My latest column in Ad Age ("Zappos Shows How Employees Can Be Brand Builders") focused on employee advocacy. Can employees serve as a de facto advertising channel, I ask? The answer is yes, but it obviously requires some finesse, and the right level of commitment. To kick off my exploratory, I tee up Zappos.com as a case study:
Every year Zappos.com, one of the fastest-growing e-commerce sites, publishes a "culture book." Three hundred pages in length, the book includes written -- and often gushy -- testimonials from employees about what it means to work at Zappos.com. "Our Zappos culture is truly the best work experience I have ever encountered," writes Chris V. "As a new employee of the company, I was blown away by how amazing the company really was. When I started I felt so unreal," notes David J. And on and on and on -- you get the idea.
If you talk to Zappos.com CEO Tony Hsieh or his marketing chief Brian Kalma,* you'll find a plan and a strategy, not to mention powerful, validating numbers to boot behind all this group love. Indeed, the vast majority of trial and repeat at Zappos.com is driven by word of mouth, and employees -- their motivation, their attentiveness to customers, their handling of feedback -- are foundational to that approach.
Here's a link to the article.
Pete: I think this is a very interesting trend and I think its value will be underscored with the launch of Google Video for enterprise. While that service is targeted for use 'behind the firewall', I think it will prove to be a very valuable tool for internal communications and employee-based brand ambassadorship. Food for thought as EGM gets legs... :)
Posted by: nickhuhn | September 06, 2008 at 11:23 PM