Of course, we all know that or at least claim to. A nielsen survey below is a good reference point.

According to the above data, if you really want to do word-of-mouth marketing well, you’re better off investing your attention on the boring stuff, like product performance, employee training, quality, and especially customer service.

Umm..do I hear dissent brewing…?

****UPDATE****

Guess the brands are listening in!

Product innovation back on the agenda at unilever

By Influx Insights – posted by Ed Cotton

At a time when product performance now trumps marketing spin, Unilever’s Chairman is looking for more product innovation from the giant multinational.

According to an interview in the Times of London.

“Michael Treschow thinks there is not enough “wow” at Unilever.

The Swedish chairman likes inventions, gadgets and new whizz-bang things. He has been in his job for a year and, after a shake-up and streamlining of the top team at the Anglo-Dutch food and soap company, he wants the men in white coats to work faster, creating an assembly line of new products.

The marketing is good, the selling is good, it’s the product line that needs attention, he says. “The single most important thing is that we speed up our innovation machine, which means that we bring more highly appreciated products to the consumer so that they say, ‘Wow, this is really something I would like to have’,” he says.”

Can we now expect increases in R&D spends as packaged goods companies go back in search of product performance and difference?