I absolutely love these news items on Business friendly advertising.

I love the idea of an environmentally conscious business getting word of mouth - "green advertising" for their environmentally friendly hiking boots.

WORD OF MOUTH ADVERTISING - THE OLDEST KIND
When you look at it, word of mouth advertising is the oldest kind of advertising. From the time of the cave man until today. Talking to people , giving and getting referrals is the greenest and most friendly of advertising types.

It's like the old It was like the Faberg? Organics shampoo commercial: "You tell two friends, and they'll tell two friends, and so on and so on.".

"Telling two friends" is the most cost effective type of advertising. It's also the most environmentally friendly type of advertising. Word of mouth was alot easier before the advertising and manufacturing revolution of the last 100 years. Nowadays you have to hammer your message as loud as possible in order to get a little attention.

In the old days when advertising was quieter and there were less product and service options to choose from, people actually talked to each other. New product offerings didn't come along as often and so when they did, they caused some discussion. If you put a product in the corner store, it would get noticed because it created natural curiosity.

Scarcity of products was also an issue. In the 70's I would see Christmas ads on the television. Some would say, "get these products before they run out of supply." Supply of product was actually an issue many years ago. Because companies were smaller and had limited credit, they could only produce so many products.

That is a huge contrast to today where the huge multinationals have enough money and resources to manufacturer as many products as we need. Imagine walking into Walmart and them running out of product. I haven't seen that in years.

There is more than enough products in more than enough stores, with more than enough credit, and more than enough advertising. Where is the curiousity in that.?! Where is the word of mouth generators in that?

It's refreshing when you can get a product that is so thrilling and wonderful and wholesome that it generates word of mouth advertising, sheerly because of it's benefits.

Green advertising is ultimately about word of mouth. But, can you live on word of mouth advertising in this highly mechanized , internet saturated era?

Articles from November 2006
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