Andy Sernovitz has been named CEO of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association and aims to bring organization to the burgeoning word of mouth and viral marketing segments. He describes one facet of the organization as, “a reasonably organized industry effort can stamp out potential problems.”
Another association, the Viral & Buzz Marketing Association which focuses on “bottom-up”, consumer-driven, peer-to-peer marketing, recently published a manifesto to define viral marketing.
As the viral and word of mouth segments endeavor to define themselves, Sernovitz hopes these efforts will stamp out privacy and disclosure issues so the segment does not experience the fate of email which has been brought to it’s knees by spam.
