I'm still processing the many great insights from the next09 conference in Hamburg, Germany, one of Europe's leading digital-creative-marketing forums. This year's theme was "Share Economy," and the 1,300 attendees consisted of European VCs and angel investors, Web 2.0 entrepreneurs, media, creative agencies, and executives from German corporations (from BMW and Deutsche Bank to Deutsche Telekom).
Jeff Jarvis: "The Great Restructuring"
The first day, the keynote day, was a little disappointing, maybe because expectations were so high. Jeff Jarvis warmed up the crowd with his trademark "What Would Google Do?" PowerPoint deck. While a terrific thinker and speaker, for some reason he and the audience did not really click although he presented a lot of thought-provoking content. The rather stiff response may be attributed to the fact that the attendees were either too familiar with what they heard or felt slightly overwhelmed. Or maybe they were indeed excited--but too German to show it…
Umair Haque, who followed Jarvis, faced an even tougher, albeit partly self-inflicted challenge: explaining the new paradigm of "Constructive Capitalism" in 45 minutes. That's like asking Marx to walk you through his Communist Manifesto in Twitter. It didn't help, certainly, that Haque used the much gushed-about Prezi presentation software; all the zooming in and out was dizzying and, if anything, exposed the lack of stringency in his outline.
Fortunately, Haque had an opportunity to correct this first impression and reiterate some of his thoughts on a panel with Jarvis a day later, which turned out to be a much more suitable format for his ideas on the transformation of capitalism. He also took the occasion to rebut the attacks of Andrew Keen ("The Cult of the Amateur"), who, on the opening day, had chastised Haque (and all the other thinkers he considers to be under the dark influence of Silicon Valley) for propagating rampant free market liberalism and a dangerous new radical individualism in the guise of the social, consumer-empowered share economy that the conference was celebrating. Keen poignantly remarked that Twitter was getting us back into the 18th century, rather than liberating us from institutional hierarchies. He said it would reinforce an old power structure and an all too human division of roles, between those who follow and those followed.
Andrew Keen: "Digital Vertigo"
Jeff Jarvis & Umair Haque: "When Money Talks"
Keen accused Haque et al of naivete and insisted that Google and the other Web juggernauts were not "leveling the playing field" through link love (by sharing the scarcest resource on the web: attention), as Haque had claimed, but were rather using it to expand their pursuit of world dominance. In Keen's eyes, Google's openness is nothing but a suave mechanism to foment a monopoly in the attention markets. In the same vein, a party pooper in the audience asked Jarvis: "If free sharing is the future of business, why doesn't Google share its page rank algorithm?" Jarvis' response wasn't all too convincing, "concerns over malicious abuse of the data." So much for radical transparency and trust as overriding principles in the share economy.
To Google's (and Jarvis') defense, one could counter with Haque's sharp line: "When we're all hyper-connected, the cost of evil goes up." True. Moreover, Google does provide real value as it has created a win-win-win business model (advertisers, consumers, Google) that is vastly different from the toxic chunk Haque bemoaned in the nonsustainable and ultimately value-free products that toppled capitalism as we knew it: the Hummer, fast food, derivatives, and so on. And yet, if advertising is the admission that you have a mediocre product, and that it is in fact an expression of "failure," as Jarvis put it, then it is hard to reconcile this view with the fact that advertising remains the main revenue stream in the very Google economy from which Jarvis wants us all to learn.
Despite the flaws in Jarvis' and Haque's thinking, however, I am eager to defend them. It's easy to deconstruct constructive visions of the future as ill-informed descriptions of present realities but it is a much bigger task to actually come up with a positive vision. Keen, the rebel with a good cause, does nothing but throwing a bomb, which he readily admits, but he falls short of offering an alternative to the frameworks Jarvis and Haque and others provide in response to the fundamental crisis of capitalism.
Google wouldn't care about any of this intellectual arm-wrestling all that much. It is fully consumed with doing what it does best: firing out beta-products and services, successfully failing by failing rapidly. One mistake that it made, however, may arguably have lasting implications. It didn't buy Twitter. And so the question, it seems, is no longer "What would Google do?" but "What will Twitter do?" Does Twitter mark the beginning of the end of the Google economy?
Jyri Engeström, who sold Twitter-competitor Jaiku to Google and is now a Google employee, might have a clue. On a panel with social media guru Chris Messina he offered some good insights on microblogging trends on the Web and defended the new Google Profiles ("you have to opt in"). Messina seconded him and brought up another interesting point that established the context for upcoming business models in the Twitter economy: the "glocalization" of Twitter. He described how Twitter is failing to extend the real-time conversation to the whole world, simply because of time zone differences: one part of the world is always sleeping when you're tweeting. The instant social Web conversation is therefore asynchronous, after all, and it is an interesting thought experiment to envision services that bridge the time zone gap and deliver tweets when the recipients can actually receive them (keeping them on the top of the feed), almost like an echo across time zones. What if the real value of real-time was the delivery of tweets when it really mattered?
The whole time dimension of Twitter is uncharted but valuable territory, and there are other add-ins, integrators, and localization services that will emerge in this vibrant new ecosystem. The conversation on the social Web is as rich as the human communication (if not richer), and it is just beginning to fully emerge.
What everyone agreed on at next09 is that the next big frontier on the Web (and in the Twitter economy) is how businesses talk to their customers. We are witnessing an irrevocable convergence of players. Conversational services such as Twitter and Yammer are moving into the social networking space and are acquiring the credentials of social networks and collaboration tools, while traditional social networking sites such as XING, LinkedIn, or Facebook are embedding conversational features to catch up with the irresistible pull of real-time communication.
For both groups, and, in fact, for all other companies, Umair Haque's advice is golden: Take one of the big ideals (democracy, peace, transparency, equality, and so on) and apply it to an ailing industry that is in need of transformation or at least some serious disruption: health care, finance, news, energy, government--you name it. Combine that with the principles of the Twitter economy--transparency, instantification, collaboration, and free sharing--and you have a winner.
(Credit:
PR Blog)
By Kristina Loring
With the Twittersphere reaching critical mass, lots of companies are establishing accounts to speak directly with customers, monitor their brand, and respond to questions and rumors. Most of them are using the microblogging service to become more transparent and as a trustworthy resource for their followers, while also exposing a more personable aspect of their brand.
Here are some examples, researched by Brilliant Ink, a communications agency specializing in strategic messaging and content development:
- Ford used Twitter to host conversations and answer criticisms during the recent federal loan hearings in DC: http://twitter.com/scottmonty. Scott Monty is Ford's social media manager and often uses Twitter to enable people to ask questions of Ford execs. Ford also held a chat featuring its CEO Alan Mulally at #FordCEO.
- Microsoft is partnering with Exectweets, a Twitter chat room of sorts for executives.
In addition, there are several companies that do a good job fostering customer service and engagement via Twitter and occasionally focus on a particular discussion topic:
- Dell: http://twitter.com/delloutlet
- HR Block: http://twitter.com/hrblock
- Comcast: http://twitter.com/comcastcares
- Zappos: http://twitter.com/zappos
- Marriott Hotels: http://twitter.com/MarriotIntl (the hotel chain used Twitter to communicate with customers in during the recent bombings in Mumbai)
How exactly one is supposed to use Twitter is still up for interpretation, but these companies seem to be doing it the right way, especially in contrast to those that have chosen to use their Twitter accounts as nothing more than a means of self-promotion (essentially using Twitter as an extension of their RSS feed). These companies most often find themselves broadcasting to an absent/vacant audience. A stark reminder was the recent controversy over Land Rover's use of social media in an ad campaign, and the fact that some Twitterers were paid to contribute, sparking discussions about the risks of "sponsored hashtags."
Organized Twitter chats are a particularly effective vehicle to provide entry points for consumers to engage with companies around specific topics, events, or issues that are meaningful to them. More and more companies are beginning to use these kinds of "hashtag conversations" (using the hash symbol (#) in front of a keyword is a familiar convention for Twitter users; it allows people to search for and follow specific conversations).
Brilliant Ink studied to what extent these conversations offer an opportunity for consumers to truly inform the company's priorities and perspectives around specific topics. One of the brands it examined was PepsiCo. At the end of April, the softdrink company began #PepTrends, an organized conversation around global trends. The moderator introduced a number of trend themes to the conversation, and the most popular topic turned out to be "social media and marketing." There were more than 1,400 individual tweets from the participants, and 171 people registered to take part in the chat. This was PepsiCo's first moderated hashtag conversation, following a very successful South by Southwest engagement where the company had used Twitter and blogs to interact with customers.
Another brand that has been able to amplify its voice through Twitter is Growing Bolder, an organization comprised of former journalists and other professionals interested in issues concerning those over the age of 50. The company hosts a chat tagged #ageop and describes the event as a "weekly informal think tank." It is facilitated by a guest host who asks questions to get the conversation going, but the discussion is fluid with participants introducing newsworthy issues of the week. Topics have ranged from President Obama's first 100 days in office to health care to prom memories. Participants also recently called on State Farm to join in a conversation about insurance -- which brings up an interesting dynamic. Will larger companies such as State Farm respond (or not) to activist- and issue-based groups like Growing Bolder? Indeed, can organized Twitter conversations online translate into offline social organization and action?
At frog design, we recently hosted a #froghealth Twitter chat on the subject of mobile health. Participants included our own health care experts, members of the press, and external health care professionals. Originally planned as an internal experiment to explore the use of Twitter, the chat turned into a discussion about a redefinition of health care and a restructuring of the health care system. External participants noted the event on their own accounts and joined in. One participant of the conversation called it "curated crowdsourcing." In the end, the Twitter chat provided a new way to have a frank discussion with our customers and with experts in the field about on-the-ground concerns.
If you want to host a moderated Twitter chat yourself, here are Brilliant Ink's General Guidelines:
- Determine the format (there are three options): 1. Create a free-flowing discussion where anyone can say anything germane to the topic; 2. Establish a structured agenda where the organizer asks questions and gives participants a set time to answer before moving on; 3. Feature a guest speaker, where s/he answers participants' questions and gives advice.
- Use the first 10 minutes for introductions.
- Don't allow pitching of participants' businesses until the final 10 minutes.
- Take banter or irrelevant chat offline ( remove the #) so as not to hijack the conversation.
- Use a specific account to represent the brand for the chat (@frogdesign) vs. a personal account.
- Never disparage or dismiss ideas or comments.
- Participants expect a 1:1 relationship, so the exchanges need to be conversational.
(Credit:
Life2Go)
Has it finally arrived, the post-advertising age? Advertising Age, nomen est omen, recently ran a story on the blurring line between commercial and editorial content, as media companies are facing a fiercely competitive marketplace amid declining advertising budgets (according to the Newspaper Association of America, advertising revenue in 2008 decreased by 17 percent, to $38 billion), and the looming crisis of the news industry as a whole (see Clay Shirky’s seminal essay on "Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable").
As if to further prove the point, the Los Angeles Times carried a Page 1 advertisement on Thursday that craftily confused news and commercial messaging, and consequently sparked a public outcry. Obviously (but not too obviously) labeled as "advertisement" in the top line of the column, the ad for the new NBC cop show "Southland" simulated a mix of news story and critic's review, including a headline ("Southland's Rookie Hero") and the mentioning of a "reporter" following the story. The last paragraph of the story then disclosed the premiere of the TV series.
The NBC ad is not the first prominent commercial message on newspaper front pages. Driven by economic concerns, The New York Times recently sold the first ad in its history on the traditionally "pure" front page of its print edition. And the largest Finnish daily Helsingin Sanomat even sold its entire front page to Apple for an iPhone ad (see picture above). But these ads--however intrusive to the editorial integrity--were still clearly marked as ads.
The LA Times coup is unprecedented: no other major news paper to date has ever run an ad on Page 1 that's tip-toeing on the border to editorial content.
The NBC ad is an example of "fake authenticity," and before you condemn the concept as unethical, ask yourself this: isn't fake authenticity the main ingredient of every compelling story? What if storytelling (branded or not) is the actual domain of news outlets?
In any case, the LA Times' experiment indicates a trend that seems irreversible. The Post-Advertising blog nails the growing sentiment among marketers and media folks: "Just as brands need to be publishers, so publishers need to be marketing agencies that can create opportunities for brands to tell their stories, as well as helping to craft the stories they tell.
At a moment in history when ads are giving ground fast to immersive and informative experiences, publishers need to quit selling space and start selling their ability to help tell and host media experiences." And furthermore: "Traditional media need to transform themselves at least partly into content-based marketing services organizations. They need gradually to quit working with media buying and advertising agencies, which keep relegating them to their traditional roles."
On the flip side, Allan Moore urges advertisers "to change the currency of advertising--from display to something that is more like a service, that enables people. That is more relevant, more contextual, more life-enabling. That is where the money is."
While this sounds like a perfect marriage, advocates of traditional journalism will cry foul over any potential crossover. Yet even they will acknowledge that there are only a few options left on the table for ailing newspapers, as they have no choice but to change their business models:
The first one is the "socialization" of newspapers through funding from community trusts, citizens (Spot.Us), or government subsidies, in order to remain a strong independent press.
The second one is the aggressive advertising route, further propelling a hybridization of editorial and commercial content (with advertorials replacing advertising).
The third and opposite option banks on content and a hypercustomization of articles, ideally monetized through micropayments (see Time's Mine model or the Swiss 20 Minutes micronewspaper for commuters).
A fourth model sees newspapers follow the maxim "If you cannot beat them, share with them." In a much discussed move, the Guardian recently announced its Open Platform initiative, allowing anyone to use Guardian content on its site or Web service.
The publication hopes to make money by requiring partners to carry its advertising as part of its terms and conditions. Instead of trying to charge users for content that can easily be duplicated for free, anyway, the Guardian lets anyone reprint and use its content, and then slaps ads on top of everything. Will it work? It's too soon to tell, but at any rate, it's a bold move.
For Time's Mine, the Guardian's Open Platform, and the LA Times' NBC ad, Albert Einstein's adage rings true: "Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new." And new it must be for newspapers, if they want to survive.
(Credit:
Wikia)
I wrote earlier that "marketing with meaning" has the ability to "activate" customers. An effective way to activate customers is by activating the dormant social networks they inhabit (often without even knowing it). While social networking has visualized the so-called six degrees of separation, all business transactions have a social component and can be seen as expressions of the underlying social micro-universes, the "worlds within worlds," in which--shifting time and place--individuals travel and interact. As marketers face the daunting challenge of connecting with fragmented audiences that are increasingly split into billions of social atoms populating myriad micro networks, activating dormant social networks is their foremost task.
KLM's Africa and China clubs, launched in 2007 and 2006 respectively, provide an interesting case study. The Dutch airline offers business customers the opportunity to meet fellow travelers who do business with or in either of these two regions, before take-off or during the flight, online and in person. KLM plays the role of the matchmaker and adds value to the otherwise somewhat value-free hours frequent travelers spend at airport lounges. It is the principle of the social networking site Dopplr, applied to the exclusive crowd of business or first-class travelers: connecting travelers who share the same connections. KLM prefilters the club members so that travelers who sign up for the exclusive network are warranted a certain quality of contacts.
The clubs are a win-win-win: trade groups and business offices from the travel regions are provided with a highly targeted way to advertise their services; travelers benefit from a true value-add and a richer travel experience; and, lastly, the clubs bolster KLM's reputation as an airline that cares about its customers. Of course, these networks already exist, they're just dormant. KLM does not make immediate revenue but it generates "social wealth" as long-term equity.
The KLM clubs exhibit all the characteristics of "meaningful marketing" (see chart below):
- Social: The clubs help people connect.
- Personal: The clubs are relevant for the people they serve, and the service is exclusive and highly personalized.
- Storytelling: The clubs make sense of disparate information, perspectives, and events. They facilitate crossing paths by creating--quite literally--a common goal and therefore a joint narrative.
- Disruptive: The clubs disrupt the usual travel routine; they make it comfortable for business travelers to leave their comfort zone and go off the beaten path to meet new people.
- Responsible: The clubs generate social capital by bringing together business people in pursuit of related goals. The KLM Club Africa, in particular, has helped African entrepreneurs to get in front of influential business executives (investors) conducting business in Africa.
(Credit:
Brown University)
AUSTIN, Texas--Someone blogged that South by Southwest Interactive is just like the Internet itself: disjointed, decentralized, scattered, fast, aggressive, random, fragmented, and so on.
In fact, the main commonality between the two may be that the number of attributes to describe them is infinite. Like the Internet, the annual tech conference here is an echo chamber of an echo chamber, a place where original thought and commentary get mixed up and mashed up in a highly self-referential meta conversation.
That was already the case before Twitter entered the scene at SXSW two years ago, but the microblogging service has certainly amplified the effect. It was both comical and frightening to see the uber-individualistic geeksters at SXSW captivated by the invisible rules of an ostentatious behavioral uniformity: within 1 mile of the convention center, you could observe the strange ritual of groups of people standing or sitting together, chained to their iPhones, twittering instead of talking: "SXSW. Twittering about SXSW."
The real conversation was often limited to a quick "What's your name?" or "Where's the next party?" just to have some input for the next tweet. It is indeed a read-write generation that is coming of age in the wake of an all-dominant present, with no particular loyalty to the past and maybe not even an interest in the future (see Peggy Orenstein's recent piece on "Growing up on Facebook" in The New York Times Magazine).
Yet the rise of the social digerati is unstoppable. New data by Nielsen Online shows that social-networking sites (which encompass social networks and blogs, by Nielsen's definition) are experiencing growth rates of twice as much as any of the main destination sites (search, portals, PC software sites, and e-mail). The time spent on social networks and blogging sites is growing at more than three times the rate of overall Internet growth. Furthermore, social networks are gaining traction among new audiences.
... Read more
(Credit:
Henry Chilcott)
Not only because a surgery conducted via Twitter made headlines the other day, Twitter is all the buzz (again). And it seems as if almost three years after its now-legendary debut at South by Southwest Interactive, the popular microblogging service has reached the second (or third) hype cycle, entering the business and media mainstream as the ultimate narrow--and broadcast--network.
As Joel Comm, CEO of InfoMedia and author of "Twitter Power," points out:
It's like the old saying, "People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care." People who use Twitter as only a broadcast system are missing out on 95 percent of its benefits...It's about staying top of mind.
If a brand was to run an ad campaign, and it reached only 1,000 people, it wouldn't be doing so well, but a brand can do very well with 1,000 followers on Twitter because of who they are, and how conversions can reverberate within the community and outside the community.
Consequently, everyone's writing about Twitter again (on and off Twitter), but the conversation orientation has shifted from "what is it?" to "how to"--a sure sign that it will not experience the same slow decline as "Second Life."
A new Pew study on "Twitter and Status Updating" discovers that Twitter users tend to be younger and more mobile than the general Internet population. They also consume more news through the Internet and tend to engage in social activities online differently than everyone else.
The report further says the average Twitter user is "overwhelmingly young," though the average age of a Twitter user is slightly higher than users of most other social-networking services. (Twitter's median age is 31, while Facebook's is 26, and MySpace's is 27.)
Nearly one in five (19 percent) of online adults ages 18 and 24 have ever used Twitter and its ilk, as have 20 percent of online adults 25 to 34. Use of these services drops off steadily after age 35, with 10 percent of 35- to 44-year-olds and 5 percent of 45- to 54-year-olds using Twitter. The decline is even starker among older Internet users: 4 percent of 55- to 64-year-olds and 2 percent of those 65 and older use Twitter.
Yet these numbers are likely to change, as Ars Technica predicts:
Given another few years, it won't be surprising to see widespread Twitter use spread to older and more general Internet users in the same way text messaging has spread to parents and families.
In fact, Twitter often only involves sending an SMS in the first place--maybe some of those parents can keep the momentum going after texting their kids, and start sending updates to Twitter, while they're at it.
The Pew study indicates that there will not only be opportunities for vertical twittering geared toward professionals (Yammer) but also for services tailored to certain age groups: think of a Twitter for seniors to stay in touch with their children and grandchildren as the next killer app.
And then there is what you could call moderated twittering--in other words, attempts to tame the conversation monster for the sake of attracting advertisers. Glam Media monetized its feed for the Academy Awards by offering marketers the chance to sponsor a filtered or edited version of the message stream during the awards ceremony.
As VentureBeat notes, the ad network's editors chose which tweets showed up in the stream and purged those that were inappropriate or off-topic, making it safer for brand advertisers. Aveeno sponsored the Oscars Twitter widget; Glam says it plans to expand the service, dubbed gWire, to include FriendFeed and Facebook streams for future events.
Other innovative ways of twittering can be found in the realm of visualization. Elizabeth Baranik, for example, points out how the ASAE Great Ideas Conference used Twitterfountain for a visually richer feed.
The medium is new, but the challenge is old: it's all about being different. Attention is the currency of any online (and offline) social interaction, and on Twitter, being retweeted is the "sincerest form of flattery," as AlwaysOn puts it (while also providing some suggestions as to how to achieve that).
In the fast, new Twitter, ergo sum world, the formula goes: the more popular your status updates, the higher your social status.
(Credit:
Blippr)
Definitely Techcrunch material: Can there be a trendier start-up than a site called Blippr that provides "micro-product reviews"?
With its 160-character length limit, the site replicates microblogging sites, and there are good reasons to assume that this format translates well to product reviews, as David Binkowski writes.
(Credit:
Florence20)
Nothing is more old news than the good old newspaper from yesterday. Silicon Alley Insider reports on the New York Times' attempt to counter the continued print media decline by establishing new revenue streams through its online initiatives. Marc Frons, chief technology officer of the Times' digital operations, provides cues as to where the company is placing its bets: "Widgets, iPhone apps, APIs, and more."
In essence, this means the Times is turning into a software company, applying the same business model philosophy "as many start-ups in Silicon Valley:" "Build neat tools, get traction, and then figure out how to make money off them later," as the Silicon Alley Insider describes it.
The Times' plans indicate a larger trend in the media industries: Responding to the effects of the "Distributed Internet," content companies have begun to compartmentalize their content and provide it through myriad, hyper-targeted, personalized, socially aggregated micro-channels. Hard content is becoming soft, and, who knows, maybe news will soon be coming straight from the "clowd," with Google serving as the only editorial filter.
(Credit:
Le Timbre)
After reading and talking so much recently about the concept of "democratic exclusivity" (first coined by Ed Cotton on the Influx Insights blog and then promoted by the relentless Piers Fawkes), I was delighted to finally experience it myself when I was strolling the streets of Paris last week. I spent a day (a micro-vacation!) in the not-so-touristy 6th district around Metro Vavin in Montparnasse (in fact, I rarely left it, which was a much more satisfying experience than zig-zagging from the left to the right bank all the time as I used to) and discovered "Le Timbre," (French for "the stamp"), a true micro-restaurant in the size of, yep, a stamp. Literally squeezed into a hole-in-the-wall, this place has a total of 12 tables and 24 tightly packed seats, and one is forced by proximity to engage accidental dining partners.
Space is not the only thing that's micro about "Le Stamp:" The fixed price menu is very limited with only two or three choices of every course. The chef is from Manchester, UK, but the food is French and excellent. Reservations are competitive but democratic: As with the Momofuku Ko restaurant in New York, status doesn't matter for landing one of the few tables; everyone can make a reservation, even on short notice. Nonetheless, the dining experience is exclusive -- the night I was there, the waiting line of people exceeded the number of guests still working on their meals, which struck me as a very obvious manifestation of "artificial scarcity." Blend scarcity and timing and you create buzz and intrigue, writes Ed Cotton. Oui!
(Credit:
SF Fan)
The miniaturization of matter has long been a human desire, and viewing the world from a smaller perspective is the core of many novels and movies. The idea of shrinking people for the purpose of traveling inside another human's body, in particular, has been frequently used in animated cartoons, including The Simpsons, Futurama, Beetlejuice, and SpongeBob SquarePants.
One of the most entertaining pieces in this genre is Fantastic Voyage, a science-fiction movie from 1966, which -- albeit not free of some severe logical flaws -- has lost none of its original appeal. Fantastic Voyage tells the story of a CIA-led group of agents and surgeons who attempt to save the life of a dying diplomat. The medical team gets on board a submarine that is miniaturized to one micrometer in length and then injected into the diplomat's body. The group has just one hour to repair the life-threatening clot; after that, the submarine will begin to revert to its normal size and become large enough for the diplomat's immune system to detect and attack.
Micro is the new macro
What does Fantastic Voyage have to do with marketing? A couple of things: First of all, in the movie, shrinking the matter (that is, the submarine and its passengers) is the only way to reach objects that occur on an entirely different scale. The same is very much true for today's marketing: In the attention-saturated, atomized markets of today, audiences recognize messages and events only within the blink of an eye and on a miniature scale. They happen for nanoseconds in the always-on presence of today's perception apparatus but they rarely have staying power. It is not the billboard we're seeing; it is the ad embedded in the news feed on Facebook. It is not the TV commercial we're recalling; it is the intimate party conversation. But the clots that pollute consumers' ability to pay attention are so small that we have to down-scale our marketing programs if we want to remove them and reach the audience. "Scaling a campaign" has taken on the opposite meaning: it now means down-sizing messages and the way they are communicated. Think of the influential bloggers whom you want to have evangelize your brand. Identifying and engaging them is like finding the needle in the haystack, and you can't find that from the bird's eye perspective. Moreover, in a second parallel to the movie, the "window of opportunity" is smaller. Because of shrinking attention-spans, the slots for marketers to grab attention are shrinking as well -- you need to get the submarine out before it will revert to its original size.
Marketing 0.1
This effect suggests a very different time horizon for marketers. Rather than planning and conducting long-term campaigns aimed at rubbing in a consistent message through prominence and repetition, marketers need to stay above the fray (or below the fray) by consistently varying their message and diversifying their communication channels. Rather than relying on one major focused traditional above-the-line program, they need to employ a combination of different tactics below-the-line. I call this new model "marketing 0.1" (as opposed to marketing 101), and the charts below may help illustrate the contrast:
(Credit:
frog design)
(Credit:
frog design)
The only marketing program that matters: Identify the micro-verses of your multiple audiences, track their constant evolution, and provide content (information and entertainment) that is relevant at a specific point in time, for a specific person, in a specific context. Other than that, it's all tactics and only little strategy. Change your marketing mix every week, every day, every hour -- and your voyage through the customer universe will be fantastic.
