Ethics in the Word of Mouth Industry - WOMMA leads

I am proud to say that Vocanic was one of the founding members of the trade association for the word of mouth industry.  Recently they have updated their Ethics code. Vocanic has and will always design and execute campaigns to meet or exceed these guidelines.

The Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) issued changes to its Ethics Code of Conduct,   known as the WOMMA Code, to help define best practices, unacceptable practices and baseline rules for word of mouth marketing.

The Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) launched a formal review of the WOMMA Ethics Code at WOMMA’s Nov. 12-14, 2008 Marketing Summit and Research Symposium in Las Vegas. A special public forum on the code was hosted at the Summit as well as WOMMA hosted an open comment period from November thru the end of January to allow our members sufficient opportunity to provide comments, feedback and information on the code of ethics. In addition, WOMMA supported an ethics blog. The WOMMA Code also is consistent with the Federal Trade Commission’s recent revisions to its guideline for the use of testimonials and endorsements in advertising. WOMMA was extremely pleased with the industry and general public response. As a result of the extensive comments received, the Board of Directors approved changes to the Code of Ethics, which is downloadable here: , as well as being posted at www.WOMMA.org. These are important changes for the WOM industry.

The changes to the code focused on the Honesty of Relationship, Opinion and Identity, which included:

• We practice openness about the relationship between consumers and marketers. Consumers engaged in a word of mouth program should disclose their relationship with marketers in their communications with other consumers.
• We don't tell consumers specifically what to say, but we do instruct them to be open and honest about any relationship with a marketer and about any products or incentives that they may have received.We require marketers to disclose their relationships with consumers in relation to word of mouth initiatives.
• We require marketers to effectively monitor disclosure of consumers involved in their word of mouth initiatives
• We stand against marketing practices whereby the consumer is paid cash by the manufacturer, supplier or one of their representatives to make recommendations., reviews or endorsements
• We require consumers involved in a word of mouth initiative to disclose the material aspects of their commercial relationship with a marketer, including the specific type of any remuneration received.
• We require consumers involved in a word of mouth initiative to disclose the source of product samples or incentives received from a marketer.
• We comply with FTC regulations that state: "When there exists a connection between the endorser and the seller of the advertised product which might materially affect the weight or credibility of the endorsement (i.e., the connection is not reasonably expected by the audience) such connection must be fully disclosed."
• Teaser campaigns are acceptable when the average consumer would recognize the effects as part of a marketing program and when there is a planned revelation as part of the initiative.
  The WOMMA Code’s key principles are:
  

1. Respect and promote practices that abide by an understanding that the consumer, not the marketer, is fundamentally in charge and in control and dictates the terms of the consumer-marketer relationship.

2. Openness and honesty between consumers and marketers requires that consumers engaged in a word-of–mouth programs disclose their relationships with marketers with other consumers and marketers disclose their relationships with consumers in relation to word-of mouth initiatives

3. Clear disclosure of identity is vital to establishing trust and credibility. Identification should not be blurred in a manner that misleads consumers as to the true identity of the individual with whom they are communicating.

4. Working with minors in word-of-mouth marketing programs carries important responsibilities and sensitivities, therefore, children under the age of 13 should not be included in any word-of-mouth marketing programs.

5. Promote honesty in all downstream communications to assure that ethical standards are upheld even after multiple generations of a conversation

6. Respect the privacy of consumer at all times and comply with the highest privacy, opt-in and permission standards.

WOMMA and its members can play an important role in shaping and guiding how brands and marketers develop and execute ethical word of mouth and social media marketing programs.

One of the conditions of membership in WOMMA is the requirement to adhere to WOMMA's Code of Conduct. As such, it is essential that members familiarize themselves with the changes that have been made to the Code and take any steps that might be necessary to assure that their WOM practices meet the guidelines set forth in the Code.

Your membership in WOMMA sets you above others in this field and we encourage you to promote to your customers both your membership in WOMMA and your compliance with the Code of Ethics. Customers are looking for such assurances when selecting a partner in our industry.

The word of mouth marketing environment continues to be an evolving space and WOMMA will monitor this to ensure that our code is founded on best practices and protect the consumer and we encourage self monitoring of compliance with the Code. WOMMA believes it must remain fervid in its quest for strong ethical standards and self-regulation of the industry. In early 2008, the UK passed legislation, which made nondisclosure in word of mouth marketing efforts a criminal offense. WOMMA has been recognized by the Federal Trade Commission for its pioneering work in defining ethical standards for the industry.

Comments

[Justin Kirby]

Ian ... just thought you should know that WOMMA's former president prevented me from speaking at a number of conferences round the world, threatening to pull WOMMA's support from those events if I spoke at them.

It's one thing to disagree with critics and even say that WOMMA's support of an event is conditional on the basis that WOMMA members get to speak at it. It's quite another thing to proactively silence your critics, not least as it only goes to legitimise their criticisms.

Seeing that some of these event organisers were prepared to pay me to speak at their events, this action effectively imposed a financial penalty on me for having a difference of opinion. When I complained to the WOMMA management they not only failed to apologise for this unethical behaviour, but refused to formally acknowledge that I had even made a complaint despite having confirmation from the conference organisers.

My point being that WOMMA preach 'deontological' business ethics (e.g. rightness or wrongness of an act is derived from the character of the act itself), but in my case practiced a form of consequentialism where the ends justified the means.

So forgive me if I'm not as convinced as you seem to be that WOMMA are in any position to be talking about business ethics. Anyway, you now have an ethical dilemma to contend with yourself, as to whether you allow me to tell this story or whether in self interest you will also silence me.

Best regards

Justin Kirby
Author, Connected Marketing: the viral, buzz and word of mouth revolution

[Ian McKee]

Hi Justin

No dilemma, your comment stays.

Although I was a very early member of WOMMA, being the other side of the world (in Singapore) means that I am very far removed from any day to day issues. I have no visibility or involvement of the situation you recount and so cannot comment.

WOMMA are welcome to comment if they notice this exchange and wish.

I guess since you dropped the comment on my blog it means that you must read it – for which I thank you! Hope you find it interesting!

Best wishes for the year of the Ox

ian

[Justin Kirby]

Ian ... many thanks for this and I cannot tell you how cathartic it is to get this incident out into the public domain.

What's been irritating is that I don't think my initial criticisms were that controversial. In the UK it wasn't believed that consumer interests were best left to marketing professionals as they would always have a conflict of interest. If only they had taken a similar line with the Banking community!

In fact, most of the criticisms were about the way that WOMMA closed the door on non-members as far as the drafting of ethics code. You need to remember that WOMMA were talking about issuing some kind of digital certificate as a kind of WOM seal of approval, that made it look like they were going to become judge, jury and executioner. So I along with others were simply asking "on whose authority", as their membership was not totally representative of the wider Industry and still isn't.

As far as the basic content was concerned their code wasn't that different to the earlier mainfesto put out by the VBMA. So we couldn't understand the Bush-like "you are either with us or against" attitude of WOMMA's former president, and could only guess that the founders had something to gain commercially by turning a blind eye while critics were being discredited as stealth marketers.

You also need to remember that their initial version of the code was less clear with regard to delayed disclosure being legitimately used in April Fool or Alternate Reality Game type tactics. At least this version doesn't appear to give with one clause but take away with another.

Lastly, there was a big question mark about whether WOMMA's ethics committee were the proverbial the fox in charge of the chickens. Given the subsequent Edelman debacle where the code was breached by a governing member that had helped draft the code, then I can't help feeling that my criticism has been vindicated.

Sadly, despite Obama now being president I won't be holding my breath as far as any apologies from WOMMA are concerned, and until they do I can't think of them as anything other than moral hypocrites that simply talk the business ethics talk, but don't walk it. That's why I think the FTC have abrogated their responsibility to consumers and should have legislated on the issue, as was done in the UK.

Best and cheers

Justin

[Justin Kirby]

Ian ... just a quick note to say there was some outreach from WOMMA today. I'm not holding my breath as I've had some mind numbingly patronizing responses in the past, but am hoping for some of the Obama effect that we've been hearing so much about to rub off this time round. I'll keep you posted.

Best and thanks again for letting me use your blog as a platform to raise this issue given the absence of somewhere both more formal and transparent to do so.

Justin Kirby, Author Connected Marketing

[Justin Kirby]

Ian … thanks for your email this morning and just to let you know that I have now heard back today from Kristen Smith. I think she's either the 3rd or 4th Executive Director of WOMMA since Andy Sernovitz left back in 2007, after those pulling the strings behind the scenes decided not to renew his contract.

Given the short tenure/fate of her predecessors it’s not altogether surprising that Kristen has decided to take the least line of resistance by simply saying all this was in the past and there have been big changes at WOMMA since then. This maybe true but she still has an obligation to clear up the mess left by her predecessors. So her response wasn’t particularly brave, but then she is an employee and so is unlikely to want to rock the boat particularly in the current climate.

Kristen did at least apologise for any issues that I’d encountered in the past. This was more courtesy than was extended by former WOMMA Executives Directors like Susan Tibbitts - who cheekily seemed to think my complaint was an opportunity to try and sell me WOMMA membership. At least that was better, albeit only marginally, than Peter Waldheim who refused to acknowledge a complaint had been made at all, and quite bewilderingly accused me instead of being angry for it's own sake???

Sadly, however, Kristen’s response is hardly evidence of the Obama effect we’ve been hearing about over here. Nor does it seem to be evidence that WOMMA is being steered by someone who really understands WOM marketing - specifically with regard to the management of detraction!

This is a shame because if WOMMA really practiced what it preached about truth, transparency and authenticity it would not only admit to its mistakes, but show how it has learned from them by doing so.

Instead Kristen’s response only goes to reinforce my point above about how WOMMA are in no position to take the moral high ground if what they actual do is simply practice the ethics of the ends justifying the means, e.g. look at what we have become, but let's brush the bad behaviour along the way under the carpet. Perhaps it’s time for the FTC to review its decision to have self-interested marketing professionals police themselves rather than actually legislate as happened in the UK.

Anyway, given Kristen’s failure to take any action that could be seen as anything other than a half hearted attempt to truly foster cooperation, I think it’s only fair that I get a chance to put across my side of the story in order to explain some of that bad behaviour.

1.) Dr Paul Marsden was removed from the WOMMA advisory board for no other reason than he collaborated with me on the Connected Marketing book. It appears that Andy Sernovitz took this decision unilaterally, and I have no idea whether any of the other advisors were consulted. Certainly, it doesn’t appear if Paul was ever consulted about the decision rather than being summarily dismissed at Andy’s whim.

It’s also unclear as to why WOMMA advisors, and their founders and governing members for that matter, have done nothing to make amends for this indiscriminate action or even offer an old fashioned apology. I think WOMMA has a moral obligation to "right a wrong" here regardless of how long ago the incident occurred, not least because the action had obvious implications with regard to Dr Marsden’s reputation.

2.) DMC and myself were also personally being accused of being stealth marketers by WOMMA's former CEO. I’ve had three people confirm this direct to me, so have no idea how many other people have been told the same thing. Sadly, name calling seems to go with the territory, so that activity in itself was the least of my concerns. However, name calling when coupled with the next point is definitely an issue that still needs to be addressed.

3.) WOMMA set up a number of deals with certain conference organisers whereby WOMMA sponsorship would come with conditions, one of them being to veto my company’s involvement in the events and in particular stop me personally from being a speaker. An example of this situation was confirmed in writing by the UK’s Centaur Conferences. I also had a verbal apology from the International WOM Conference organisers about agreeing to that condition for their 2005 and 2006 events. Lastly that we know of, this condition seems to have been made with the organisers of Terrapinn’s Word of Mouth Marketing World event in Australia.

So why I am still banging on about this? Well, it seems like mud sticks even when thrown by the likes of Andy Sernovitz, judging by the behaviour of WOMMA’s UK partners WOM UK and the exclusion of my Yooster.com colleagues from Dave Balter’s PPAC insider club of consumer panel operators.

It’s a shame because I think we would all be better off working together to build the Industry rather than get marginalised as attention moves elsewhere particularly in this climate. However, I think more is called for in the circumstances than an email apology if a true spirit of collaboration is really being sought.

Thanks again for letting me put my side of the story across.

Best and cheers

Justin Kirby, author Connected Marketing

[Ivan Pope]

I know it's not reallly relevant, but Andy Sernovitz is the only person in the entire world against who I bear a grudge, for fully documented historic reasons. He is the lowest of the low in my experience and I've never taken WOMMA seriously since he started it.

[Justin Kirby]

Ivan ... Andy Sernovitz didn't start WOMMA, but was bought into build it up. Sadly, the founders and latterly the governing members abrogated their responsibility as far as keeping him in check while he was doing so.

It's not like complaints about his behaviour weren't being repeatedly made. So I can only guess that clashes were avoided on the basis of the end justified the means, and continued to be so until incidents like him publicly calling founder Dave Balter a dick was seen as being counter productive.

Do a quick search for "Andy Sernovitz Thinks I’m a Dick. Maybe He’s Right?" on Google.

Sadly, WOMMA don't seem to be prepared to acknowledge Andy's spectacularly bad behaviour during his time as CEO. Nor are they prepared to really try and make amends for it blaming the effects of his bad behaviour rather than their failure in preventing their cause.

Anyway, Andy now seems to behind BlogCouncil.org, but I doubt if the brands supporting this latest venture have any idea about his past behaviour. More fool them as it's not that difficult for them to find out.

Best

Justin