Piece in FT today (well yesterday now!) looking at how word of mouth, particularly online, is having to make ad agencies redically re-evaluate their campaign approach.

“It is clear that traditional advertising is not as effective as it used to be as people spend more time on the internet and as technology allows them to fast-forward through television commercials,” said Jim Kite, research director at Starcom.

“In this environment, word-of-mouth becomes more important, and the internet and the huge increase in use of social networks allows information to spread more quickly.

Stacom's latest research pointed even more strongly than they envisaged towards online WOM as a key consumer decision making vehicle.

“But what we did not realise until we did this research was just how important it is and we are telling our clients that they should change their entire approach to communications planning and make word-of-mouth the focus of campaigns.”

Thanks to Tom De Nert for heads up.