Success Quote by Jef I. Richards

Word-of-mouth gets marketed as the purest form of persuasion: authentic, unpaid, almost morally superior to ads. Richards punctures that halo with a professor’s quiet warning: the same human network that can lift you fastest can also bury you with equal speed, and you won’t get to buy your way out of it.

The intent is pragmatic, not poetic. He’s reminding marketers that “earned” attention isn’t automatically positive; it’s simply uncontrolled. Traditional advertising is at least editable and scheduled. Word-of-mouth is chaotic distribution, driven by emotion, social signaling, and the pleasure of telling a story. People don’t just share what’s good. They share what’s surprising, what feels like a betrayal, what earns them status for “warning” others. A delighted customer might mention you once. A disappointed one recruits a small audience and, crucially, feels righteous doing it.

The subtext is about power and accountability. When a brand leans too hard on the romance of organic buzz, it can become lazy about the unglamorous parts: quality control, customer service, the boring consistency that prevents negative stories from forming in the first place. Richards is also gesturing at asymmetry: trust is slow to build, fast to spend, and word-of-mouth is the interest rate on that debt.

Contextually, the line anticipates today’s review economies and social platforms, where one bad experience becomes a screenshot, a thread, a meme. The “best advertising” and the “worst” now travel on the same rails. The difference is whether you gave people a story they’re proud to repeat.