I’m probably more aware than the average consumer of these conversations because I’m involved with market research. But even when people don’t think about it, they’re having lots of commercial-like conversations every day.

 

When I have my “sound like a commercial” moments, it’s usually followed by the thought, “If only a brand marketer could hear me now…,” partly because it’s always nice to overhear people saying good things about you but mostly because it can be terrifically useful. The odds of that happening in real life are pretty minimal, however.

 

The Internet provides a way to “overhear” brand conversations, by reading online reviews of products and services and getting involved with social media networks, among other tactics. These are useful sources, but they don’t capture the random and unplanned one-on-one personal conversations that are critical to word of mouth.

 

How critical are they? According to the recently released Roper Reports^® Worldwide 2010 survey of more than 32,000 people age 15-plus in 25 countries, 43% of global consumers say that the last recommendation they made “just came up naturally in the course of conversation,” as opposed to being a proactive recommendation or the result of a specific request for advice.

 

Many commercials aim to replicate these happenstance real-life conversations. The venture is fraught with peril, and some succeed better than others. Good acting and well-written scripts are critical, not because consumers will believe these are authentic conversations, but because the more natural the execution, the more likely it is that consumers will think, “Gee, that sounds like something I would say.”