give their stars Flip-type cameras for use back stage. coBRANDiT's Capabilities and Case Studies, Get In Touch With coBRANDiT.

Here's a great interview we shot at the last WOMMA event. Jeben is Google/YouTube's lead creative for cross platform solutions (he actually has a two-sided business card!) and in this vid covers partnering w/ top producers, buying search, linked multiple vids, and other tactics to get your videos out there.

We're presenting a webinar this Wednesday as part of WOMMA's ongoing series. For more deets and to register check http://tinyurl.com/wommavideo.

Video Distribution: 5 Key Elements
This webinar will be a discussion of video strategy and distribution techniques, from the basics of uploading & optimizing to outreach, promotion, measurement, and content development. Learn some tips, bring your questions, and be prepared to re-think your assumptions as we break down the components of a successful video program.

An interview we shot for WOMMA last spring: Geoff Donaker, COO of Yelp, talks about WOM and social media, the importance of joining the conversation, and why it's probably not a good idea to pay your mother-in-law for dinner. Make sure to attend WOMMA Summit '09 this November...
co-sponsored by yours truly, coBRANDiT.

New video released by coBRANDiT today: WOMM-U is a 2-day comprehensive and interactive educational experience from WOMMA. It's built around giving you the real-world knowledge you need to execute exceptional word of mouth marketing programs that are most effective in today's recession economy.

When and where?
May 13-14, 2009 at the Ritz Carlton South Beach Miami.

For more info please visit http://womma.org/wommu/

There seems to be real push to get branded content out there via social media. But are companies following through on maintaining the community (or even just managing the comments) that then spring up? Are they developing content specifically for these communities? Seems to me that getting companies into social media is a series of incremental steps...and we should be happy with every little step taken. In this video David Armano of Critical Mass and Christine Morrison of Intuit discuss the issue. Presented in a fun little widget (aka white label video player) I put together...also pimping the next womma conference this May...Ritz Carlton South Beach, Miami. Be there.

Spike Jones of Brains on Fire receives the first official WOMMA tattoo during Summit 2008...though he passed on the WOMMA logo and got a pirate ship instead. Introduced by John Bell, WOMMA President.

We are live streaming sessions from WOMMA's word-of-mouth marketing summit today and tomorrow. You can check out the stream here.
UPDATE: Archived Summit 08 content can be seen here. An example can be seen above.

The Brief:
The Word-of-Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) was founded in 2004, coBRANDiT has attended every conference they have put on. In fall 2005 we approached WOMMA and offered to provide video coverage of their events with the goal of providing short, insightful interviews with key participants that could be viewed and shared by ad and marketing industry professionals. We have been working on WOMMA's behalf ever since.

coBRANDiT's role:
We have covered WOMMA events in a variety of ways including:
1) Shooting interviews with keynote speakers and panelists and rapidly preparing edited pieces for web delivery. Examples can be seen here.
2) Live streaming keynote addresses and general sessions via WOMMA's Ustream channel (access requires WOMMA membership, though an example can be seen here).
3) Mobile live streaming and party coverage using a combination of qik-enabled N95's and Flip Video cameras. For a detailed post on this type of coverage, read this.
4) We also produce and distribute overview videos used to pitch specific upcoming WOMMA events, and have built cross-platform widgets (white label video players with WOMMA links and other information, not currently live) to help spread the word.

Results:
Our WOMMA videos have accumulated over 80,000 views and have helped to demonstrate, establish and solidify WOMMA's leadership in a new industry. WOMMA video content has been featured on top marketing blogs and has led to increased online chatter, increased search visibility and improved traffic to womma.org. Here's one of our favorite WOMMA videos, featuring a massive game of Rocks/Paper/Scissors:

CLICK IMAGE TO PLAY MOVIE

Here's the video we just put together promoting WOMMA's Summit 2008 in November at the Rio in 'Vegas. Shot the whole thing with Flip Video cameras and my N95.

Ok folks...a breakdown of the technologies we used to vlog from WOMM-U last week in Miami. We used two cameras: a Nokia N95 8gb and a Flip Video Ultra. The N95 is a multi-functional phone/computer often billed as competition for the iPhone. It's user interface blows by comparison but it shoots very nice video and has a few video apps. available that make it a great vlogging tool. You can shoot video to memory and then send the video (we use Shozu) to many social media video sites at once with one touch of a button. I typically send videos to a couple of youtube channels, a couple of blip.tv channels, and utterz.com though there are 20+ others i could set up. Shozu uploads are limited to a 10mb file size (though direct uploads to individual sites are not). That's why we didn't use Shozu in Miami. Instead, we live streamed via Qik.

We loaded Qik onto the N95 and set up our account online. When you open up Qik on the N95 it takes about 2 seconds to load, then you hit the button labeled "stream" and there you are, live streaming to the web with a few seconds of delay. Viewers can type in chat comments and they appear on the screen of the N95 in real time. This means if I'm talking to Joeseph Jaffe (as I did at the womma party in Miami, see photo above) viewers can ask questions which appear on my screen and I can ask Joe to respond. Joe sent out a tweet to alert his audience and we were off and running. As a side note: Qik videos can be viewed or embedded in two ways: you can embed a player which shows live video whenever you go live, or you can embed and view archived streams as individual clips (like you do on youtube). Here's the archived stream created while Joe was running my N95. I had gone to get beer...



Ok, understand so far? Good. Now it's gonna get more complex...we were also using Mogulus. Mogulus allows you to produce a 24/7 video channel that's always playing a rotation of selected video. Whenever you go live (which you can do via an N95 and qik, or via a web cam like the one built into you laptop) the live stream automatically bumps the rotation and there you are. Live. Mogulus lets you overlay branding and tickers and titles and crawls, so you can apply text and images to your live feeds (and the vids in rotation for that matter). We set up a Mogulus channel for WOMM-U at mogulus.com/womma. Mogulus is set up so that multiple producers can login from remote locations. You could run a live or near live channel from different places around the world. This just in from our team in Dakar! Pretty cool. Mogulus allows chat in the same way Qik does, and offers customized embeddable players. I'm not embedding one here because they're a pain in a blog post. They're always on! They need to be on a standalone page like this one: the coB homepage.

So far so good. But it turns out that live video is hard to produce (surprise!). Easy technically, but in terms of compelling content you've got to have your interviews and situations lined up pretty well. And to get the chat going you've got to do a little pre-publicity and then run the camera for awhile to give people a chance to respond. People aren't used to live web video. The first comments we get are usually something like "Are you really live? Say hello to me if you are." To make live video work well you've got to have pre-determined go live times and you've got to stream for 15-20 minutes minimum. AND you've got to have some good content lined up. A hot interview, a sweet scenario, a crazy event, a compelling demo. Want the easy mobility of an N95 but don't need or want to go live? Want to produce video you can actually edit? Ahhhh....Flip Video Ultra.

These $140 cameras hold an hour of flash video content and produce amazingly crisp 600x480 video with good sound. The file formats can be a little wonky (.avi) but there are easy workarounds available. The converter I use is streamclip, available from apple. Here's the Flip workflow: Put it in your pocket. When you want to shoot, pull it out, turn it on and in 3 seconds you're ready to shoot. Hit the red button and you're recording, hit it again and you stop. There's a basic digital zoom that helps in some situations, but it degrades the video quality. When you've got an hour of content, flip out the built in USB and load it on to your computer. You can load on files directly (the camera functions just like an accessory hard drive) or you can edit and compress videos right on the Flip--all the software is on the camera's drive in a nifty little program that opens up on your computer screen. The way we work is to bring the files into iMovie or Final Cut Pro and edit them down a bit and add titles and music. Then we do our own compression and throw it up on YouTube or Viddler or load it into our Mogulus stream or whatever. Here's a mix we produced this way at WOMM-U. It's not live, but pretty close if you work fast and the content can better because it's edited...but you lose the live chat functionality. Though you can chat about non-live video through Mogulus if you want to.

Part of the question here is quality vs. quantity, and is live really valuable? Depends on the situation. I can certainly think of a lot of applications for live video, but you really need to do the advanced set-up, PR, and pre-production to get it to engage people and work properly. Near live like we did with the Flip worked pretty darn well, though at an event you need to set aside time for editing or be prepared to stay up late. Need more quality? That's why we aren't throwing out our nice Sony HD camera and our wireless mics...yet.

Jesse and I will be live vlogging portions of WOMMA's WOMM-U down in Miami May 7-9. For the next few days you can check out the action on our front page and here at a more permanent site. I'll do a more detailed post on what tools we're using soon. Hint: Mogulus, Qik, Nokia N95's and Flip Video Ultras.

We are taking the opportunity to make a PR announcement: coBRANDiT is teaming up with guerrilla marketing agency Street Attack to offer a full suite of alternative marketing services. We've built out the widget below to help spread the word. Check it out and let me know what you think! (That goes for the live vlogging too...)

WOMMA's next conference is WOMM-U, May 8 and 9 in Miami. Here's a video we put together to help publicize the event. Pass it on! and see you there. It's also here on blip.tv and here on YouTube and a bunch of other places...

Ted Wright, founder and president of word-of-mouth marketing organization Fizz Corp. moderates a panel with Andy Levine of Sixthman, Ken Block of the band Sister Hazel, and band fan Marc Pruitt--a "hazelnut". Taped at WOMMA's Summit 3 in Las Vegas, NV by coBRANDiT. Disclosure: Fizz and Sixthman are coBRANDiT clients.

It's not our usual MO to tape whole panels, but there was a lot of interest in this one. Presented here on viddler, with chapter markers so you can scroll through. Feel free to add your own markers and comments.

Here are the interviews we shot at WOMMA's Word-of-Mouth Basic Training 3.

Here's my presentation from WOMMA's Summit 2, December 11-13 2006. Most video examples mentioned can be seen on my YouTube page (or via the links below), you may also download the presentation in pdf and ppt formats.

Viral Video and Messages: Content That Gets Forwarded

How are brands and companies using web video to reach an opt-in audience?
What are the most innovative strategic uses of social media web video?
Is viral video the best video strategy, and does video need to be viral to be effective?
How does viral video tie into CGM and WOM?
What's new in video sharing technology?

You can't make a video viral; viewers can. Viral video attempts often have a TV approach: the most number of eyeballs possible, brand attributes secondary. Marketers look at CGM viral hits and want some of that. Too often this means Paris Hilton (or similar).

>Paris Hilton Carl’s Jr.

More recent successes have gotten smarter, more aligned with brand:

>Shaveeverywhere.com
>Dove Evolution
>Tea-Partay (maybe not smarter, but a lot more fun)
>Ecko/StillFree
>Blendtec

Why do these videos work? Outrageous/Amusing/Character driven. The product isn’t the star...a person is. There's an increasing emphesis on personal stories, storytellers. This is seen more clearly in brand vlog efforts.

>Amanda Across America
>Ford Bold Moves
>Chasing Kimbia
>DiddyTV

This type of content is potentially viral, and designed to engage a specialized audience with backstories and insider information. To generate WOM and inexpensively release info/messaging that might not otherwise get out there.

>BMW Vodcast
>Weber Nation
>Narragansett Beer Story
>Video enabled Beer Map

And then there’s CGM brand efforts, often contests. These take the form of brand asset remixes (remember Tahoe?) and original content around a theme.

>iamnotafraidofyouandiwillbeatyourass
>Follow the Finger
>Dabble
>Tokion/Dewar's

Of particular note is Current TV's V-CAM (Viewer Created Ad Message) program. Citizen producers earn $1000 or more from sponsors such as Toyota, T-Mobile, and Sony.

There are video sharing providers out there building tools to manage these contests, and in the process are creating platforms for video-enabled brand communities.

>Jumpcut
>Vitrue
>Vive Network
>Brightcove

And there are others building more general community management platforms that integrate video:

>Street Attack/Yfon's SwitchBoard
>Crowd Factory

Companies that manage brand communities have been gathering important market insights as well as generating substantial WOM messaging. As these companies move to provide their communities with video sharing tools a lot of CGM brand videos will appear.

>Expo TV
>Biore the Blackhead Slayer

Different services, different approaches: Revver, Videoegg, Brightcove allow you to attach your ad to opt-in video content. How well the ads are matched to the video? Check out Google's video AdSense program...

If you are distributing your own vid, you’ll want to look for channels that you can control:
WebVideoZone, Blip TV.

Video Search: What do you want people to find when they type the name of your brand/product/company into a video search engine? My argument: something about how your company is supporting brand enthusiasts, listening to them, and giving them voice.

Conclusion: There's more to it than viral video. Viral video is a mass market ploy that often leads to least-common-denominator tactics. Instead, do something relevant for insiders & enthusiasts. Figure out what resonates, and what your story is. Deliver that story authentically, with real voice.

That voice may be your customer's.

WOMMA (the Word-of-Mouth Marketing Association) is in the process of redesigning and upgrading their website with a new look and a bunch of new features...including video! There is now a link right to our WOMMA interviews on the front page, as well as on the Summit2 pages, check it out. Thanks to Andy and Peter and Jennifer and all the WOMMA staff for helping to put this together. Jesse and I have been proud to be WOMMA's official vloggers at the last few events, and we're excited to continue the tradition next month in DC. We hope to see you there--and get you on camera. Seriously, if you're going to attend and have a bit of WOM knowledge you'd like to spread find us there or get in touch now and schedule your 15 minutes of fame. Just about to register? Type the phrase "guestofcobrandit" into the promo code box and you'll get a discount off your registration.

I've been asked to speak at the WOMMA Summit coming up in December, the session title is "Viral Video and Messages: Content That Gets Forwarded."

While I'm super excited about presenting at a WOMMA Summit, I'm hoping to expand the session a bit. Thing is, if you want to talk about marketer uses for online video, viral is just a small part of the story. The best known (and flashiest) part of the story perhaps, but I don't think the most interesting. The problem with viral video is that it almost always relies on outrageous humor or situations for it's virality. Viral video seeks to be seen by the largest number of people possible, like TV. Viral doesn't care if the brand message is relevant or interesting to the viewer, it's just hoping you'll notice the brand, somewhere in there with all the farts and breasts and rapping WASPs. Most viral vids associated with brands are CGM, and negative. So while viral is a workable strategy for some brands, it's tough to pull off in the right way.

Similar to viral is stuff like YouTube's "brand channels" and Video Egg's opt-in post-roll ads and Google's Video AdSense program--these are brand messages that rely on viewer interest in the product or service offered. While the content is displayed in the same format as a viral video, you know it's an ad (of sorts) and you know what it's about (more or less). If you click on it, it's because you want to see a message from brand X. What can you do as a marketer to make that message compelling? Hint: don't make it look like a TV ad. No bogus sets. No bogus actors.

The next level out is video blogging, or creating a series of ongoing pieces that tell a brand story. Again, you can put this story out through viral channels, but what you're really trying to do is get interested viewers to follow the story on your site, where you can create better context for your message, and provide better tools for your customers and viewers. Current examples of this include Ford (both Bold Moves, and Amanda Congdon's Road Trip, also with the NRDC) and Samuel Adams Brewery. All of these approaches are documentary is style, which means real people, real voices.

The core expression of real people real voices is of course CGM. And there are some fun marketer executions using CGM video, my current fave being iamnotafraidofyouandiwillbeatyourass.com (look for the gnome...that's me). Still though, when it comes to CGM video and marketing activity it seems like the real action is in qualitative research. Trend sites (noteably trendwatching.com) and brand researchers of all sorts watch video sharing sites for a peek into consumer's lives, and companies that employ and/or recruit trendspotters and brand loyalists and bzzagents etc. are getting into providing video tools to their communities. The results of these more focussed assignments are rarely public, but I think we'll increasingly see content come out of these groups that plays as advertising.

For me, that's where the real interest lies: in the crossover between research and brand messaging. I want to see content about brands that shows context, connection to poeple's lives. I want to see work that reads as research to brand managers, documentary advertising to consumers, and provides insight to both.

PS One sort of brand that would thrive by giving users video tools would be sites like PlanetFeedback.com and TripAdvisor.com. (I'd love to put up my video of the shitty buffet, unstaffed bars, and blowing trash at Beaches, Turks & Caicos, $6000/wk).

More of our interview with Gary Stein of Ammo Marketing. Here Gary discusses Google's Video ASdSense program and web video in general, plus a new term? Flash production crew...

I started off interviewing Gary (AMMO's Director of Strategy) about web video, he had just returned from a ClickZ video symposium in NYC. The conversation morphed into a discussion of SecondLife. Here's Gary's take. (And here's his blog. Good stuff.)

Geno sat down with us for a few minutes to describe the brand ambassador and community program Brains on Fire just launched for Fiskars (the orange handled scissors people.) He provides a very nice overview of a WOM program done right, from research to launch, with transparency and ethics. Check out Fiskateers.com to see the project.

Jackie is a WOMMA boardmember and WOMBAT2 keynote speaker, her blog (written with partner Ben McConnell) is the well-known Church of the Customer. We caught up with her and discussed one of the threads she's currently following: Snakes on a Plane.

Julian was on a panel at WOMBAT2 and used a term I had not heard before: "Pilferables." Here he describes some of AMMO Marketing's tactics for spreading buzz and talk within a community.

We continue following the career arc of the Scobleizer and get some background on his recent job change announcement. What are the factors that caused him to jump? In brief: his career follows the development of the PC and web communications, that leads him to web video (PodTech.net.) Where does it go next? SecondLife...

We filmed while WOMBAT2 keynote speaker Robert Scoble (scobleizer.com) was interviewed for an audio podcast by Judd Bagley of PRweb. Judd traces Scoble's career starting with his move to Silicon Valley at age 5, and in the process we find out why you shouldn't have skipped your typing classes.

Ryan discusses Buzz Marketing at Euro RSCG, his family roots in advertising, and the importance of trendspotting and analysis (his team linked Polaroid and Outkast in popular culture.) What is the tie between ads, events and WOM? What does it take to generate talk value? What are the Three C's?

The Well Advertising in Chicago specializes in producing microsites, which CEO Bill Hanekamp describes as 24/7 sales reps. Here Bill talks about how The Well came to focus on this niche, and why new compensation models make sense.

How has the role for PR agencies evolved in this new media world? John talks about Ogilvy PR and WOM, and the job of turning clients (Snap-On tools for example) into media producers. John maintains a good blog about these topics here.

Expo TV is a website and VOD channel with it's roots in infomercials. President Bill Hildebolt (WOMBAT2 attendee) talks about Expo's move into soliciting consumer generated product reviews (videopinions) and the differences between the web and VOD.

Rob Key, CEO of Converseon, talks about how affiliate marketing is morphing into a WOM practice. Where is the line between the two? And what about disclosure?

Trip is in charge of guerrilla marketing at Renegade in NYC. We discussed their recently launched Panasonic/Oxyride "Neuter Your Bunny" campaign, and asked him how Renegade works when going into a new business pitch.

Bill Mosher, Founder of Echopinion! is the first paying member of WOMMA, the Word-of-Mouth Marketing Association. Here he talks about WOM, his career and the descision to join.

Selections from Andy Sernovitz's opening address at the Word-of-Mouth Marketing Association's WOMBAT2 conference held June 20-21 in SF. Stay tuned for interviews with attendees, panelists, and keynote speaker Robert Scoble coming in the next few days.

THIS VIDEO HAS BEEN DELETED.
While we were interviewing Bob Garfield at WOMMA's WOMBAT conference in Orlando last January he went on an extended and unsolicited riff about the purported origins of WOMMA. He claimed WOMMA was founded by members of various 1970's era leftist guerrilla organizations. He did this in jest, while we filmed him. We recently rediscovered the tape and edited it together with images of the IRA, SLA, other organizations, and WOMMA board members.

We apologize for the offensiveness of the material, and for our unthinking actions. We sincerly hope that any discredit falls on us. We would like to reiterate that WOMMA had no knowledge of or say in the creation and production of this video. Thanks for your understanding. - Owen

We asked a few people about WOMMA and WOMMA events. Here's what they said. (Including quotes from Laurent Flores and Nigel Roth, event sponsors from CRM Metrix. (Taped at WOMMA's WOMBAT conference, January 2006. coBRANDiT attended as official videobloggers.)

A testimonial, call to action, and CGM all in one.

Paul Rand of Ketchum has recently launched a new practice called Ketchum Personalized Media which focuses on blogging, podcasting, rss, mobile, etc. Here Paul talks about the new practice, and the changing role of the PR industry.

Mark Kingdon of Organic talks about what makes for "exceptional experience" with brands, and also about the power of video to connect with audiences. (Organic maintains a very interesting blog called three minds which they use as a platform to experiment with new technologies and methods. Any Organic employee can post.)

Steve Friedman of Weblogs Inc. on the business of blogging and integrating marketing with blogs. Volvo is about to start videoblogging with them...

Bob Garfield, noted ad critic and author, talks about WOMMA as an organization and WOMM as an industry.

Jamie Tedford of Arnold Worldwide speaks about the challenges of creating content in a new media world, and of the interplay between advertising and WOM.

Laurie Weisberg describes Informative's work building customer communities for brands such as LEGO, and how co-creation can result in fabulous products. (Did you see the cover of the Feb. '06 WIRED? All about LEGO...)

Ted Wright of Liquid Intelligence on how his company uses the power of WOM storytelling in the beverage industry, and how WOM synchs up with advertising.

WOMMA co-founder Pete Blackshaw of Neilsen Buzzmetrics coined the term consumer-generated media, or CGM. Here he describes CGM2 (multi-media) and the impact it is having on advertising and marketing.

Douglas Atkin of merkley + partners describes some of the research in his book The Culting of Brands, and how his client BMW Motorcycles is heading in a new direction.

David Fletcher of MediaLab UK talks about WOM as a media vehicle and the psychology of online behavior and empowered consumers.

John Moore of Brand Autopsy discusses WOMBAT keynote speaker Don Pepper's book Return on Customer and how how his own experience behind the counter as a barista at Starbucks influences his thinking about new marketing programs.

Steve Rubel of Micropersuasion discusses Cooper Katz's blogging efforts, notably Vespaway.com

An introduction to Womma, the Word-of-Mouth Marketing Association.

Josh Hallett of Hyku is a social media consultant whose clients include old media (The Florida Sentinel) and new (Micropersuasion.com). Here he discusses online engagement and the role blogs play. (taped at WOMMA's wombat conference)