While a new generation of marketers celebrate their invention of WOM, Chuck points to the first time a company successfully, deliberately capitalized on social currency. In this first instance, readers of a product advertisement were offered a discount, but not for their own use. Rather, the discount was to be offered as the reader’s gift for use by a friend. The year: 1910.

Another milestone in the history of WOM: the 1960’s and the invention of “the citizen billboard,” also known as T-shirts imprinted with messages, commercial and otherwise. (The younger generation of marketers, who are busy inventing WOM, refer to these quaintly as “vintage T-Shirts”, by the way.) In any case, add this—vintage or not—to the growing list of revolutionary advances brought about by boomers but often credited to younger generations (alongside computer technology, junk food, the notion of life balance and designer coffee.)

Chuck’s larger point is that there are developments afoot that are troubling to marketers who worry rightly about WOM applications impacting issues of trust and credibility. Specifically, he takes on the blurring of the lines between who while offering an opinion on a product of service, is being paid—versus who is unpaid and therefore rendering their honest opinion. Paid bloggers who do not identify that they are receiving money from the same source they are supposedly providing unbiased judgments about is a prime example of this. Perhaps even more chillingly, there’s the growing cadre of citizen marketers who accept goods, services or payment from companies to talk up their experiences among family and friends. “Pretty soon, consumers won’t believe anybody—even their best friend,” says Nyren, author of “Advertising to Baby Boomers”, a book we recommend. (And no, we haven’t been paid to say so.)

Carol Orsborn