Interview: Joe Wong of Effect Ripple

Joe Wong is the co-founder of Effect Ripple, one of the first marketing agencies in Shanghai specializing in Word of Mouth (WOM) marketing. Effect Ripple executes social marketing programs through participation in new media and online platforms, searching out key demographics and target audiences online to help brands to engage with their customers in a post-digital era.

For more on Effect Ripple, check out their webpage here.

So let's start with your company history. When and how was Effect Ripple formed?
The basic idea was in place for over a year. But turning it into a business model was more of an evolution. At the time one of our partners, Ling Jing, was running a fashion oriented website with a core group of trend setters mostly based in Shanghai. She was approached by several brands on how they could leverage her online property to gain additional market insight.

The first few projects were ad hoc and allowed us to be creative in using social marketing through the community. A tremendous amount of information about online sentiment, awareness, and reach was fed back to the brands. More brands starting catching onto the idea. We started to focus more on the strategic creation and execution of social marketing programs late last year. The company was setup the beginning of this year so we could focus on campaigns through a spectrum of online communities.

How does word of mouth marketing actually work?
Word of Mouth (WOM) has always been part of the interpersonal communication. Simply, it's the spread of a message from person to person. It takes place directly using the recognized human voice. You may tell your friends, "did you know there is a new restaurant in the town? Try the chicken special, it's not on the menu". Assuming you trust your friend's taste in chicken, you probably will try the place and ask for a dish not on the menu.

Technology has evolved over the years, but the message has stayed the same. From the telephone, SMS, Instant messaging or Email, all were methods to contact people and to allow for a response. The internet's social communities allow for another platform for this type of communication.



What makes Word of Mouth (WOM) marketing so effective in China?
Several factors make word of mouth marketing specifically interesting in China. The first is the growing popularity of connecting online. With massive growth through the decade, China's internet population is now the largest population in the world with almost 350 million users (still only 20% penetration vs. the US 75%). Participating in online community building is a major element of the Chinese Internet experience.

The second is a jump into consumerism for the current generation of Chinese. Fashion, cosmetics, personal automobiles and leisure travel were not part of their parent's generation. As a result, most Chinese are turning to their peers, offline and online, to get advice to help them in purchase decision making.

A recent study has many Chinese internet users trusting online contributors more so than traditional media (TV and print). This could be a generation gap in the perception that online peers are trustworthy. The internet is now perceived as a legitimate source of information for Chinese netizens.

The online community is redefining and revolutionizing relationships that individuals have with each other as well the relationships they have with their brands. In some cases the brand is the first place for advice for life questions.

How do you adapt your strategies or channels to target different audiences?
We find a heavier use of micro blogging (Twitter) with foreign expatriates vs. BBS style postings for Chinese users. Foreign workers may still have access to online communities (Facebook and Twitter) not accessible to the general Chinese public.

The strategies can adapt to the evolution of new channels. The focus is always to understand your audience and adapt to where they are spending their online community building. To be platform agnostic is where we need to be.

What kind of clients do you have?
Most of our clients are western brands. We focus on fashion, beauty and lifestyle (travel and dinning). It gets pretty exciting to work with these brands as they are each introducing something new to the China market.
The challenge is to find a special niche to tap into. The internet is the best place to find potential customers. People can become aware and know more about a brand all online. Helps reduce the sell time when customers actually do visit the location of the brand.

Why do your clients come to you instead of using other marketing methods?
Most of our clients are very experienced with working with more traditional types of marketing such as TV or print. Traditionally this is what they grew up with and is the most familiar. Traditional marketing still accounts for most of the advertising spend worldwide.

The landscape in China is evolving quickly in terms of new marketing channels. The adoption rate for online content is growing. Online social media interaction has a very high adoption rate with the under-40 year olds in China. As a result, marketers and brands understand the need to be involved in this new media.
With the recent global downturn, many brands are seeing their budgets drastically cut. They need to do more with less and be able to justify their returns. New monitoring, tracking and metrics have been developed for the internet that help tie back to ROI. We see this as a major factor for brands now.



Tell us about one particularly successful marketing project that you are proud of doing at Effect Ripple.
A major cosmetics company planned to launch a motion mascara product in 5 Chinese cities in Jan 2009. We were engaged to create prelaunch anticipation and buzz with the target market online - Chinese women from the mid to upper income bracket.

The strategy contained 3 major pieces:

• To identify and invite 6 influential online opinion leaders to attend an offline event hosted by the cosmetics company to be the first ladies in China to test the motion mascara and then they were encouraged to share their opinions via blogs and posts to their various communities.
• To improve the search engine performance of a list of keywords, including motion mascara, the cosmetics company, makeup, cosmetics and etc.
• To track results and compare to the cosmetics company’s major competitor, who was also launching a similar product.

The results were the following:

• Promotion period: 2 weeks
• Communities targeted：25 mid to high-end female communities
• Total number of topics created: 45
• Total number of comments: 1,905 (43 comments/post)
• Total number of views: 64,432 times (1,432 views/post)
• Total number of times being copied by other websites: 1,173
• Blogs: 30

Is WOM relatively new in China? How do you think it will develop in the near future?
Internet Word of Mouth (and social media marketing in general) is definitely at the beginning stages. We see that the larger brands have moved in this direction already and are investing heavily. New platforms are launching monthly. Growth is expected to be increasingly important in China and we haven't even tapped its full potential.
There are a several more areas that will continue to develop:

Social Media Marketing is measurable – Companies are looking more at return on investment (ROI). Online social media marketing allows things to be more track able including things like viewership, engagement, profiling.

Message anytime anywhere - People are connected 24 hours a day through the internet, mobile devices and social networks. Blogs, forums, RSS, wikis, and search engines play a role in spreading the word faster and farther than ever. You can be anywhere and get the same message the same time.

Power of the people – People will continue to be the voice for the brand in this type of marketing. If you nurture loyal customers they will be your best marketing people. But it's also a double edged sword and if you don't listen then you can quickly have a falling out. So it's critical to make sure your organization is ready with the right infrastructure.

The Internet has evolved in letting us connect instantly and effortlessly. WOM now has an even larger impact on decision making and perception of brands for millions of people. But it’s more than just following the big companies or the potential of connecting with a vast number of consumers online Word or Mouth is a way to get your loyal customers to be part of your brand messaging.

***