Modern Marketing - Blog by Collaborate PR & Marketing

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."

Through The Chaos...

When AdAge’s maverick journalist Bob Garfield rang me in 2005 to say he had been reading the manifesto I had written that February and wanted me to help him out with an article, I was both flattered and impressed.  (He could easily have pinched everything without attribution).  Garfield had created quite a storm that year on Madison Avenue with his polemic entitled: 'Chaos Scenario - A Look at the Marketing Industry's Coming Disaster'.  It was a vision of media meltdown that at the time seemed more like doom-mongering than prescience, as the world’s credit markets continued to pump out a never-ending supply of cash.  However, looking back in the context of today’s bleaker times, it isn't nearly as outrageous.  Google’s annual revenues have gone from $3bn to $20bn since Garfield’s warning note.  Meaning the company’s grip over the newspaper industry has become a stranglehold.  When a group of German publishers tried to challenge the Googleplex last week, the response from Mountain View was to the point: 'If you don't want to show up in Google search results, it doesn't require more than one or two lines of code,' blogged a Google executive in response.  Going on to add the chilling reminder for those tempted to actually add the innocuous script that: 'Google delivers more than a billion consumer visits to newspaper web sites each month.'   This unenviable pinch between Google’s rock and the hard place of Craig’s List has of course left many famous US newspapers reeling.  And now the pain is being felt in the UK too.  Most notably in TV where analysts are no longer mincing their words: 'This is horrible, a worrying sign that we didn’t want that perhaps the issue is structural and not just cyclical due to the recession.'  Garfield’s doomsday scenario did in fact end on a high: 'What emerges from the ruins will be superior in every way to what it replaced. Better for marketers, better for the economy'.  And the follow-up essay (the one I helped out with): 'Inside the New World of Listenomics - How the Open Source Revolution Impacts Your Brands,' was an upbeat assessment of what lay beyond the chaos, including many forecasts that have come to fruition.  Fast forward to today and Garfield’s ongoing assessment of the emerging media world can be found on his new blog, 'The Chaos Scenario' - to which he has asked me to contribute.  The aim of the blog is to move the conversation on beyond the doom and gloom that everyone is feeling today - as well as help sell his book!  'The question for business – as well as government, religion, science, politics, academia and every other institution hitherto operated from the top down – is what to do now,' Garfield writes.  Don't you agree...?

The Danger Of Likeminds (And Facebook)

Many thanks to the splendid Ian Collingwood for this thoughtful counterblast to my last post: "This  "circling of wagons" that you describe may be attractive, (especially for marketers) but is it, in fact, socially damaging? Surrounding yourself with "like-minded" people might feel good from the inside, but really you're building an echo-chamber for your own opinions - and I think that may be harmful to society as a whole. I'm not a fan of building walls, and I believe that it's not a huge leap from "like-minded" to "narrow-minded". Already this is happening in the real world - last week's Economist noted research showing that people in the States are increasingly choosing to live amongst those who share identical political views to themselves. I believe such communities are likely to be socially impoverished (not to mention, tedious and bland) and will tend towards the development of increasingly polarised and intolerant viewpoints. This cannot be a good thing in our current world. If this trend towards actively removing oneself from hearing or seeing anything that challenges one's viewpoint is replicated online through services like Facebook then I feel we will lose something enormously valuable. The Internet has always been a place for vigorous, challenging debate. Long may that continue".  Open ID for you then Ian...? ;-)

Open Data And The Dangers Of Moats

As all studious web watchers know, the next wave of internet innovation has been brewing for some time, as massive amounts of data has been pumped onto the web and made available for people to share-and-compare, play with and link to.  Yes, prepare yourselves people, The Web Of Data is on the way.  A world in which databases sit out on the web instead of behind firewalls, allowing new powerful styles of collaboration.  For corporations that have built competitive advantage around IP and black box business models the idea of data being open on the web is, to say the least, a bit scary.  However, in reality, it's just the next step along the journey that the web is inviting the world to take.  Initially, the notion of sharing documents on the web seemed unwise, then opening up personal information on social networks appeared risky.  But both have quickly become the norm, and of course are made up of data.  So this next evolution is just more of the same.  None of which will stop the corporate fear rising however.  In the same way that strange ideas emerged about the dangers of sharing company information using simple social media tools, peculiar fears will surface at the prospect of sharing databases that have previously been held under lock, key and firewall.  In fact, many of these fears are based on misconceptions and misguided analysis.  For instance, in the corporate world ‘open’ is often translated as ‘anarchic’.  Despite the fact that, as with blogs and social networks, there is plenty of control built into new 'open' systems.  For example, if you don't want the crazies to...

Can The Big Egos Please Leave The Building

Most marketing agencies have a few big egos knocking around, often in the creative department.  Frequently the belief is that such individuals are required to come up with the Big Ideas that clients love so much - the brand propositions that everyone in a company can convene around and CEOs can sink the big bucks into.  Sometimes these individuals are able to get away with *ahem* unusual behaviour because it is excused as the flip side of their Big Thinking.  However, this breed may well be coming to the end of its life-cycle.  Why?  As marketing communications become more about pull than push, community over control, peer power not promotion, the personalities involved will reflect that.  Skillful community managers tend to be thoughtful folk - and good listeners to boot.  They are blessed with a natural curiosity about people and an ability to promote the views of others.  Or in other words, a mental make-up that is diametrically opposed to that of your typical Creative Director.  Take Craig Newmark for example, founder of craigslist and one of the world's most successful online community managers.  He has built a 'community service' that covers 570 cities in 50 countries and serves twenty billion page impressions a month.  However, despite being one of the web world's real superheroes, Newmark is best known for his modest profile, including a job title that remains, 'Customer Service Representative'.  Indeed, the idea of a Big Idea seems to be entirely irrelevant to Newmark who says his online empire was built with, 'no vision whatsoever', and that it's, 'all about listening and then listening some more'.  His focus was purely to build a, 'culture of trust'.  Which, of course, all makes a lot of sense.  It's perfectly evident that people would want to join a community based on Newmark's guiding principles of, 'giving people a break' and, 'treating others as you want to be treated'.  Compare this to communities driven by the brand-as-hero school:  my favourite example of which remains Wal-Mart's short-lived community site, The Hub.  The network launched with a range of fun tools for customers to play with, including an invite to create a list of the things they would like to buy at, er, Walmart.  It was the online equivalent of an ego-maniacal CD - 'Enough about me - how do you like my hair?'.  So next time you are with a Big Thinker who is being 'difficult', just relax and let them talk.  Take heart in the fact that the world has heard everything they have to say.  And is just about to switch them off.

Picking Up Your Customers' Breadcrumbs

As the UK Parliament prepares to publish to the world 1.2 million receipts, invoices and bills from MPs' expenses claims, the media awaits to rummage through the detritus.  After all, it’s the tiny details about each others lives that fascinate us, right?  I sniggered along with everyone else about the viewing habits of Mr Jacqui Smith.  But it was the Home Secretary’s eighty-eight pence claim for a bath plug that caught my attention.  And I'm not alone it seems.  It’s this natural interest in sharing and comparing the details of our lives (intended or not) that makes the social web tick over.  For a long time, such titbits were left online only by geeks and the technorati.  However, now that forty-three per cent of the UK’s online population are members of Facebook, these trails of digital breadcrumbs are becoming more common.  It's easy to see these digital trails as banal.  Individual instances about breakfast habits, for instance, can appear quite pointless. However, when viewed as ongoing narratives, they become rich representations of peoples' lives. Narratives to which we can all relate.  For the marketing industry these breadcrumb trails should be viewed with delight, particularly during economically difficult times.  With a few simple tools, and a curious individual or two, it quickly becomes possible for a brand to...

When Your Customers Connect

The infrastructure of the web is in constant flux, which is, of course, why it’s so interesting.  However, occasionally a new fault line appears, often over a long period of time, that changes the landscape in a more fundamental way.  The new set of identity standards that have emerged in recent times, under the simple guise of reducing the number of log-ins you need to remember, are exactly that.  At first Facebook Connect, OAuth, OpenSocial and OpenID seem to be basic devices to get around the annoyance of multiple usernames and passwords.  Handy - but no big deal.  However, in fact, they are solutions to one of the main sources of friction on the web.  Currently, as you move from one social network to another, you may as well be moving between countries, setting up a new life in each.  Meet new friends, send some postcards to contacts and family from the old country, and then check out the tourist trail.  Hey, if you want to be a bit more glamorous in this new city, then you can be.  Your old friends aren’t there to ruin the illusion.  My usual cocktail please!  But the new identity standards are about to ruin this party.  And once we’ve got over the shock, we’ll all remember that it’s your real friends and family that count.  We’ll quickly get used to the idea that...

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...

Social Networking - No Longer Just For The Kids

For a long time, social media was just for 'the kids'.  However, one of the most interesting recent online trends has been the take up of social networks by older groups.  For instance, Nielsen's latest research notes that a whopping forty-seven per cent of people who are online in the UK now use Facebook.  Furthermore, the report notes that, if recent trends were to continue, "by mid-June 2009 there would be as many 35-49 year olds on Facebook as 18-34 year olds."  With such developments in mind, the supersonic Danah Boyd has written up a great (and short) talk here emphasising that now social media is the norm, the time has come to focus on its uses rather than the technology itself.  Boyd's work is academic in style, but a couple of sections caught my eye: "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?".  And when it comes to product development:  "We can continue to design and deploy, but one of the amazing things that is happening in the realm of social media is that folks are starting to iterate with their users. This creates an interesting opportunity for us. We need to be able to evolve with our products as people begin to use it. This can be quite tricky, especially for folks who are used to a build, test, and deploy methodology. As a developer, you are no longer simply an author of software. You are an actor in a process in which software is being developed and repurposed. The key lesson from the rise of social media for you is that a great deal of software is best built as a coordinated dance between you and the users."

Are You Reading Or Sharing?

Thanks to everyone who added their thoughts to the last post about the ongoing confusion in marketing metrics.  Typical of the helpful comments was this one from Nick Buckley from Gfk NOP : "We should stop trying to measure our ability to control and transmit the message - since the ultimate implication of this is that the message has to depart from 'the truth' about our products and services, in order to compensate for the gap between 'the truth' and what we desire people to think and do.  Instead - assuming that social media, and related developments, create ever more transparency and scrutiny of our claims and our performance we should; be open and honest, make good things, provide good services, and *listen* as if our livelihoods depended upon it. [Which they do]."  Nick also liked Charles' idea that we should be thinking, "about the different engagement experiences," to understand better the contrasts between people reading media and the sharing activity that takes place in social environments.  All of which Kevin thought could be explored as different reading "modes".  Whatever the answer, Eaon would like it sooner than later because if he can't offer, "engagement metrics that clients can buy," then search and display models are the ineffective defaults that fill the void.  However, Rory MacDonald suggests we might need a more radical change of viewpoint, possibly viewing all social activity as being too complex to measure in the normal way.  "Do you think Nike are worried about the metrics on Nike Plus?", he adds?  (Evidently not.)  Thanks to everyone for the input - genuinely inspiring.