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WOMMA: Better Late Than Never?

The Word of Mouth Marketing Association has published a letter it sent yesterday to Edelman PR honchos Richard Edelman and Rick Murray. It says that, a month after the fact, "WOMMA has determined that the company has breached the WOMMA Ethics Code — a code that Edelman helped write." So WOMMA has "put [Edelman's] membership under a 90-day review." and requested "corrective actions...some of which already appear to be in progress"

By issuing this sanction, a month after the fact, WOMMA is moving in pre-Internet time, which is light years slower than the real time speed of the Internet. And that inability to react in real time has rendered WOMMA impotent. This letter is nothing more than verbal Viagra for WOMMA's flacid ethics policy.

WOMMA is a trade association with a traditional structure that makes it lumber along like the giant committee it is. . But then, as a favorite client of mine used to say, "You can search every plaza and park in the planet and you will never find a monument to a committee.

What WOMMA's really missing is community and collaboration, the two foundations of effective word of mouth.


Categories: Business Ethics
BL Ochman | Nov 2 06 9:49 | TrackBack (0)

Comments

Guess they forgot about they had already " ... held discussions with top Edelman executives regarding this situation. The company has committed itself to a global training program to ensure that all of its employees and sub-contractors fully adhere to the WOMMA Ethics Code, and to establishing mechanisms to assure compliance." Dated 10/18/06
http://www.womma.org/pages/2006/10/womma_statement.htm

Does issuing this new mandate to Edelman mean a precedent is set .. if the pressures from the biz blog community are too strong WOMMA gets to gets to issue additional spanks?

Posted by: Toby at November 5, 2006 1:46 AM

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About BL Ochman
BL Ochman
B.L. Ochman, Managing Director of Emerging Media for Proof Integrated Communications, the digital marketing arm of Burson-Marsteller, has been helping Fortune 500 companies strategically incorporate new media into their marketing mix since 1996.

She contributes to Ad Age Digital Next, Mashable, Business Week and others. On Twitter, she is @whatsnext.

She is co-founder of the pet lovers' site and blog, Pawfun.com - where you can create and send free photo e-cards of your pets and create a variety of great products featuring your pet’s photo.

This is my personal blog, where I share my own thoughts and opinions, which do not represent the views of Proof or its clients.






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