Modern Marketing - Blog by Collaborate PR & Marketing

Why Free Sells - Timely Example

Considering that my last post was called Why Free Sells, it's timely that O2 have given me one of their new Cocoon phones to do a little test run.  (It's also timely because I smashed my Sony-Ericsson in car door a few weeks ago under pressure from the anti-terrorist squad at Euston station, but that's another story).  Unlike some bloggers I am more than happy to be showered with free stuff on the understanding that I can do whatever I want with the goodies in question.  On this occasion I decided to conduct a little experiment and count how many people I naturally (ie without meaning to) introduced to the phone last week.  The Cocoon is very nice and compact and does everything you'd expect well.  But it has one particular feature that gives it a little show-off-ability aka social objectness.  Rather neatly, the outside casing has a hidden pink, neon-scrolling display that presents messages about who is calling, as well as the time and other such stuff, and it's quite big so you can read it from the other side of the room while the phone sits on a shelf in its little nest.  I have been playing with friends and associates by getting them to call me and then watching their names scroll across the side of the phone.  Quite groovy.  The results were that last week...

Heinz Opens Sauce And Discovers Free Speech

Heinz is running a user-gen campaign over at YouTube which the NYT has used to highlight that amateur ads are - wait for it - not like professional ads!  And what's worse, they're not even free! "Many entries are mediocre, if not downright bad, and sifting through them requires full-time attention."  Imagine!  It's all turning into a fascinating example of a brand testing its own control threshold but clearly Heinz needs to re-read their open source cookbooks.  Firstly, as any Linux programmer will tell you, it's only free if you don't put any value on your time.  So yes, "inviting consumers to create their advertising is often more stressful, costly and time-consuming than just rolling up their sleeves and doing the work themselves".  And secondly, it's free as in free speech not free beer.  So yes, "some contestants say in interviews that they prefer mustard or mayonnaise".  The cheek!  Really, why bother?  Well hard as it is to believe, some crazy folk actually like this free speech stuff.  Weird, eh?

"Ad Hoc Crap Groups"

This month's Research magazine runs a special report on the future of market research and features an article I wrote about the uncomfortable relationship that brands have with online communities.  Like every other sector of the marketing services industry the research business is wrestling with new technologies which are making existing techniques look very tired.  A couple of articles from the report caught my eye.  Firstly, the Interactive Advertising Bureau's President in the US, which represents the interests of online advertisers, has challenged two of the big web measurement houses Netratings and Comscore, about their use of outdated panel measurement systems:  "A media measurement technique invented for the radio industry exactly seven decades ago".  Secondly, a research project into the lives of young German mothers found that giving them access to a range of simple blogs and networked media to record their days and, "raising their status...to co-researcher", had dramatic effects.  "They started to reveal the most intimate details of their lives," described Eva Caspary, the MD of Insight, rather than the results from the, "artificial ad hoc crap groups that we all usually do".  Which must have delighted the guys in her ad hoc crap group department!

Open Source Is Here For Good (Just So We Are Clear)

A few years ago I tried to capture my thoughts about how the marketing industry was at an incredibly exciting moment in its evolution, rather than the general doom-mongery that prevailed at the time.  I called the essay, "What Is Open Source Marketing" because while marketeers were wringing their hands, a hugely powerful project - The Open Source Movement - was well underway producing results that were slowly changing the world.  And it was all completely relevant to the marketing business.  Most of the reaction at the time was that marketing is for good-looking glamour pusses on Madison Avenue while Open Source is about the socks and sandals brigade tinkering around with daft projects in the shed.  And never the twain shall meet.  So I smiled when reading this post about what a day without Open Source would be like: "For starters, the Internet would disappear for the average user."  And I chuckled when reading this article in the Washington Post about how the OS tentacles have reached out into the marketing industry in the last few years: "A culture of open-source software and Wikipedia and online interactivity is reconfiguring the business of selling."  Who would have thought it, eh? ;-)

Terrifying Transparency

Transparency is one of those words that everyone can nod about happily but is terrifying for some who think it's about giving up secrets.  To my mind, when used in the world of marketing, the term means the end of the gatekeeper mentality and the gradual paranoia that it can instill.  But it's also just pragmatism and living in the modern world, not some sort of branded happy place construct where it's good - because you say it's good.  In this Wired article, Clive Thompson writes brilliantly on the subject: "Transparency is a judo move. Your customers are going to poke around in your business anyway, and your workers are going to blab about internal info - so why not make it work for you by turning everyone into a  partner in the process and inviting them to do so?" (via Martin at TMW).

Why 500 Is So Significant

Writing about the growth of UK-based social network Trusted Places, Peter Nixey says,"The internet might create potential to scale to a hundred million users but when 95% of your input is generated by 5% of your users and the first 10k are the hardest to get, you'd better make damn sure that the 500 who drive you are looked after."  This is something that big brands completely overlook about online communities thinking of 500 people as 'insignificant' and not recognising that they represent a hell of a lot more than the sum of their parts.  They are the inner circle that not only set the tone but provide the all-important feedback cycle and, vitally, begin to spread the word credibly and get the restaurant effect moving.  And if that inner circle disappears then, guess what?  So does your community.  Just ask Nike.

Normal Order Restored?

It's a sign that the nascent world of networked media is maturing, slightly, that some traditional methods and techniques are creeping back into the area.  Albeit with a twist.  In the new world of mega-P2P-networks, BitTorrent and Joost are running a competition to see who can be the most respectable, in order to try and win over the old-school media barons like Viacom.  (Despite the fact that only a few years ago said barons were looking to wipe P2P off the face of the earth).  And in both cases it is very traditional run-ins with the law that have led to BitTorrent's Bram Cohen (post-Grokster) and Joost's Friis and Zennstrom (post-Kazaa) being so well behaved.  Indeed, BitTorrent came to agreement with its most powerful opponent, the Motion Picture Association of America (aka Hollywood) in November 2005, allowing it to announce it's very scrubbed up new Entertainment Network this week.  While the Joost founders go as far as saying about the new service, “It’s not Web video; it’s TV".  Meanwhile, over in the related world of user-generated video, a talent war has broken out for the most popular new video stars - motivated by good old-fashioned lucre and gelt.  The NYT reports that Revver has pinched LonelyGirl15...

Co-Creation Rules Feedback 3

We've had more great feedback on the manifesto - Co-Creation Rules - that I wrote with Johnnie for ChangeThis.  Brandbuilder says it's a 'must-read' and likes Rules 6 & 8.  The brilliantly named Craphammer, gives it the thumbs up and says the examples are really helpful, which is good because we tried to cram in as many as we could.  (Feel free to add your own on the wiki).  And Nick Wright says he found the manifesto helpful when thinking about how to up 'flow' in advertising.  Thanks guys!  We'll be presenting one or two rules at the Nesta Uploading Innovation event next week and then at this year's Market Research Society conference in Brighton.  Maybe see you there.

Upping The Hackability

In these days of networked media the classic 4Ps of marketing are as helpful as ever.  Even if the environment has changed the pillars of Price, Place, Product and Promotion remain.  So as Promotion fatigue spreads and consumers (aka people) try and take refuge from the onslaught of commercial messages in their lives, modern marketeers look to other corners of the matrix for inspiration.  One technique is to re-engineer Product to make it naturally more interesting to a world where powerful online networks driven by ordinary Joe's have the final say.  Or upping the hackability.  Two great examples of this are Open Cola and Free Beer, both Products which make their ingredients open and their recipes public.  Are we going to use this information to set up competitors?  No.  Are they both more interesting and therefore likely to engage an audience? Yep.

Eternally Onstage

Great article in The New Yorker about the way in which the modern web is changing perceptions of privacy, particularly among younger groups, thereby creating a generation gap in the way people view public life.   (I call it the X-Factor-Factor).  "Your life is being lived in public whether you choose to acknowledge it or not. So it may be time to consider the possibility that young people who behave as if privacy doesn’t exist are actually the sane people, not the insane ones. For someone like me, who grew up sealing my diary with a literal lock, this may be tough to accept. But under current circumstances, a defiant belief in holding things close to your chest might not be high-minded. It might be an artifact—quaint and naïve, like a determined faith that virginity keeps ladies pure. Or at least that might be true for someone who has grown up “putting themselves out there” and found that the benefits of being transparent make the risks worth it." (via MintDigital)