Recently, CIC became a member of WOMMA. If you don’t know WOMMA, and you are in any way interested in, a student of, or practicing IWOM, then you definitely SHOULD know WOMMA. We first met with WOMMA at their headquarters in 2005 when Andy Sernovitz was the President. We had a great meeting with Andy, but decided at that time that WOMMA was more focused on the American market and membership would not have so many benefits for a China based company like CIC. My thoughts have since changed. We have been offering IWOM research and consulting services for over 3 years now, and as I see the industry developing, I have come to see the importance of an industry organization to establish guidelines and principles to not only define and promote the industry, but also to protect an industry’s reputation. To this latter point, it was when I reviewed the WOMMA code of ethics that I decided we should join. The WOMMA ethics code is best summed up by the following:

* Honesty of Relationship: You say who you’re speaking for * Honesty of Opinion: You say what you believe * Honesty of Identity: You never obscure your identity

In truth, we are an IWOM research and consulting firm, so we do not actually “execute” or “engage” in IWOM marketing, but rather offer insights and suggestions on how to do better IWOM marketing based on our systematic quantitative and qualitative analysis of IWOM conversations. When we do make recommendations, we strongly recommend clients follow this ethical code. When we applied up for our WOMMA membership, we had to tick a box that pledged:

Our company hereby joins the Word of Mouth Marketing Association as of this date and I am an authorized representative. By joining this organization, we demonstrate our commitment to the growth of the word of mouth marketing industry. We affirm that our company supports the highest level of ethical word of mouth marketing practices.

There are currently WOMMA members based in China as well as WOMMA members who are doing business in China. I hope that we can all remember this pledge, and more importantly, honor this pledge. It is not only the right thing to do, it is for the good of the industry. What makes IWOM so powerful is that is trusted. If the trust is lost, we all lose.