Why Free Sells

In commercial terms, giving stuff away for free is suicide, right?  Apparently not.  As I've said before, free is now the only way to work in a world driven by networked media.  It may all sound like happy-clappy, kool-aid nonsense but the data just keeps on coming.  In my post-holiday feed-trawl I was intrigued by Twitter co-founder Biz Stone's comments (could he ever fail with such a moniker?) about the company giving away their data in the shape of an API for others to use: "The API has been arguably the most important, or maybe even inarguably, the most important thing we’ve done with Twitter. It has allowed us, first of all, to keep the service very simple and create a simple API so that developers can build on top of our infrastructure and come up with ideas that are way better than our ideas, and build things like Twitterrific, which is just a beautiful elegant way to use Twitter that we wouldn’t have been able to get to. The API has easily 10 times more traffic than the website," (Via PW).  And in the FT Zuckerberg hits a similar note when describing the effects of freeing up the Facebook platform...

...for other people to use: "Since we’ve opened up our platform, there have been whole other classes of applications that have been developed that we weren’t even going to touch."

And at P&G, once the ultimate black box, the open innovation programme called Connect & Develop which invites suggestions from outside the company for new products, continues to deliver.  According to The Economist (sub), the company's famously androidian culture has been rejuvenated by the programme with half of all new products now starting life outside of P&G's labs,  resulting in sales per R&D employee doubling since the launch of the programme in 2000.

Finally, in a different sphere, Hugh MacLeod's 5000 cartoons, all given away for free, have brought him a global audience previously only enjoyed by large publishing houses - as described wonderfully here.

The trick to understanding this new free world is firstly to see that it comes in many shapes and sizes, but vitally to appreciate that it's all about joining in with what is rapidly building around us.  For brands the lessons are legion.  Suffice to say that as the global mega-networks that drive the modern web flourish, the companies that are out there freely contributing in significant ways are finding themselves inundated with goodwill - which falls right through to the bottom line.   So, before you snort into your coffee and shake your head at the naive notion that free sells, take a second to look at the total cost of your brand marketing media plan and to wonder what would happen if you just gave it all away....