Seed to Spread: Using Seeding Trials to Accelerate Sales

Ch. 1 (draft sample). Connected Marketing: The Viral, Buzz and Word of Mouth Revolution (2005) London: Elsevier

Introduction
Picture this: A marketing research department operating as a profit center, generating not only intellectual capital but driving sales through word-of-mouth outreach programs with opinion leaders. Sounds like a fantasy? Well, think again, big brand companies such as Procter & Gamble, 3M, DreamWorks SKG, Sony, Microsoft, and Google are all harnessing the power of research to optimize product launches.  How? Through seeding trials – sampling conducted in the name of research – designed to transform opinion leaders into loyal adopters and word of mouth advocates.

Seeding Trials: ‘It’s research Jim, but not as we know it’
When most people think of marketing research, they tend to think of research rather than marketing. Indeed, marketing research is formally defined as identifying and measuring marketing opportunities and problems, evaluating marketing actions or monitoring marketing performance[1].

But there is a new breed of research that is putting the marketing back into marketing research: Seeding trials. Seeding trials involve targeted sampling with opinion leaders, conducted in the name of research. Rather than simply offer free samples, previews, test-drives etc to opinion leaders, the idea of seeding trials is to create goodwill, loyalty and advocacy among the opinion-leading 10% of your target market by putting the product or service in their hands and giving them a say in how it is marketed. By involving opinion leaders in this way, by effectively inviting them to become part of your marketing department, you create a powerful sense of ownership among the clients, customers or consumers that count. By transforming these opinion leaders into word of mouth advocates through seeding trials, companies are increasingly using marketing research to ignite word of mouth networks and accelerate sales. As Star Trek’s Dr. Spock might have said: ‘It’s research Jim, but not as we know it.’

Seeding Trials in Action: Post-it Notes
The power of seeding trials in transforming the fortunes of a brand is no better illustrated than through the intriguing history of Post-it Notes, the little yellow stickies from the office supplies company 3M. The story started in 1968, when 3M asked one of its researchers, Dr Spence Silver, to develop a new super-sticky adhesive. Unfortunately Dr Silver failed, and did so quite spectacularly. What he came up with was super-weak glue that wouldn’t stay stuck. Consigned to the back shelves of 3M’s R&D lab for six years, the fruits of the failed innovation project were virtually forgotten.

Then on one Sunday in 1974, Art Fry, a new product development researcher for 3M, had a ‘Eureka’ moment whilst cursing scrap paper bookmarks that kept falling out of his church choir hymnal. Perhaps the un-sticky glue could be used to make bookmarks? The idea of Post-it Notes was born. Unfortunately, when this concept of temporary sticky paper bookmarks was tested in research, it bombed. Nobody could see a use for them. However, and despite ‘kill the program’ calls from management, Fry convinced 3M to run a limited test launch of Post-it Notes. Unfortunately, that failed too. Post-it Notes were doomed.

Before pulling the plug on the whole sad affair, 3M decided to run a seeding trial with opinion leaders in its target market – a sampling initiative conducted in the name of research. The company identified secretaries to CEOs in large companies all across America as opinion leaders for office supply products, and sent them boxes of Post-it Notes, inviting them to come up with ideas for how the little yellow stickies could be used. Flattered by the invitation to be involved in the development and commercialization of a new product, the seeding trial generated goodwill and advocacy among these opinion-leading secretaries, transforming them into Post-it Notes brand champions. The ‘useless’ Post-it Notes soon started appearing on memos, desks, diaries, drafts, reports, and correspondence and spread like an infectious rash through and between companies. The rest is, as they say, history. Post-it Notes had been saved by a seeding trial, transformed from failure to a multi-million dollar and highly profitable brand by a group of opinion-leading secretaries[2].

The Science Bit: Why Seeding Trials Drive Demand
Why did a seeding trial, targeted sampling conducted in the name of research, transform the fortunes of Post-it Notes? To answer this question, we need to understand two things: firstly, a peculiar psychological phenomenon known as the Hawthorne Effect, and secondly, the critical role of opinion leaders in driving sales.

The Hawthorne Effect
Back in the 1930s, a team of researchers from the Harvard Business School were commissioned to run some employee research for the telecom giant Western Electric (now Lucent Technologies). Conducted as the company’s production plant in Hawthorne, near Chicago, the research program involved inviting small groups of employees to trial various new working conditions before rolling them out to the general workforce. To the researchers’ amazement, whatever was trialed the participants seemed to like, to such an extent that their productivity increased! For example, when researchers invited participants to trial working in brighter lighting conditions, productivity increased. But then when they trialed dimmer lighting conditions, productivity also increased. In fact, productivity kept increasing in successive trials of working under progressively dimmer lights, until the lighting was no stronger than moonlight! In another trial, the research participants were invited to test working shorter hours, and sure enough their productivity increased again. Indeed, subsequent trials showed that the more breaks the research participants were given and the less time they worked, the greater their productivity. But then, when the researchers asked them to trial longer hours, productivity went up again – to an all time high[3].

When taken together, the results of the various Hawthorne studies showed that whatever the researchers asked participants to discuss and trial resulted in an increase in productivity. The team of Harvard researchers, led by Elton Mayo realized that their results had nothing to do with what was being trialed and everything to do with running research trials. By singling out a small group of employees to participate in an exclusive trial, participants felt valued, special and important. The special attention they received gratified their ego and created a positive emotional bond with what they were trialing. The practical upshot was that the research trials effectively transformed the research participants into advocates for whatever it was they were trialing. A series of further trials found this phenomenon to be more or less systematic, and the research team coined the term ‘The Hawthorne Effect’ to describe the goodwill and advocacy that research trials generate among research participants.

It is this Hawthorne Effect harnessed by seeding trials that transforms opinion leaders into loyal adopters and powerful word of mouth advocates. By turning the opinion-leading target buyers into product or service evangelists using the Hawthorne Effect, a brand can create a powerful volunteer sales force.

The Truth about Opinion Leaders
‘Simply by finding and reaching those few special people who hold so much social power, we can shape the course of social epidemics…Look at the world around you…With the slightest push – in the right place – it can be tipped’ Malcolm Gladwell – The Tipping Point[4]

With the possible exception of Tom Peter’s Thriving on Chaos[5], The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell is perhaps the most influential and widely read book to date on the power of word of mouth. Voted by Forbes as one of the most influential business books of the last two decades, this international bestseller uses the science of social epidemics (runaway word of mouth) to outline a simple three-point formula for how word of mouth hits happen: ‘The Law of the Few’, ‘the Stickiness Factor’ and ‘the Power of Context’. Whilst the Stickiness Factor and the Power of Context deal with the ‘what’ and the ‘where’ of word of mouth (having something intrinsically worth talking about, in an environment conducive to word of mouth spread), the Law of the Few addresses the ‘who’, reminding us that the opinions of 10% of your target market will drive the buying behavior of the other 90%.

Although Gladwell uses the language and jargon of epidemiology to unpack the concept of opinion leadership, the idea behind The Law of the Few is an established business truth dating back to the 1940s. Indeed, Evidence for the Law of the Few was first produced in a 1940 landmark study on media influence conducted by Columbia University[6]. The research found, contrary to what might be expected, that mass media messages do not directly influence the mass market but instead influence a small minority of individuals who then influence their peers through word-of-mouth. The researchers coined a new term for these hubs of word of mouth mediating mass media messages ‘opinion leaders’, proposing a new ‘two-step flow model’ of media influence to replace the discredited ‘magic bullet’ or ‘hypodermic needle’ model of direct media influence.

Since the discovery of opinion leaders, research across just about every product and service category has found that the opinions of an opinion-leading 10% do indeed tend to shape the opinions and purchases of the opinion-following 90%[7]. Opinion leaders, simply defined as target buyers who frequently offer or are elicited for category-related advice by their peers, can include high profile industry experts, journalists, reviewers and media celebrities. However, the vast majority of opinion leaders in any target market are simply regular clients, customers or consumers except for the fact they have a peculiar ‘connected and respected’ profile – they are highly connected hubs of word of mouth in their social networks with opinions that are respected by their peers. Thus, their influence derives not from media exposure but from what sociometricians call ‘network centrality’ – they are word of mouth hubs, who connect everybody to everybody by six degrees of separation, and in doing so connecting businesses to their target markets.

Because of the importance of opinion leaders in driving sales, a good deal of time has been invested in a) identifying them and b) among marketing agencies at least, re-branding them with some proprietary label (‘alphas’, ‘hubs’, ‘connectors’, ‘influentials’, ‘sneezers’ etc). Whilst these labels may denote some small variations on the opinion leadership theme, it’s useful to remember that the only validated scales for identifying this group are called opinion leadership scales and they all share the same defining characteristic – opinion-leading individuals who frequently offer or are elicited for category-related advice[8].
What we know about opinion leaders, apart from their connected and respected profile is that opinion leadership tends to be category specific - opinion leaders in off-road quad-bikes may or may not be opinion leaders in cosmetic beauty products. We also know that key correlates of opinion leadership are ‘category involvement’ (interest, knowledge and activity) and ‘strength of personality’ (persuasiveness and personal charisma). These correlates have allowed reliable opinion leadership scales to be developed and validated, to be used by businesses for screening existing and target buyers.

How to Find Opinion Leaders in your Target Market
To identify the opinion-leading 10% in your target market that drive sales, a number of practical solutions have been developed; ‘self designation’, ‘professional activity’, ‘digital trace’, ‘key informants’ and ‘sociometry.’

1. ‘Self-Designation’: Asking existing or prospective buyers to fill out a short self-completion questionnaire that screens them for opinion leadership status. For example, Procter and Gamble use a self-designation questionnaire on their website at www.tremor.com to recruit opinion-leading teens into seeding trials. Although this technique is open to self-reporting bias (people tend overestimate their opinion leadership), this technique has been validated and found to be reliable.
2. ‘Professional Activity’: Using the job title of target clients, customers or consumers as an indicator of opinion leadership status. Jobs that suggest category involvement, a capacity to spread the word and to influence peers by word of mouth are suggestive of opinion leader status. For example, just as 3M identified secretaries to CEOs as opinion leaders in office stationary products, Ford identified opinion leaders for its new Focus model as PAs to celebrities[9]. Although this approach may be less scientific than the self-designation it is a quick, easy and cost effective solution to identifying opinion leaders.
3. ‘Digital Trace’: Identifying opinion leaders through an online search for on category-relevant blogs, websites, discussion lists, newsgroups and web forums. For example, Siemens mobile identified opinion leaders to participate in a seeding trial of one of its new phones using an internet search of popular online user review forums[10]. In an era where opinions are increasingly shared online, the digital trace left by opinion sharing online provides businesses with a fast and smart method for opinion leader identification.
4. ‘Key Informants’: Asking a limited number of people assumed to be knowledgeable regarding the patterns of word of mouth influence who they would designate as opinion leaders. Although this technique is ideally suited to identifying opinion leaders in small markets or in individual organizations, it was used by game manufacturer Hasbro to identify young opinion leaders for its handheld electronic game, POX, in 2001. Market researchers headed of to video arcades, skate parks and playgrounds and went up to young boys aged 8-13 asking ‘Who's the coolest kid you know?’ When they got a name from the young ‘informant’, the researchers went in search of this cool kid to ask him the same question, and continued up the local hierarchy of kid-cool until someone finally answered ‘Me!’ Once they had identified an opinion leader, the researchers invited the ‘Alpha Pup’ (as they called them) to participate in an exclusive seeding trial for which they would be rewarded with 10 new pre-release POX units to share with friends[11].
5. ‘Sociometry’: Actually mapping the patterns of word of mouth influence in a target market in order to identify hubs of influence. Costly and time intensive, the use of sociometric techniques is mostly limited to mapping influence networks in organizations for change management purposes.

From Principles to Practice: Learning from Drug Dealers
Seeding trials – targeted sampling with opinion leaders conducted in the name of research – drive sales because they trigger the Hawthorne Effect amongst the 10% of a target market whose opinions drive word of mouth demand. As a launch optimization tool, seeding trials have been extensively used in the drug industry, where they are used to transform opinion-leading physicians into loyal adopters and powerful word of mouth advocates of new prescription medicines. So established are seeding trials in the healthcare sector that they have their own industry standard codename: Phase IV trials.

Phase-IV trials get their name from the way new drugs are researched in the pharmaceutical industry. Research begins with Phase-I trials which involve testing the new product for safety, usually in a small number (10-100) of healthy people. If the drug is found to be safe, then Phase-II trials begins, which involves testing how effective the drug is in doing what it is supposed to do in a slightly larger number of people (100-300) who are actually suffering from the condition the drug is designed to treat. If all goes according to plan, then the product goes into large-scale Phase-III trials with many sufferers (300-3,000) in order to measure the comparative efficacy of the new drug against others treatment, its side-effect profile, and its relative financial value over alternative therapies. Only when these three phases of research are satisfactorily completed can the new drug be cleared for launch by market authorities. But it is at this point, when the drug has been finally cleared for launch that a fourth phase of non-regulatory research often takes place: Phase-IV trials.

Phase-IV trials are targeted sampling initiatives with opinion leaders conducted in the name of research. They involve inviting a group of opinion-leading physicians to participate in a trial of a new drug by prescribing it to a certain number of patients and feeding back on their experience. In return for their participation, the doctors are promised free access to the drug for their patients, as well as additional exclusive information and services to help them use the drug effectively. It’s a win-win for both the physician and the drug manufacturer. The physicians get their status as opinion leaders reinforced though privileged access to the new product and special VIP services, and may often they receive some financial remuneration for taking part in the trial. For the drug company commissioning the trial, valuable information is captured from influential lead-prescribers, and the powerful Hawthorne Effect is triggered, transforming trial participants into opinion-leading word-of-mouth advocates.

Going Google over Seeding Trials
In the software industry, seeding trials with opinion leaders go under a different name; ‘beta-testing’. The practice, however, is identical: targeted sampling with opinion leaders conducted in the name of research. The goal of beta-testing is to get opinion leaders to trial a pre-release version of software (a ‘beta-version’) in order to a) capture feedback on any glitches that need to be ironed out and b) trigger the Hawthorne Effect and transform participating opinion leaders into loyal word of mouth advocates for the new software. This powerful combination of offering opinion leaders a sneak preview, removing the cost barrier to trial, and engaging them in research dialogue is a powerful combination that can drive sales.

For example, to optimize the Windows 95 launch, Microsoft ran a massive seeding trial with 450,000 opinion-leading PC users in the US: a total of .5% of Microsoft’s entire target market in the US participated in the trial, each receiving a pre-release sample copy of the software. By connecting with opinion-leading target buyers through research dialogue instead of advertising monologue, the seeding trial generated goodwill and an army product advocates. When Windows 95 was launched on the stroke of midnight on August 24, 1995, the seeding trial paid off handsomely: One million copies of were sold in the first four days, making it the fastest-selling software of all time, trouncing the previous record of 40 days to sell a million copies.[12]
As in the healthcare industry, seeding trials have become a widely used solution for optimizing product launches in the software industry.

A recent high profile example was the seeding trial used to launch internet company Google’s new email service ‘Gmail’. In March 2004, 1000 online opinion leaders were invited to sample a beta-version of the new service in the name of research. To enhance the word-of-mouth potential of this seeding trial, Google allowed participants to invite their friends into the trial, who could also invite their friends if they signed up and so on. This ‘snowball’ or ‘viral’ recruitment enhanced the Hawthorne Effect, stimulating the transformation of goodwill and ownership of participants into active word-of-mouth advocacy. The result was an exponentially increasing number of Gmail evangelists, each recruiting new users with the fervor of religious converts.  Driven by the cachet of being invited as an opinion leader to have an exclusive sneak preview of a yet-to-be-released product, and by having a say in how that product was to be commercialized, the Gmail seeding trial generated a reported 3 million Gmail adopters and advocates in just 3 months[13] with no advertising spend. Indeed, the seeding trial created so much word of mouth demand that people were prepared to pay to become participants: An online black market emerged on the internet with invitations being sold for up to $200 USD[14]. By playing the scarcity card – people value things more when availability is restricted – the invitation-only policy for participation in the Gmail seeding trial resulted in a word of mouth frenzy. Dozens of blogs were set up by participants to share their experiences as Gmail ‘insiders’ with wannabe research participants, and the mainstream mass media, including The New York Times, ran stories on the seeding trial[15]. Through a seeding research trial alone, Gmail became one of the most high profile and well known email services in the world, getting as many mentions on the web as it’s far more established (and more heavily advertised) competitor, Yahoo! Mail[16].

Teen Trials – Tremor Style
Although seeding trials are extensively used in the software and healthcare industries, the most audacious use of sampling opinion leaders in the name of research has been in the consumer packaged goods sector. In 2001, brand-giant Procter and Gamble (owner of Crest, Clairol, Pringles, Pampers, Tide, CoverGirl, Max Factor, Olay, Hugo Boss fragrances and others) began recruiting teen opinion leaders into a nationwide online seeding trial panel, codenamed Tremor, which now has over 250,000 members: a full 1% of the US teen population[17]. Recruited by word of mouth and banner advertising on popular teen websites, potential Tremor panel members are promised exclusive pre-launch samples and previews of new products from P&G and other brands if they sign up, and to have a say in how these products are marketed. Screened for opinion-leading status with a simple online screener (only one in ten applicants are invited to become part of the ‘Tremor crew’[18]), panel members participate in sampling initiatives conducted in the name of research for a wide variety of innovations including beauty products, music, movies, videos and gadgets.

By giving opinion-leading teens a voice in how new products are commercialized, the Tremor panel creates a sense of ownership and involvement, triggers the Hawthorne Effect and transforms panel members into loyal adopters and vocal word of mouth advocates. As a launch optimization tool, Tremor seeding trials have included inviting panel members to;

• Help develop Vanilla Coke’s ‘Nothing Else Like It’ billboard campaign and come up with intriguing messages to appear on promotional heat sensitive cans[19]
• Vote on launching Snoop Dogg’s new line of shoes[20]
• Advise on the trailer for the movie ‘Biker Boyz’[21]
• Choose which Herbal Essence commercial to air for promoting Fruit Fusions Tropical Showers range[22]
• Recommend which fashion model to use in a Pantene commercial[23]
• Select backing music for a Pringles advertisement[24]
• Pick models for a body-spray calendar[25]
• Help design the new Crest Spinbrush[26]
• Vote on a t-shirt design for Vans ‘Warped Tour’ concert[27]
• Name the DreamWorks SKG movie ‘Eurotrip’[28]
• Choose the logo for the teen movie ‘Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!’[29]
   

The key in these seeding trials has been to combine ‘Get it first’ targeted sampling, with an ‘Inside scoop’ of exclusive information on the product for participants to share with their friends, and what could be called a ‘VIP Vote’ (very influential person) that allows participant to influence how the product will be promoted[30]. The impact of involving opinion-leading teens through ‘VIP votes’, ‘Get it first sampling’ and ‘Inside scoops’ is illustrated by the way Caitlin Jones, a Tremor panel participant, reacted when she saw a trailer for a movie she had been consulted on with her friends: ‘Oh, my God, I voted for that logo!’ she exclaimed ‘So they do listen. It does matter.’ The opinion-leading teen was instantly transformed into an active evangelist and set about organizing group outings to see the movie[31].

As a launch optimization tool, P&G report that Tremor seeding trials can generate a 10-30% increase in sales or audiences, measured against a control region where the panel is not used[32]. For example, when the panel was used to optimize the launch of a new line CoverGirl Outlast Lipcolor lipstick, sales were on average 14% higher over eight weeks, compared to a control region. Each Tremor participant evangelized about the lipstick to on average 9 friends, 6 of whom said they intended to buy the product. In the words of Tremor chief executive Ted Woehrle on panel participants ‘We offer them the inside scoop and influence [i.e. a say in how the product is promoted],’ he said. ‘If you get the right 1 percent, you have the critical mass required to make a difference.’[33]

In another Tremor seeding initiative designed to measure the effectiveness of the panel, 2,100 Tremor opinion leaders from Phoenix were invited to get involved with the launch of a new malt-flavored milk product from Shamrock Farms, the diary foods producer.  As a result, sales in Phoenix outperformed those in a matched control city, Tucson, and 23 weeks later sales were still 18% higher in Phoenix[34]. In a similar test, Tremor panelists were sent a partial script of an upcoming TV show, and this resulted in a jump in viewing ratings of 171%.[35]

These results of Tremor on accelerating sales have had third-party brands queuing up to harness the Tremor seeding trial panel as a launch optimization tool, including Sony, Toyota, AOL, Warner Brothers, Verizon, and Kraft[36]. For instance, the music label EMI Group has retained Tremor and intends to sample panel members with new albums – in the name of research, by asking the opinion-leading teens to vote on which tracks should be promoted on video channels and radio programmers[37]. This is a simple but psychologically smart way of using the panel to harness the Hawthorne Effect and create advocates. In an era where teens are turning away or turned off by interruptive mass media marketing, Tremor offers businesses a turnkey solution for harnessing the oldest and most powerful media of all: People Media. Although P&G des not publish revenue data for its opinion-leading Tremor panel, the predicted income from third-party brands using the panel in 2004 was $12m, with the number of campaigns up 30% over 2003[38]. Whatever the numbers behind Tremor, P&G believe the panel to be so effective that it warrants being replicated; in 2005 the company began recruiting a second Tremor seeding panel in the US, twice the size of the original one, made up of 500,000 moms[39].
 
Seeding Trials Unlimited
Whilst P&G’s Tremor seeding panels represent the most systematic use of targeted sampling in the name of research, it is not alone in pioneering this technique. For example, New Line Cinema invited fans of JRR Tolkien’s ‘Lord of the Rings’ epic fantasy novel to advise on the film of the book: By giving fans a say in the film production, the Hawthorne Effect was triggered and an army of word of mouth advocates was created[40].  Similarly, the marketing company BrandPort uses its panel of advertising aficionados to seed new advertising campaigns; panel members are sent previews of new advertising campaigns and asked to comment on them[41]. Again, the involvement generated by research dialogue cues goodwill and ‘ownership’ – increasing the likelihood the panel member will adopt and advocate the advertised brand.

More generally, when sportswear brands such as Nike and Reebok offer opinion-leading trendsetters free pairs of their latest sneakers, it is not just to capture feedback from cool kids but also to kick-start word-of-mouth advocacy[42]. By putting the new product in their hands, or rather on their feet, in the spirit of partnership and in the name of research, the Hawthorne Effect is cued and vocal evangelists are created. Likewise, when Pepsi ran an opinion leader outreach trial with 4,000 American teens in 2001, it wasn’t just to find out what they thought of their new soda, Code Red, but also to amplify and accelerate word-of-mouth advocacy[43]. The Pepsi opinion leader outreach program was so successful at driving sales for Code Red that Pepsi decided to pull its planned TV advertising campaign. Similarly, when Unilever asked 250 fashion-forward urban girls to participate in a pre-launch seeding trial of the Max Azria BCBGirl fragrance in Canada[44], it wasn’t just to find out what they thought of the perfume; it was to harness the Hawthorne Effect and drive demand. By giving each of the participants not only a full bottle to trial themselves, but also 100 samples each to hand out to friends, Unilever created a volunteer sales force that ensured the fragrance was a best-seller in cities where the research was conducted.

Driving Sales with Seeding Trials: 10 Point Checklist
Whilst there is no single formula for optimizing launches and boosting sales using seeding trials that transform opinion leaders into word of mouth advocates, the following checklist covers of the key questions that you need to ask yourself when planning a seeding trial.

The Right Product

1. Are we offering something new?  Opinion leaders like to lead with their opinions so seeding trials word best, that is, they drive sales, when the product or service you are bringing to market is genuinely new and different. Old, generic, or commodity products and services with nothing new to say are unlikely to benefit from seeding trials because people only tend to talk about the new and surprising.
2. Are we offering something better?  Seeding trials will accelerate your sales if the product or service seeded delivers a superior experience. Whilst the Hawthorne Effect will initially transform opinion leaders into advocates, the advocacy will be short-lived if your product or service is substandard or disappointing.  This doesn’t mean your product or service has to be ground-breaking, outrageous, or revolutionary for seeding trials to optimize a product launch – some of the most successful seeding trials have involved frozen pizza, canned soda and bath soap. What you do need however is a unique selling point that clients, customers and consumers can articulate to each other.
3. Are we offering something that can be sampled?  Seeding trials are targeted sampling initiatives conducted in the name of research, so they necessarily involve sampling (credible advocacy can only come from first-hand experience). For many products and services, offering opinion leaders some kind a free limited trial, sample, download or preview may be relatively straight forward, especially is sampling is a widespread practice in your sector. However, you may have to be more creative if you have a product or service that doesn’t lend itself so easily to trial – as can be the case for certain high-value low-margin products such as some technology products and fresh foods. If this is the case, try and think of novel ways in which you can set up your trial to nevertheless get your product into the hands of opinion leaders (in the name of research); in-store or at-office trials, trials at hotels, conferences or trade shows, trials using redeemable gift certificates or vouchers, special loans or screenings etc. If you really cannot allow opinion leaders to trial your product or service, you could still allow them to trial the product ‘virtually’ by viewing it and seeing it in action online.

The Right People

4. Have we identified our opinion-leading target-buyers?  Seeding trials are all about influencing the influencers in your target market, i.e. the opinion-leading target buyers who frequently offer and are elicited for category-related advice. So run a brainstorming session to generate a list people in your target market who would make good ‘connected and respected’ advocates for your product or service. Think in terms of individual profile – jobs, place of work, leisure activities and club membership – and in terms of networks – what are the big and visible organizational and social networks in your target market, such as employers, associations, interest groups etc? The important thing is to be creative, and not stop at the usual suspects when looking for opinion-leading target buyers; experts, celebrities, journalists, bloggers and reviewers.  Instead, think of who could be effective word of mouth hubs in your market. For example, PAs, office secretaries, beauty therapists, club secretaries, health and fitness instructors, bar staff, and hairdressers are popular choices for seeding consumer goods. Don’t forget that investors, employees and satisfied clients, customers or consumers that you already have can make for opinion-leading advocates because they have product experience and a stake in your success.
5. Are we seeding enough opinion leaders? Opinion leaders make up 10% or your target market, and successful seeding trials will seed up to 10% of these opinion leaders; i.e. up to 1% of your entire target market. Seeding trials on such a scale may be prohibitively expensive, especially in the consumer packaged goods markets, but you do need a minimum critical mass of Hawthorne-Effect enhanced opinion leaders advocating your product or service for an appreciable sales uplift. Whilst this number will vary on the size of your market, a useful rule of thumb is to seed a minimum of 250 opinion leaders per major urban center.
6. How are we going to deliver the trial experience?  Once you have identified opinion leaders to invite into the seeding trial, you have to solve the logistic challenge of how to get the product or service into their hands as cost-effectively as possible. Downloads via the internet, by post, by courier, by hand, or by pick up from a convenient location such as a store, hotel or mall? Contact a handful of sales promotion agencies or specialist sampling companies for advice on what they would recommend as the most cost-effective and logistically simple approach for you. The advice will cost you nothing and may include some creative solutions you might have missed.

The Right Action

7. Does our seeding trial involve exclusive ‘Get it first’ sampling?  Seeding trials, targeted sampling initiatives with opinion leaders, work best when they allow participants to get their hands on new products and services first – before everyone else.  If your seeding trial offers participants an exclusive sneak preview, the sales-driving effect will be optimized because you increase the word of mouth potential. By combining a VIP Vote with ‘Get it first’ sampling just prior to full product launch your seeding trial will have enhanced kudos and cachet for participants, further stimulating advocacy. If pre-launch seeding is not possible, then think of ways that you can you can combine targeted sampling with ‘Get it first’ access to other services, promotions, or even new advertising. The more trial participants feel like VIPs, with exclusive and priority access to what you have to offer, the more they will advocate. Finally, think of participants not only as clients, customers or consumers, but as the means to getting more clients, customers or consumers: What can you seed with the product that will help participants spread the word: discounts, vouchers, promotional gifts, branded merchandise, or special invitations to share with friends or even further samples to hand out?
8. VIP Vote: Are we giving seeding trial participants a say in our marketing?  Seeding trials work because they elicit participant advice on how your product or service is marketed. This creates a sense of ownership, loyalty and goodwill that, through the Hawthorne Effect, triggers adoption and advocacy. In practice, giving participants a say in your product or service, need only involve a simple online vote on options for a campaign poster, logo, display stand, advertising concepts or promotions. Of course, you can go further and involve trial participants in the packaging and design of the product or service itself. For example, the Australian beer Blowfly was built ground-up by research participants through online voting - on all aspects of the product ranging from bottle design to brand logo (see chapter on Brewing Buzz). The key is to keep everything as simple as possible in order to minimize the work for the trial participants.  The goal is to make opinion leaders feel they have contributed to your innovation or how it is marketed – without them having to do anything other than click a couple of buttons, which is why simple voting between options works better than lengthy discussions, questionnaires or surveys.
9. Does our seeding trial offer participants an ‘Inside scoop’? Seeding trials work because they make participating opinion leaders feel like ‘insiders’, that they have ‘inside story’ on your product or service. What information can you share with them to reinforce the impression that they have special relationship with you? For example, can you give them a ‘behind the scenes’ experience, provide them with insider guides, gossip or stories, or give them privileged access to company discussions, blogs or marketing materials?   Some companies, such as Unilever, go so far as to print personal branded contact cards for seeding trial participants to reinforce the impression that they are indeed insiders[45] (see chapter on Creating Brand Advocates)

Measurement

10. Have we put in place a mechanism for measuring the effectiveness of our seeding trial?  Ultimately, seeding trials are a sales acceleration tool, and they stand or fall on the sales uplift they produce. To measure your trial’s impact on sales, you can do as Procter and Gamble do and use a ‘control’ region or group, where the trial is not run, and measure differential sales performance. This may be fine for measuring offline sales, but for measuring the effect on online sales you might need to provide trial participants with a pass-it-on promotional discount code to forward to friends, who forward it to friends etc, allowing you to track the number of online sales the seeding trial generates. Of course, there are other softer measures you can use such as the effect of the trial in increasing awareness levels. To do this, it suffices to include an online dimension to your trial such as a special website, blog or discussion list and measure the number of visitors it receives. Alternatively or additionally you can also measure the number of column inches, online and offline, that your trial itself generates, and calculate the reach of those column inches. Finally, you can also track the effectiveness of the seeding trial using a simple pre- and post- trial poll that measures changes in advocacy rates among trial participants and within your broader target market.

Conclusion: Seeding Trials as Super-charged Sampling
When all is said and done, seeding trials are simply super-charged sampling. Not only do seeding trials accelerate sales by removing the cost barrier to trial among the key opinion-leading 10% of your target market, they also harness the Hawthorne Effect, transforming participants into loyal adopters and vocal word of mouth advocates. Whilst sampling (‘tryvertising,’ as it has recently been re-branded[46]) is the preferred promotional activity of opinion leaders[47], offering a first-hand brand experience, seeding trials offer something much more powerful, brand involvement. Seeding trials – targeted sampling in the name of research – allow businesses to connect and collaborate with opinion leaders, market with them, rather than at them. And by creating a volunteer sales force, seeding trials are a scalable, predictable and measurable solution for driving the one thing known to drive business growth, word of mouth advocacy.[48]

Takeaway points

• Seeding trials with opinion leaders are an effective launch optimization strategy that can enhance sales by 10-30%
• Seeding trials involve targeted sampling initiatives with opinion leaders conducted in the name of research
• Seeding trials work by transforming opinion leaders into loyal adopters and vocal word of mouth advocates, and do so by harnessing a powerful psychological phenomenon called the Hawthorne Effect
• Through ‘get it first sampling’, ‘inside scoops’ and ‘VIP votes’, seeding trials generate goodwill, involvement and advocacy among opinion-leading clients, customers or consumers
• Companies using seeding trials to optimize product launches and drive sales include Procter & Gamble, Microsoft, Hasbro, Google, Unilever, Pepsi, Coke, 3M, Ford, Dreamworks SKG, EMI, Sony and Siemens

Dr Paul Marsden is a research psychologist at the London School of Economics

Back to Published Work
 

Notes
[1] American Marketing Association definition. Archived at http://tinyurl.com/dcer6

[2] For more on Post-it Notes story see articles archived at http://tinyurl.com/a8lf and http://tinyurl.com/av6ts

[3] For a description of the Hawthorne trials see Mayo, E. (1933) The Human Problems of an Industrial Civilization. New York: Macmillan. For a good online review see http://tinyurl.com/bz8t6

[4] Gladwell, M. (2000) The Tipping Point: How Little Things can make a Big Difference Boston: Little, Brown and Company: p259

[5] Peters, T. (1987) Thriving on Chaos. New York: Harper Perennial

[6] See Lazarsfeld, P., Berelson, B., & Gaudet, H. (1944/1968) The People’s Choice. New York: Colombia University Press and Katz, E., & Lazarsfeld, P. (1955) Personal Influence. New York: The Free Press

[7] For a review, see Weimann, G. (1994) The Influentials: People who Influence People New York: University of New York Press, and Keller, E. & Berry, J. (2003) The Influentials: One American In Ten Tells The Other Nine How To Vote, Where To Eat And What To Buy. New York: Simon and Schuster.

[8] For widely used and validated scales see Flynn, L., Goldsmith, R., & Eastman, J. (1996) ‘Opinion leaders and opinion seekers: Two new measurement scales’, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 24(2), pp. 137-147, Ben Miled H. et Le Louarn P. (1994), ‘Analyse comparative de deux échelles de mesure du leadership d’opinion : validité et interprétation’, Recherches et Applications en Marketing, 9, 4, pp23-51, Childers, T. (1986) ‘Assessment of the psychometric properties of an opinion leadership scale,’ Journal of Marketing Research, Vol. XXIII, pp. 184-188, and King, C.& Summers, J. (1970), ‘Overlap of opinion leadership across consumer product categories,’ Journal of Marketing Research, 7 (1), 43-50. For a good review see Weimann op. cit.

[9] For details on this seeding trial see ACNielsen Report (2003) Alternative Marketing Vehicles (Jun). Archived at http://tinyurl.com/azel9

[10] Seeding trial run by author’s word of mouth marketing agency Spheeris www.spheeris.fr

[11] See Tierney, J (2001) Here come the alpha pups The New York Times Aug 5, Late Edition - Final Section 6: 38: Col. 1. Archived at http://tinyurl.com/7vo64

[12] Rosen, E. (2000) The Anatomy of Buzz. Doubleday: New York pp. 159-160.

[13] Figure from Webmasterworld Archived at http://tinyurl.com/brygh

[14] Chung, J. (2004) ‘Beta boosters’ The Globe and Mail Sep 7. Archived at http://tinyurl.com/d73yg

[15] Chung, J. (2004) ‘For some beta testers, it's about buzz, not bugs’ The New York Times, July 22 Archived at http://tinyurl.com/b5kco,

[16] For example, an MSN search in May 05 showed Gmail to be as high profile on the web at Yahoo! Mail 781,675 (Gmail) vs. 870,574 (Yahoo! Mail) citations

[17] Wells, M. (2004) ‘Kid nabbing’ Forbes, Feb 2. Archived at http://tinyurl.com/cuh3a

[18] Ibid.

[19] Ibid.

[20] Dunnewind, S. (2004) ‘The companies behind teen “viral campaigns”’ The Seattle Times Nov 20. Archived at http://tinyurl.com/ac2xg

[21] Press release from Tremor website designers Blue Dingo. Archived at http://tinyurl.com/au9qt

[22] Blue Dingo op. cit.

[23] Ibid.

[24] Levey, R (2003) ‘P&G's buzz on viral marketing’, Promo Magazine Jun 19. Archived at http://tinyurl.com/bv8mx

[25] Dunnewind op. cit.

[26] Walker, R (2004) ‘The hidden (in plain sight) persuaders’ The New York Times Dec 5. Archived at http://tinyurl.com/998we

[27] Ibid.

[28] Coolidge, A. (2004) ‘Teens virtually perfect for P&G’ Cincinnati Post Feb 21. Archived at http://tinyurl.com/9j9w3

[29] Wells op. cit.

[30] Garrett, F. (2004) ‘ADTECH: Word of mouth marketing: Tips from Procter & Gamble’. WebProNews. Archived at http://tinyurl.com/8zb3w

[31] Wells op. cit.

[32] Coolidge op. cit.

[33] Ibid.

[34] Wells op. cit.

[35] Levey op. cit. For an early PowerPoint presentation by Tremor  http://tinyurl.com/9hxom and Mathew, M. (2005) P&G’s Tremor: reinventing marketing by word-of-mouth ICRAI Business School Case Study Development Centre.

[36] Wells op. cit.

[37] Leeds, J. (2004) ‘Procter and Gamble: Now promoting music’ The New York Times, Nov 8 Archived at http://tinyurl.com/azcp7

[38] Wells op. cit.

[39] Baker, P (2005) ‘Word of mouth advocacy: Right people, right message’ paper presented at Alternative Advertising and Marketing Conference Melbourne 24-25 Feb. Background on Tremor Moms is at http://tinyurl.com/dkt55

[40] Nycz-Conner, J. (2005) ‘Look who's talking: Word-of-mouth marketing hits big business big time’ Washington Business Journal, May 6. Archived at http://tinyurl.com/9ryob

[41] Rodgers, Z. (2004) ‘Marketers pay their way to the youth audience’ ClickZNews May 28. Archived at http://tinyurl.com/blojt

[42] For background see Gladwell, M. (1997) ‘The Coolhunt.’ New Yorker, Mar 17, pp. 78-88.

[43] From Chura, H. (2001) ‘Pepsi-Cola’s Code Red is white hot’ Advertising Age, Aug 27, 1; Tkacik, M. & McKay, B. (2001) ‘Code Red: PepsiCo’s guerilla conquest.’ Wall Street Journal, August 17, B5 and Klingbeil, A., (2001) ‘The making of a brand.’ Gannett News Service, June 29.

[44] Stradiotto, M. (2005) ‘Working with agents and activists’. Conference paper presented at the Word-of-Mouth Marketing Association Summit Chicago March 29-30. Archived at http://tinyurl.com/7p4y3

[45] In 2004, Unilever ran a clever seeding trial for its new Axe brand body wash that made participants really feel part of the brand: As well as seeding the product, Unilever also provided participants with their own sets of personalized contact cards, with brand artwork on one side and personal contact details on the other. The cards also doubled up as discount vouchers so when participants handed them out, they had a further reason to evangelize about the brand. For more information contact author at paul@viralculture.com

[46] See Trendwatching.com article on tryvertising. Archived at http://tinyurl.com/9sdsq

[47] Berry, J. (2005) ‘Identifying, reaching, and motivating key influencers’ Conference paper presented at the Word-of-Mouth Marketing Association Summit Chicago March 29-30. Archived at http://tinyurl.com/9ex2f and Weiss, M (2005) ‘Buzz sampling’ Conference paper presented at the Word-of-Mouth Marketing Association Summit Chicago March 29-30. Archived at http://tinyurl.com/codsr

[48] Reichheld, F. (2003) ‘The one number you need to grow’. Harvard Business Review. (Dec): pp. 1-11