Can we just shut up about word-of-mouth?

Word-of-mouth marketing just won’t pipe down today. WOM shop BzzAgent is offering a money-back guarantee (based on its own measurement criteria, of course) that one of its campaigns will outperform a competing effort using other media. There’s a $300,000 minimum for both the WOM and competing campaigns. I find that price tag odd, given that BzzAgent itself claims its yakkers’ conversations are worth about 50 cents apiece. Separately, Augustine Fou of MRM dismisses the whole phenomenon in an Adweek guest column, claiming: “Word-of-mouth marketing isn’t something you can, should or need to do.”