In an open economy, marketing needs to be open as well. Since every consumer can already decide what content or communication he wants to listen to, when and in which format, marketing is less and less effective in forcing the consumer to listen to more and more irrelevant messages. Therefore broadcasting is on a decline and customized information-on-demand is just a click away. No doubt that marketing has to change. But will it change the way consumers interact?

Let’s talk about the developments around word-of-mouth. Word-of-mouth as an effect is well known. Markets work this way since thousands of years. But since the Cluetrain Manifesto declared „markets are conversations“ the focus of marketing shifted towards this effect and turned it into a brand-new marketing tool. Since marketers understood that positive buzz travels quickly, they tried to trigger this effect. And the digital landscape and the networked society made it easier to create viral effects – or at least the marketers thought so.

Research shows that the US market is about 3-5 years ahead in marketing innovation and therefore marketing innovation also created word-of-mouth marketing long before European marketers thought about it. Today more than 50% of all US marketers (according to various studies) use word-of-mouth marketing techniques and a growing number of agencies offer innovative services. But it doesn’t mean that word-of-mouth wasn’t existing before – and here we come to a very basic but very important insight: Word-of-mouth as an effect is existing since human being is able to speak. Word-of-mouth as a marketing target is existing since marketers try to trigger it. But word-of-mouth marketing as a tool is brand-new. And it means that companies and brands take the step forward from B2C communication to interfere in C2C communication.

Today we see various activities from agencies to associations to create a codex to prevent each other from going too far. But some already did and this even led to new legislation in US and UK markets. So what’s the problem? On the one hand it’s the established mindset of top-down, ivory-tower marketing. On the other hand it’s the bare need to create new and innovative tools that can be implemented in the marketing-mix. Marketeers desperately need new ways to spend their budgets, since broadcasting and direct marketing is becoming less effective. And agencies do a very clever thing: They offer solutions. But very often the wrong ones. By making advertising viral we might solve the problem of boring ads, but we will create the problem of viral spamming. By using buzz techniques, we might get around media pressure, but we don’t solve the problem of media noise. By paying to interfere in unknown C2C relations we might be able to seed more information, but we won’t be able to create real and honest word-of-mouth. I admit that there are exceptions, but these exceptions very often relate to a very good product or service, never to a lousy one.

So what’s the solution for an Open Marketing or Marketing 2.0. We call it the 5th “P” in marketing. Participation. As long as we don’t allow consumer to participate or to co-create their favorite brands, they will not allow us to participate in their journey in a deeply honest way. Let’s call it a journey, because it’s much more than just a consumer lifecycle. Without participation we have to call it manipulation (at least to a certain extent).

Therefore Marketing 2.0 declares word-of-mouth not as a tool, but as the ultimate outcome of all marketing activities. It even means that everything along the value chain can create word-of-mouth. And it creates positive word-of-mouth, if it creates value. Many consumers – and that’s very often a neglected effect – want to create value together with their favorite brands. So the other ultimate goal is to find these brand enthusiasts or evangelists that create value together with their brands. When “push” comes to “pull” in a digital world, consumers increasingly google for answers. And these answers are very often user-generated blogs, comments or videos that will influence and shape a brand’s perception in the future.

Marketing 2.0 is “open” and “empowering” and the solution lies within the company, not the agency. Therefore Marketing 2.0 is not a new tactical tool, but a strategy. So start thinking “consumer centric”. Open up, listen, learn and interact. In a honest way. The rest will follow and it will pay back. Net Promoter Score will tell you.