Truly Twisted Marketing

This is a true story.

It involves a country music star.

And, no, it wasn’t a dark and stormy night.

It was a regular day, not very long ago when I was thoroughly schooled about the twisted nature of the beast called word of mouth marketing. My e-Book cohort and colleague out in California sent a press release via PR Web on behalf of one of his clients. It was, as I said, a regular day just like every other day in sunny California. However on this particular day, from this particular press release, rabid celebrity fans unleashed their latent fury on an unsuspecting group of marketers.

The press release was sent on behalf of a music teacher and voice coach in LA, who sang backup for LeAnn Rimes on an episode of a television show early in her career. The press release, of course, mentioned this fact which in and of itself wasn’t inflammatory. What incited a near riot on the fan forum, however, was the misinterpretation of the release by one of Rimes’ more…shall we say…“excitable” fans who failed to read the fine print. She reported back to the forum site that LeAnn Rimes had in fact been given voice lessons by this particular teacher or worse that the teacher was claiming she’d given voice lessons to Rimes who quite adamantly denies ever taking voice lessons from anyone.

That’s when the buzz became a dull roar.

Apparently, when she learned about the supposed claim by music teacher, Rimes chimed in on the forum with her two cents…

I have never met this woman! I have never had voice lessons! My dear friend Ron Anderson taught me how to warm up before going on stage so I would save my voice and not strain anything. How funny, everyone wants to say they taught you how to sing.”

Barbed comments flew all over the forum for a good part of the day. Web traffic to the music teacher's web site spiked from forum members checking her out looking for falsehoods and lies. Then the nasty emails ensued. Rimes fans sent emails directly to ProjectThunder the company responsible for submitting the release on behalf of the music teacher. It was all, of course, on behalf of their beloved country music star.

Wow. Now I have to say I was shocked and so was my colleague over at ProjectThunder. It happened fast. As we were chatting and emailing back and forth about the best route to take and who to contact in the upper echelons of the Rimes camp to dispel the whole myth that seemed to be erupting before our very eyes it occurred to me that this was, in fact, word of mouth marketing at its worst. When word of mouth goes bad, it’s nearly impossible to backtrack. Once a rumor is started a marketer really has no control over it. It can’t be squelched; it’s the voice of the people who carry it on…for better or worse.

The funny thing is that the Rimes fan who first saw the release wasn’t a member of the press corps. She was just a regular, albeit somewhat crazed, fan. First and foremost the fact the press release wound up in her hands is really quite interesting. It is a true testament to the power of a digital press release. With the socialization of the web, press releases can end up in front of literally anyone with an internet connection. Secondly, it got people talking. Even though it was a complete case of mistaken information, the shear number of people talking about the release compelled the celebrity (Rimes) to take a stance, act and even make a statement. That might be even bigger. Instead of the influence coming from the top down, it was flipped around.

Maybe small really is the new big. The web gives the small guys, the independent bloggers, anyone who posts on a forum…really any person with something to say the opportunity to be an influencer. That really switches up the current marketing world-view of how information is disseminated and passed from the "classes" to the "masses."

Just so you know, the whole case of mistaken information was cleared up. ProjectThunder was able to speak with Rimes via her blackberry. Rimes did reassess her statement, once she realized the mistake, and wished the music teacher well in her endeavors.  

The buzz died down rather quickly once all the information came to light. It was, after all, buzz. A hot topic for a day. Which makes me wonder…does buzz really work? Once all the hype is gone and the talking ceases, what then?

In the end, it really was one of those learning experiences. And to sum it up I guess you could say everyone ended their day (buzz or no buzz) with their own version of happily…ever…after.