Going Verbal


Now, let’s get back to word of mouth. One great way to start people talking is by stirring up the lexicon. Coining a great new phrase is one of the first things you should do, because putting the word out is just that. Get some influential or hip people to start using your great new word or phrase, and you’ll start some powerful word-of-mouth buzz.

Being able to turn a name into a verb and convincing people to accept your trademark as the embodiment of the field you toil in isn’t easy. But if you do it right, your name will be the first one that leaps to mind when consumers think of great new electronics gadgets, say, or the best store in a five-state area for stocking hard-to-find wines and beers. Then it’s a short leap to associating you and your product with the industry standard.

In 1999 our firm, RLM, launched a now legendary national firm called Kozmo.com. Able to deliver any movie and Jujubes candy to go along with it (in addition to shaving cream, milk, the morning paper, and even, uh-huh, Crazy Glue) to your door in less than one hour, Kozmo.com was poised to make a fundamental change in urban living. But first people had to hear about it. We started speaking about one-hour delivery as being “Kozmo’ed.” Why go to the corner store for the Times when you can get it Kozmo’ed? That was the idea.

The big concept we had—to start introducing the word into the vocabulary of trendy people everywhere. Hip people all over New York City began using the verb—no matter where you went, people stopped saying, “I want a delivery” and said instead, “Let’s get this Kozmoed.” Talk about awe-inspiring word of mouth. The term really picked up when Kozmo announced a partnership with Amazon.com. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos saw the value in kozmoing his books and chainsaws, and Amazon soon reported an upswing in sales and Web traffic.

More recently, Google.com, the Internet search engine, discovered that it had become part of the Internet generation’s slick new vocabulary. Hipsters in the single scene found a new use for Google’s search-engine capabilities. They started using Google to pull up their dates’ digital histories to find out where their mysterious strangers had been and what they’d done on some other enchanted evening. Witty culture writers at New York magazine, the Los Angeles Times, and the Observer picked up the “Googling” practice in the singles scene and put it into overdrive, making Google the most popular search site on the Web for a while.

When you’re trying to drive buzz about your product in this way, you have to use the new word whenever you can, in conversation and in writing, to get people truly to start using it and to make it stick in the collective memory. This is not an overnight effort, but the effects can be powerful, and they can last a lifetime. For example, take the example of Marilyn Loden, author of Implementing Diversity, who wrote on women and diversity. She coined the phrase the “glass ceiling” to describe the barrier women had to face in the workplace, especially those who were gunning for top positions. Because it was such a vivid image of the current corporate culture, it became part of the collective conscience of the country.

But it couldn’t end there. Loden knew that without support, the phrase would sputter into oblivion, and it was too important a sentiment for that. To give it life and momentum, Loden, now considered an expert in women’s issues, used the term everywhere she could. It peppered her interviews and other public appearances. The media picked up on it and began to use it in the context of every woman in every business story, on the air or in the papers. Loden’s work paid off, and “glass ceiling” became a two-word term everyone knows to describe a complex social issue.




Full Frontal PR[c] Getting People Talking About You, Your Business, or Your Product
Full Frontal PR[c] Getting People Talking About You, Your Business, or Your Product
ISBN: 1576600998
EAN: N/A
Year: 2005
Pages: 105

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