The saying “every cloud has a silver lining”, works the other way too. Every good or popular thing sooner or later runs into some beady-eyed weasel, who misuses it for personal gain. The onset of Word of Mouth marketing brought with it certain crooked, unethical campaigns. What is ethical and what isn’t?

The WOMMA Ethics Code of Conduct speaks clearly about what is and isn’t propaganda, and what can and cannot be. It defines the fundamental ethical principles of Word of Mouth – transparency, sincerity, veracity and protection of privacy. WOMMA also clearly defines unethical techniques that are incompatible with Word of Mouth:

stealth marketing – commercial communication under a false non-commercial identity
shilling – paying people to speak about your brand
infiltration – false identity manipulating online or offline conversations
comment spam – automated or false commentary in online discussions
defacement – damage of property for the purpose of promotion
falsification – spreading false or misleading information
fake blogging – commercial blogs masked by civilian identities

Examples that speak for all:

Pay per tweet is a service that reeks of shilling, introduced by the server ProBlogger. For each mentioning of a product of brand that you launch in the air through Twitter, you’ll get paid. This sounds like a prescription for sincerity in pill form. Call it support for Word of Mouth? You can make up your own minds.

Jim and Laura have become immortal in the history of fake blogging for Wal-Mart. Wal-Marting Across America. Two ordinary people in a caravan (RV) head across America from Wal-Mart to Wal-Mart, writing on their blog about meeting with people who love Wal-Mart. The fulfilled erotic dream of the Wal-Mart brand manager was unfortunately fully sponsored and directed by the PR agency Edelman, and gave birth to a number of blogo-lies-to-your-face that were all carefully scripted. Boo!

The Target corporation achieved three encroachments on ethics for the price of one. Target Rounders are students who gain points for promoting products of the retail chain Target. Openly. Then however they were instructed apparently by infants to keep their affiliation with the Rounders “a secret” on Facebook. (encroachment no. 1). Rosie, a PR student involved in the program claimed it to be unethical on the Facebook group Rounders. Before her contribution was deleted by administration (encroachment 2), an employee of the agency asked her for details, without claiming with whom he was affiliated (encroachment 3).

Some marketers understand Word of Mouth as advertising with greater potential to invade one’s privacy. But Word of Mouth cannot be falsified or bribed, eradicate or “prevented from happening”. Word of Mouth is just here. Period. It’s up to every brand to decide to support, strengthen and facilitate it, or to manipulate and/or falsify it. But the second path has such short legs…

Have you tested your campaign out with the help of “20 questions?”