#3 - I Wanna Word Of Mouth, Yea, Yea, Yea!
In this article we take a closer look at one of the biggest word of mouth stories of my generation, the Beatles.
In the previous article of this article series we proposed that the most effective way to get free word of mouth advertising for our projects is to look inside ourselves, and develop an ever deeper passion for our topic.
To get the ball rolling, we used the boring example of ourselves, Phil and Will the nerd programmer guys, your hosts on this site.
If anybody's still awake, let's dive in to a much more fun and famous word of mouth example.
It's time to rock!
The Fab Four!
It's hard to think of a more compelling example of taking the world by storm than the Beatles.
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Sure, the Fab Four had a marketing team pushing them forward, but that effort was primitive by today's standards, and not all that different than that of dozens or hundreds of other bands.
Something about The Beatles lit the world on fire, and caused their reputation to explode from person to person across the planet, in a very short time.
What was that magic something?
What?
If we're serious about word of mouth marketing, we should take a closer look.
Was It Their Lyrics?
The Beatles were pop stars, not literary giants, especially in the beginning of their career, the period when the word of mouth explosion was most intense.
Here's a sample of lyrics from their biggest hits.
Oh yeh, I'll tell you something,
I think you'll understand,
Then I'll say that something,
I wanna hold your hand,
I wanna hold your hand,
I wanna hold your hand.
Here's another big hit.
She loves you yeh, yeh, yeh,
She loves you yeh, yeh, yeh.
You think you lost your love,
Well I saw her yesterday - yi - yay.
She says she loves you.
Well, let's be honest. Almost any junior high school kid could write better lyrics than this on the ride home in the school bus.
Was It Their Music?
If you've played guitar for more than an hour in your life, you can probably play most of The Beatles early hits.
Most of the early tunes are three or four chord wonders, the simplest possible form of music, even in the world of pop.
It wasn't musical sophistication that hooked the world on the early Beatles. The Fab Four weren't Miles Davis or the New York Philharmonic.
Was It Their Looks?
Ok, the boys from Liverpool were handsome.
Or were they?
If we had no idea who the Beatles were, and saw them eating together at the next restaurant table, would we have jumped up screaming in Beatlemania hysteria?
Even if we were 13 year old girls, probably not.
Nice looking blokes, but not enough to be record setting word of mouth superstars.
It must be something else...
What Then?
What was that key ingredient that caused the Beatles to explode across our culture like a volcano?
I'm not sure what the right word is, but you'll know what I mean.
Youth.
Spark.
Energy.
Enthusiasm.
The early Beatles had a life force surrounding them. An intangible yet very real, certain something, that exerted a powerful magnetic pull on the rest of us.
We don't have to define this magic spark further, but we should be aware of where that spark comes from.
Within.
We can't buy this energy online, memorize it from a book, or learn it from an expert.
We can't harvest Beatlemania enthusiasm from some source outside ourselves. We have to find it where it lives, often hidden, inside ourselves.
That Special Something
Where does word of mouth really come from? What causes us to excitedly tell our friends about one thing, while quickly forgetting another similar thing?
The premise of this article is that when "that special something" in us recognizes "that special something" in somebody else, a door is opened, and we wake up to a different kind of personal energy.
I don't have a better way to say it, but you know what I mean.
Beatlemania.
A key ingredient in word of mouth?
Asking Too Much?
Holy cow, we have to become the Beatles to get word of mouth from our readers?
That's asking a lot!
Yea, you're right, it is.
Let's try an easier example. Something more realistic and attainable, and thus perhaps even more motivating.
In the next article, we'll put down our glamorous teenage guitars, and morph in to goofy middle aged blue collar bubbas telling awful jokes.
What?
Gee, do we have to?
Yep, we have too.
If we're serious about understanding word of mouth, and that special something that drives it, we need to learn what propelled a couple of average everyday blue collar car mechanics out of their garage, and in to their own nationwide radio show.
