Modern Marketing - Blog by Collaborate PR & Marketing

Conversational Marketing (And Why It's Good To Hate)

In recent discussions I have described the stuff that happens where the world of networked media and marketing collide as, ‘conversational marketing’. Now, I am aware that this is hardly a breakthrough term. The c-word is now firmly lodged into the boilerplate of every marketing proposal to hit the pitch desk in 2009.  And it drives some people to distraction as it suggests some type of creepy word-of-mouth practice where ‘friends’ start dropping brand names into conversations in the pub.  Particularly those that they have spontaneously found to deliver amazing value or excellent customer service.  However, I think it does work when the companies in question realise that there are some conversations in which they can take part with credibility - and others that they shouldn’t touch with a conversational bargepole.  Identifying which those conversations are isn’t entirely straightforward.  That’s because brands instinctively want to go and hang out with the cool kids.  An example would be a massive brand trying to follow someone on Twitter.  Or a product trying to join a blog chat. Both of which can result in cringe-making disaster.  However, there are, unsurprisingly, conversations that brands can have and join with credibility.  The trick, in my experience, is to start with working out what the company or brand in question is passionate about.  Now this question may result in much eye-rolling from cycnical execs who equate the health of the corporate balance sheet with pain not passion.  Or alternatively, lip service to some corporate mission statement or, worse still brand bible, which has all the passion of a Stepford Wife.  However, I have found that by digging beneath the corporate facade you can almost always find something of genuine interest, even if it at first sight it seems weird or dumb.  One way into the subject is to find out what people in the company or organisation hate.  Answers I've had to that line of enquiry have included the way their company is portrayed in the press.  Or an irritation about a damaging urban myth that won't go away.  Something similar, I believe, is what set Robert Scoble off on his bleeding-edge blogging mission at Microsoft.  Staff at the software giant who felt they were doing good work in the areas of healthcare or innovative engineering were fed up with being seen as the Evil Empire.  By talking about the good stuff on Channel 9, they were able to engage in a genuine conversation that went beyond the brand.  The other good thing about the term conversational marketing, that I have taken to pointing out, is that people instinctively know a good conversation from a bad one.  There’s no need to analyse or measure it.  Everyone already knows.

More On Free

Brad Burnham from Union Square Ventures offers a nicely nuanced view on the Free debate:  "Both sides of the debate about Free do not seem to acknowledge how fundamentally different the relationship between suppliers and consumers is on the web. Services are not offered for free at all. There is an exchange of value between users, the creators of the raw material - data, content, and meta-data, and the network where that data is converted into insight. This exchange is still governed by the basic laws of economics but the currency is not dollars, it's attention. The network that takes attention and converts it into insight is also quite different than a traditional firm. The services they provide are more like those we expect from a government than a company. Craigslist, Facebook, and Twitter all provide (or try to provide) a robust stable reliable infrastructure (hosting, bandwidth), security, safety, and dispute resolution. In all three cases, the product users create and consume emerges organically from this environment."

Pirate Bay Seeks NASDAQ Gold?

By any standards, the purchase of Pirate Bay, the world's largest Bittorrent tracker, by the Global Gaming Factory is an ambitious, some would say crazy, business venture. Unravelling the legal spaghetti around the site's activities looks like an impossible task.  It's hard to imagine the RIAA et al, suddenly changing their world view of the site that has been Hollywood's public enemy number one for so many years.  Particularly after continuing court action, despite the PB founders high-profile conviction earlier this year.  So today's suggestion by GGF boss, Hans Pandeya, that he expects to be able to turn the site into a business that could one day list on NASDAQ, the premier US technology stockmarket, seems incredible.  In fact, it's likely to be more pirate mischief.  Padeya's comment that, 'The Pirate Bay is a strong brand in the US and most parties who have showed interest in the project are based there,' must surely be tongue-in-cheek.  However, there is no doubt that The Pirate Bay is a powerful modern day brand around which people are keen to convene.  How many other websites have gone on to win seats in the European Parliament?  And of course, the PB service has a vast network of individuals powering the delivery of chunky media content on demand.  GGF appear to have a plan to put these assets to a genuine commercial use, which would be the most remarkable of turnaround stories.  Or maybe Mr Pandeya just believes his company is on the right side of the argument and that markets trends will eventually make the acquisition look like deal-of-the-century.  He may have a point.  Certainly, when you read about the latest RIAA victim, it's hard not to wonder who the crazy people really are.