A favorite saying: “Your best advertising is word of mouth by satisfied customers.” It takes time for “word of mouth” to spread the word, but the results are a solid foundation on which to build the market for the product. There is something authentic about one person freely telling about their experience with a product and telling the truth (both good and bad experiences) to another interested person.
Word of mouth may be a slower way to build the market, and other marketing programs with paid advertising and promotion of products can accelerate sales and build the market more quickly. However, when using paid advertising, truth-telling is often compromised. As a result, the market grows more quickly with paid advertising, but is not sustained. Most of us have experienced the disappointment with a product that did not live up to its advertisement.
Speaking of truth-telling about our products, we have always avoided using paid endorsements or a paid spokesperson for the Walker Mower. Over the years numerous customers, even a few celebrities, have offered to promote the mower for receiving compensation. We have stayed away from that approach simply because we want our customers to tell the truth about the mower, both the good and the not so good. Even the most ethical individuals who are paid to endorse a product often find it hard to tell the truth.
Now with social media in full swing, there are new challenges to truth-telling. You can find virtually any opinion about anything on the internet. In the professional landscape contractor industry, we now have “vloggers” who are making videos of themselves and putting them on YouTube. The videos are free form with the contractor talking about operating their business, telling their experiences, and evaluating the products they use. These “influencer” personalities develop followers, sometimes numbering in the thousands.
Many of these “influencers” have pure motives and are simply trying to be a help to the industry and pass on lessons they have learned (they have integrity and are truth-telling). By contrast, there are a few others who “prostitute” and are being paid by manufacturer’s marketers to say nice things about their products. We have been approached by these “vloggers” who thought Walker would be interested in doing some paid promotion of our product this way. The answer is no. We simply want the truth to be told about our product in real world use. A paid product endorsement is not the way to get the truth told. We will live by the truth.
Bob Walker, Chairman
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