Why Earn When You Can Pay?

It’s been five years since I wrote a manifesto called, 'What Is Open Source Marketing?' where I tried to hint at a different view of media based on the trends emerging at the time.  My main suggestion was that the, ‘love affair between big brands and mainstream media is over,’ and that the Open Source Movement gave an idea about where we might all be heading.  Namely, into a people-powered, super-collaborative world where only the only way to garner meaningful attention was to offer channels through which people could participate with your brand.  Unsurprisingly, some of these observations proved to be correct while others were overblown.  Vast open networks where people can collaborate in whichever way they wish have miraculously appeared.  However, TV networks remain just as powerful, albeit without some of the kudos, and have largely resisted any change - to date.  Meanwhile, the marketing industry has roadtested a gazillion 'open' campaigns, with varying degrees of success.  On the positive side there is the most overly-used, yet still rather dreamy, example of marketing openness, Nike+, a largely open platform where people upload detailed personal information about their running lives to a massive American corporation in exchange for community.  The benefits of ‘openness’ to the sports giant have been considerable as explained by Nike-dude Roberto Tagliabue shortly after its launch: 'As of February, 2008, Nike+ members have run over 50,000,000 miles, logged over 14,000,000 runs and issued over 450,000 challenges. We created the world’s largest running club at nikeplus.com. 40% of community members who didn’t own Nike+ ended up buying. That is pretty tangible.'  And on the less splendid side, there is Walmart’s social network - The Hub.  Only ten weeks after the big launch, the site was shut down after a poor reception because it seemed no one wanted to give this other massive American corporation any information about themselves at all.  (In fact I don’t think there’s any mystery here.  The Nike brand was already part of grassroots running communities everywhere, whereas Walmart were seen to be paying lip service).  Which all begs the question why do some open projects work and some do not?  Clearly there has been no shortage of debate on this subject online over the past few years.  However, I thought the blog post by Jono at Mozilla Labs offered a succinct critique - ‘Openness is a lot of work’.  He observes that overuse of the ‘open’ label has meant that, ‘people are starting to attribute near-magical powers to it.'  Furthermore, 'Openness is a policy choice, not a replacement for old-fashioned hard work. I happen to think it’s a good policy choice in many cases: An organization that is open to outside ideas and criticism will learn faster about its own mistakes. It can build more trusting relationships with its users, because it doesn’t have to keep secrets. It attracts self-motivated contributors, and it get more diversity of viewpoints. There’s that old mantra about how, ‘with enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow’”.  Jono then decries the rise of some marketing crowdsourcers who assume that just the act of setting up a blog will bring Nike+ style benefits to any project, when the more likely outcome is virtual tumbleweed and awkward client briefings as an analysis of the participants reveals a list of agency friends and family.  ‘Successful open organizations aren’t just unorganized mobs,’ he notes. However, it seems that lessons are being learnt. I put up a Tweet about Jono’s blog post this week and a very lively, little meme began, powered by people who seemed all too well aware, maybe after difficult experiences in the area, of the challenges that ‘openness’ represents for a marketing industry that still prefers to pay than earn.

Comments

[Daniel Jeanes]

I completely agree about openness being the way to go. When a brand can show its customers it's open to interacting with them, willing to listen to then and capable of taking their feedback, good or bad, and utilising it within their strategy, then they are creating lasting relationship which will transfer into the real world and result in long term brand loyalty.

Brands which don't show the same levels of openness and transparency, and possibly worse seem fake in their attempts at openness, are just deterring potential audiences and risking losing market shares.

[James Cherkoff]

Thanks Daniel, any thoughts about what makes openness work or not work?

[Daniel Jeanes]

I believe that being legitimately honest and consistent to the brands ethos is the key. People believe Nike because they see Nike as a forward thinking and innovative company that uses modern technology in order to enhance their performance and that honestly cares about the performance of its customers, even if that concern is bourn of the desire to create a desirable brand through the positive word of mouth of happy customers.

People didn't believe Wal-Mart cared about them or legitimately wanted to create an interactive and mutually beneficial relationship, they saw them as wanting to cipher information from them that they could use to sell them more, enhancing their reputation as a cold and faceless corporate machine.

Do you agree?

[James Cherkoff]

Thanks Daniel.

The shorthand I use is that only companies who are having 'credible conversations' in the eyes of the consumer will make it work. Easier said than done. I'm sure WalMart thought their conversation was credible but for some reason their customers didn't see it that way. I think Nike were already having a conversation with the running community and so Nike+ had credibility and felt and smelt like a fair exchange ie services for data.

That said, I still think it's interesting that people are prepared to hand over fairly detailed information about their lives (eg location, running habits, even their heart rates http://bit.ly/9RUBCU)to Nike, which is, after all, a massive Fortune 500 US corporation...

[Daniel Jeanes]

Very good point, Nike have a good reason which is ingrained into their corporate agenda to interact closely with their customers, which is why their conversation seems more credible. Maybe the customers of WalMart didn't feel they had any right to be asking the questions they were?

[James Cherkoff]

Nike are also very big on hiring authentic people, or people who are authentic to their business I should say, ie ex-sportsmen. Sometimes to a slightly weird degree. I once read that their most hardcore internal corporate advocates are called Ekins and sometimes have the Nike Swoosh tattooed on themselves! I also heard that Nike+ was dreamt up by some such ardent running advocate within the business and so always had that grassroots sensitivity.

That said, I'm not sure what grassroots for Walmart would really look like...?

[Daniel Jeanes]

I live in Wales so I haven't got a clue what Walmart stands for, but the Nike "Ekins" getting the tattoos of the slogan is an excellent example of companies creating tribes, which is the highest level of brand loyalty possible.

Harley Davidson are similar, they've created a tribe of comsumers who have Harley Davidson key rings, tattoos, clothes, etc, and associate themselves as Harley Davidson people.