My letter to Managing Editor, Barry Janoff is provided below:
I received two calls earlier this evening from Gary Ruskin of Commercial Alert and, Andy Sernovitz of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association. They called to let me know that I was cited in an April 24th piece titled “Word Games” by Todd Wasserman.
I was recently contacted by Mr. Wasserman for a story he was doing on word-of-mouth marketing and teens. During a very brief phone conversation with Mr. Wasserman, I noted that I was on deadline for a client project, and asked if I could call him back to schedule an interview. I contacted Mr. Wasserman by phone two days later but he never returned my call.
Much to my astonishment, I wound up being cited in Mr. Wasserman’s recent article. Mr. Wasserman seriously misquoted and misrepresented me, and his mistake is damaging the reputation of my company.
My company, BoldMouth, differentiates itself through our innovative and ethical word-of-mouth marketing practices. Our firm strongly believes that engineering deceptive marketing practices is simply unethical. Further, there’s no way that we would target kids ages 6 to 12 for marketing campaigns as Mr. Wasserman so wrongly attributes.
My only conversation with Mr. Wasserman was a 20-second-long request to be interviewed and, during which I believe I even had to ask for Mr. Wasserman to repeat his first name. Mr. Wasserman asked if BoldMouth could share any case studies about marketing to teens. I replied in the affirmative – since, yes, we do market to teenagers.
Given how briefly we spoke, and how unambiguous my answer, I’m not sure how he came to such a seriously faulty conclusion – not to mention implying that I had said such a thing, myself. I tried calling Mr. Wasserman earlier but was later informed by Andy Sernovitz that he is on vacation and, unable for clarification on the matter.
Mr. Wasserman’s error in “Word Games” is placing an untold strain on BoldMouth’s business relationships and our reputation.
I’m trusting that you’ll resolve this matter immediately and post a correction statement on your site. Furthermore, I’d be delighted to set the record straight and provide you and your editorial team an interview as well as a copy of our upcoming Study on Word-of-Mouth Marketing Perceptions, Practices and Ethics.
I would also appreciate it if you could put me in touch with Mr. Wasserman as soon as he returns so that I may further discuss this matter with him.
TAGS: Brandweek, Todd Wasserman, WOM, Word of Mouth Andy Sernovitz, Gary Ruskin, WOMMA
2 responses so far ↓
Chris Heuer // May 9, 2006 at 1:41 pm
Todd - did Brandweek ever respond? The author of the article?
Administrator // May 9, 2006 at 2:06 pm
Chris,
BrandWeek printed a correction yesterday on May 8th — which I haven’t seen. The author of the peice — Todd Wasserman — is sending me a copy of the correction which I understand will say:
“An April 24 article entitled “Word Games,” erroneously stated that the agency BoldMouth targets children 6-12 years old for word of mouth marketing campaigns. According to CEO Todd Tweedy, the firm targets teens, but doesn’t target kids of that age group.”
Furthermore, the article itself will be corrected in both the archive and the online version.
I’ll blog about this as soon as I get the copy of the magazine as well as having our company pulled from WOMMA as a result of this situation.
I received a fax from Andy on May 1st noting they had “evidence” presented by the reporter that our firm had marketed to children — which is totally false — and that our membership in WOMMA was cancelled. In fact, that same day the reporter acknowledged that he made a mistake and offered to publish a correction. WOMMA finally responded on the 4th and I was told by Susan that they would review the matter in 3 to 4 weeks.
Here’s email I sent to WOMMA on May 3rd:
Mr. Sernovitz,
I’m emailing to set the record straight once-and-for-all.
On Monday, May 8th, BrandWeek will publish a correction to their April 24th article “Word Games.” The proposed correction will read:
An April 24 article entitled “Word Games,” erroneously stated that the agency BoldMouth targets children 6-12 years old for word of mouth marketing campaigns. According to CEO Todd Tweedy, the firm targets teens, but doesn’t target kids of that age group.
As I started before, I was miss quoted in the piece, and have never in my career marketed to children, nor do I ever intend to. My agency was founded based on a strong ethical code of conduct, and we adhere to WOMMA’s Ethical Code. Our business is about focusing on community participation and co-co-creation in the development and distribution of product and service recommendations.
I look forward to immediately having my agency reinstated back in WOMMA.
Sincerely,
Todd Tweedy
CEO
BoldMouth
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