The Unthinkable Marketing Industry

Clay Shirky’s latest essay, that encourages us to 'think the unthinkable', set me wondering about what the marketing industry could be like.  The part of Shirky’s ‘unthinkable scenario’ that leapt out for me was the suggestion that, ‘people would resist being educated to act against their own desires’.  Shirky is, of course, saying that one effect of a networked world is that people have less faith in the lessons being handed out on Madison Avenue.  Now it’s quite clear that media is still the dominant force in the brand and marketing business, which despite tough times, remains a trillion dollar global industry.  Indeed, the idea of building brands through massive investment in this industry is the reason most marketing folk get up in the morning.  And media metrics such as reach and frequency have been a reliable way to fill marketing directors’ pension funds for a long while.  But that’s not the point of Shirky’s challenge.  His suggestion is to think the unthinkable by, ‘simply looking out of the window’.  So, if people are resisting the Mad Men's tutorials and the stranglehold of media is loosening, what’s next?  After all, people still want to find good stuff to buy and use, right? The end of media doesn’t mean the end of consumption or indeed of brands.  All of which requires markets.  But if those markets aren’t going to be media-driven, what will keep them moving along? What will make people act upon ‘their own desires’, and in doing so, keep the shekels flowing into our factories, showrooms and shops?  Where do we begin?  How about if we follow the advice of...

...Dee Hock, founder of the Visa credit card association (via Richard Houston) and look to, ‘preserve the substance of the past by clothing it in the forms of the future’.  Or in other words take today’s principles and apply them to tomorrow.  Which would mean the answer is, in Gibson-esque style, already among us, and just waiting to be picked up and polished.

There is something we all do, all of the time.  Every time we ask each other for recommendations and suggestions.  Be it through a web search, a review site, a quick poll among our friends on Facebook or by diving into an expert forum or blog.  We all now use our online community in its many shapes and forms to understand the market and other people’s direct experiences.  Then we act upon that information.  There’s nothing new here of course.  People have been keeping up with the Jones’ forever.  It’s just that now we share-and-compare with the entire networked world.  Not just Margo and Jerry next door. 

So, what if markets are no longer media-driven, but community-driven?  Distributed, dynamic communities, but communities nonetheless.  It’s no longer a massive jump.  Not long ago people who used the term ‘community’ in a marketing perspective (or god forbid a meeting) could expect to be, as with Shirky’s newspaper executives, ‘herded into Innovation Departments’, and ‘ignored en masse’.  Today, however, the term is practically written into the boiler plate of every marketing plan that sees the light of 2009. 

Great, what comes next?  If (and remember we are thinking the unthinkable here) we accept that markets are now community-driven, we would need to know what’s happening and also what’s working in those communities.  What's the equivalent of media’s reach-and-frequency, whereby you just know if you beat people enough they will eventually comply and buy.  What sells?  Once again, it seems the clues are already here.  Reach and frequency really don’t make a lot of sense in the new online empires.  Facebook’s social graph is definitely seeking world domination in the same way that Time Warner once did.  But its aim is to link the planet into submission, not schedule it to death.

In her recent essay, Danah Boyd, now at the Microsoft Research Labs, writes: ‘Marketers know all about stickiness, but how many of you measure network density? You purchase all sorts of data from Nielsen and comScore that tells you about uniques, but do you know anything about the cluster dynamics of the users? Are you able to see when the network graph is reaching a sustainable point or, more importantly, when things are starting to fracture?’.  Now, while I think Boyd’s a brilliant analyst and network graphs and cluster dynamics may be perfect technical devices, I can’t see many marketing folk using the lingua franca of network engineers.  Yet it’s clear that our new community-driven marketing industry will need new measurement mechanics to fill tomorrow’s pension plans.  Maybe along the lines that Boyd suggests but with a friendly twist.  Let’s call it connection and engagement for the purposes of this modest post. 

And finally, what about the end game?  Today, the marketing industry has the concept of brand equity to dump on the boardroom table.  For mega-brands, it can be a powerful weapon. In fact, Interbrand has built an annual survey around the idea, and last year valued the Coke brand at sixty-seven billion dollars.  A figure from which every chairman can take comfort.  It’s a tricky one.  If the marketing industry’s ambition is not to build brand equity through which premium pricing models can be justified, then what is? 

As Shirky suggests, one ‘new experiment' to try might be giving some love to another commonplace idea.  Namely, goodwill.  Aside from the thought that brands choosing to build goodwill rather than equity just feels good, it has some other advantages.  Firstly, it is already on the books.  In some cases literally.  Goodwill is often cited as an intangible asset that allows companies to charge a premium price for goods or services, because of reputation.  Secondly, goodwill is sometimes related to the notion of social capital.  A long-standing, albeit academic idea, based around the observation that social connections, such as those in a community, have value. 

Great. But what would all this mean in practice?  What would be the means of such unthinkable ends?  What would marketing executives worry about and brainstorm over their lattes and croissants?  In a community-driven, albeit unthinkable, marketing industry on what basis would you execute ideas, to build connections and engagement, thereby creating boardroom-thumping, shareholder-whooping levels of goodwill? 

As a starting point I would like to ask, what if instead of investing in networks of media to create equity, we invested in networks of people to create goodwill?  Those networks maybe employees, customers, competitors’ customers, prospects and anyone else who might hold a small chunk of your mega-brand.  They might be very small or very large.  But they would be made up of people, who have the inherent advantage of also being customers. 

But anyway that’s enough unthinkable stuff for one day.  Back to the real world, eh?  Now what was the clickthrough rate on that last banner campaign we did?  Ouch.  Down on last month to just one per cent.  Despite that expensive creative...

I wonder what the problem can be?

Comments

[aubs]

fantastic stuff

[James Cherkoff]

Thanks Aubs!