Douglas Rushkoff on Word of Mouth Marketing

Douglas Rushkoff spoke as the closing keynote for the CMA’s Word of Mouth Conference.  His message: brand mythologies are an artifact from the era of broadcast media.  Time to move on.

A few other gems from his presentation:

• There are fundamental shifts in the bias of social media.  A shift has occurred in the way people relate to each other and to brands.  Start thinking about ecological, gardening models.
• On relationships: I have mythical relationships with brands (e.g. the Quaker Oats Shaker); I have social relationships with people (e.g. Heather who runs the local oat mill).
• (To marketers, if you want me to talk about your product) Give me the social currency I need to talk about your stuff.
• A real metric for how your company is doing is how many unsolicited resumes you receive!  Do people want to work for you?!
• Providing employees and customers with social currency results in transparency.
• How can you be transparent if you have no core competency?
• Find the most passionate people inside your organization – where do they hang out?  That will be where your passionate users will be too.

Rushkoff’s latest book, Get Back in the Box, was handed out at From Mass to Grass.  I’m about halfway through and loving it.  He expands on the ideas above, particularly around social currency and how understanding that is a key concept for marketers to GET in order to be successful.  Love. It.

We’re delighted that Rushkoff was also able to give Alexa Clark a "One Minute for One Degree" video snippet.  Enjoy!