I’ll Tell You What I Want – What I Really, Really Want

Many throughout the blogosphere have recommended “The Story of Stuff”, describing it as essential viewing.

Whenever people tell me something is good for me, visions of brussel sprouts riot through my brain and I find myself pursing my mouth tightly, avoiding the spoon and shaking my head in defiance.

Well, today I finally gave in and am forced to admit that, yes, it is very enlightening. There are many educational aspects to the video, but the description of the advertising cycle especially hits the nail right on the head.

So this post is about why I hate traditional advertising and where I hope it’s heading.

Look, a great deal of advertising does make me sick. As we all know, supply and demand has long not been a part of the equation. Often aimed at convincing consumers that they are “not good enough” without Product X, advertising bullies and insults the very consumers it is targetting and leaves them unfulfilled. The Story of Stuff illustrates this cycle beautifully.

I’ve certainly been caught in this hamster wheel. A key example: years ago, I subscribed to about 4-5 fashion magazines. (Confession: I don’t really “get” fashion, but I love makeup). Well, I’d get a steady dose of these mags and I realized, after reading/flipping though one of these things, that I’d suddenly gone from thinking I was a pretty decent looking broad who was fairly interesting and sometimes even cool, to feeling like an ugly, unfashionable, unsexy druid who should be living in a cave, avoiding all human contact.

To solve this I’d have to purchase something, of course, something of the make-up or clothing ilk. When I hand over my money to the cashier, I’d feel that sense of relief, and the sensation that I would soon be “cool and happy”. But that joy would always be short- lived. I wouldn’t even really feel so hot a few hours after the purchase – and the good feelings certainly didn’t last until the next slew of publications arrived at my door, at which point the process would begin again.

Eventually, I whittled away my fashion subscriptions down to one and am much saner for it. Oh, and I don’t have a television.

So when I mention the whole social/viral marketing thing, I can well understand that to most of my friends the words “adverting” and “marketing” are loaded words, jammed full of connotations about convincing people to purchase things they don’t need.

The thing is, I absolutely don’t want to be a part of creating a need for things that are needless.

In fact, I don’t think there is all that much that we really, really do need. This was made abundantly clear to me recently. Prior to moving in with my boyfriend, I had been staying at his place but hadn’t yet moved my stuff. And I realized that I didn’t really miss most of “my stuff” at all… I didn’t require most of it. Now, I’ve never even been all that materialistic to begin with, but even the books, tapes, CDs, videos and DVDs I dragged from abode to abode… many were clearly set decorations, there to prove that I was literate, or fun or interesting, or action-packed. I hadn’t read or watched most of them more than once…

Which brings me, in my general long-winded fashion, to my point about where things are heading.

Now the definition of “marketing” is essentially:
“the commercial processes involved in promoting and selling and distributing a product or service”

But some also deem it to be:
“The systematic planning, implementation and control of a mix of business activities intended to bring together buyers and sellers for the mutually advantageous exchange or transfer of products.” [emphasis added.]

Mutually advantageous? Really?

Yip. Some are focusing on how to get us to pick what we want amongst products we already intend to purchase.

Recently I came across this Meme Labs post delineating:

“[the] majority [of consumers] go online to ‘pre-shop’ for products and information. Before we undertake any in-person shopping, we want to “try on” brands online to see if they fit with our complex choice models of price, perception, and utility. That means pre-shopping product catalogs, readings reviews, comparing prices, etc. From there, we head into stores with a more educated perspective and spend more than our offline-only counterparts.”

Interesting – and so very true . I hadn’t articulated this concept of pre-purchase consumer activity online (the “try on”), but I certainly function this way. Recently, I was looking for books as gifts and for myself. The first thing I did was go to Amazon.com to see general prices, peak at the reviews and check out the “people who purchased this book also purchased” feature/recommendations.

I also often Google products before I set out to purchase. Products I already want, but for which I seek more information, price comparisons, opinions etc.

Some marketers actively look at the consumer to understand their needs and others capitalize on creating products for which there is a built-in market by utilizing Crowdsourcing.

Why? Because the way it has been going – isn’t working as well anymore. We are reaching our saturation point with advertising and hype.

AdHack is “A Do-It-Yourself Advertising Community.” Founder James Sherrett states:
“Today almost every single ad I see has no value to me. I don’t know the person or people who made it. I don’t trust the message and I frankly don’t care.”

Ad Hack– creates ads – but not the usual way. The site describes the concept as “all about real people telling real stories about their real experiences” and Sherrett states his intent as follows:

“My focus with AdHack is on how to get better ads – ads that mean something to the people who make them and ads that mean something to the people who watch / read / see / listen to them.”

On his Alphanauts site(temporarily down as I write this) the Alphanauts create (in casual committee) ads for products the team already supports and loves (e.g.: Siegel’s bagels , Indochino, Canon camera – all products suggested by the participants. (Full disclosure: I have participated in a few of these and love it.)

Simply put, advertising and marketing doesn’t have to be about influencing people to blindly consume goods that are disposable and unnecessary.

I am not naïve. I understand that there will likely always be a need to make us want things that we haven’t even considered. And some things we need we don’t know we really know we need until its invented/developed and promoted (technology is good that way).

But it is critical that we, as consumers, look at what we really need and work on getting out of the consumer hamster wheel.

There is some progression away from the crazed purchasing, into using evidence rather than hype, towards getting people to rally for products they already want. And, in general, a sway towards a more participatory and social system.

So it’s OK to hate the player and the game. Thankfully, the rules are changing.

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::

Crowdsourcing Series on One Degree

(Update:)

2 parts of my 4-part series on Crowdsourcing 101 are now up on One Degree.

Part 1: “Crowdsourcing – The Basics”: http://www.onedegree.ca/2007/12/crowdsourcing-1.html

&

Part 2: “Are You Afraid of the Crowds?”:
http://www.onedegree.ca/2008/01/crowdsourcing-1.html#more

Wow – You have totally missed the point

Sometimes that “Team America: World Police” song plays in my head…. (the same one, about “missing the point more than Michael Bay when he made Pearl Harbor”.) Such was the case when I was at a social marketing gathering the other night. One man (let’s call him “Man 1”) asked the other man (“Man 2”) seated next to me, why he was interested in social marketing.

Man 2 responded: “I want to learn how to use social marketing to exploit people for my own purposes.”

Man 1 was noticeably taken aback by the old school economics/marketing term, and commented something about how “exploit” was probably not in synch with social marketing.

Man 2 continued with the following justification: “Yeah, yeah, I know you guys might have words that ‘sound better’ – but you know what I mean. The point is: I want to make money. I don’t care who I step on to do it. So basically I’d like to create communities, make cash and MOVE ON.”

I wonder if people like this were 1) born/or developed a condition which destroyed their speech filter or 2) have no regard for how they come across. I guess the only parallel I can think of would be some guy coming up to a woman at a bar and saying “Look, I just want to screw. I don’t find you particularly attractive or interesting, but I’m deadly horny. Basically, I just want to fuck you – you can reach orgasm if you like, really I don’t give a shit, that’s not my concern. Just make sure you’re out of my bed when we’re done and I can move on. What do you say?”

Sure it’s great to be honest about one’s intentions (and I’d love to see this particular interaction filmed – especially to solve the mystery of which part of the guy would get punched), but this technique is highly unlikely to work and there are so many far more respectful ways of conveying your message.

But I guess that’s part of what irked me so – the lack of respect – especially for communities. His comments were also all entirely contradictory to the point of social marketing.

Had I thought this guy was the least bit interested in being informed, I would have said something. In fact, I should have said something regardless, rather than continue to seethe and think “WTF?” repeatedly, until I finally sat down days later to rant about it in this post.

So, where do I begin?

OK, one: it’s called “social marketing” not “pillage and rape marketing” – that’d be my first point.

Secondly, as the book “We are Smarter than Me” (which I will be reviewing for One Degree in December. Couldn’t resist the self-promotion…) puts it so wisely: building online communities “is not a one night stand”.

Thirdly, social marketing is about relationships, genuine relationships, communities and communication that is more than one-directional.

A few words from other bloggers (and social marketing enthusiasts) that I hope add to what I am trying to express:

Rastin Mehr put it well in the following post:“Community governors do not own the community members. The Internet is a democratic place…”

Joe Solomon states: “A wide array of web sites that have been born in the new Web 2.0 bubble bring people together not just for the sake of coming together – but to create something more. Wikipedia is the obvious example. …Wikipedia wouldn’t exist without its users and continues to grow as more people use it and contribute.” Joe goes on to note the concept of collaboration in Web 2.0.

Further, Enthusiast Group produced the excellent White Paper: “Enabling the Social Company” by Steve Outing which expressed the following views so succinctly:

“There are great benefits for a company to host an online community/social network. You are providing a place to bring people together to share common interests and find each other. You’re giving them an avenue to converse with your company directly. All good stuff.

But woe is the company that screws this up. Treat your community of customers and enthusiasts of your brand inappropriately, and your “bad” behavior will be amplified across the web. Ouch.”

And:

“Treat your relationships with consumers as long-term conversations. Don’t just devise shortterm programs that open up the conversation for brief periods. Figure out how to become “friends” with your customers. Friends talk to each other, over the long haul.”

And, finally:

“Learn to view your customers in a different light. You used to treat them as “dumb” buyers or recipients of what you offered. But they’re smart. (Well, lots of them, anyway.) Recognizing that they have the power, now, to talk back and broadcast their opinions about your brand, you have no choice but to treat them differently — more carefully, and with more respect than you may have in the past.”

Amen. Respect. I like that word.

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::

Social Networking for Boomers – “Meh?” Well, Maybe “Yeh!”

My article on marketing to Boomers is on One Degree!

http://www.onedegree.ca/2007/10/social-networki.html

Quick Notes on Elastic Path’s Social Marketing Webinar

Last week I attended the Elastic Path webinar “The Secret of Social Media Marketing”. Neil Patel of ACSSEO spoke about e-commerce marketing through social networking/media. The broadcast was highly informative. Linda Bustos’ recap is very thorough and she adds some nice suggestions, so I will just point out some key points here.

You can leverage the Blogosphere by:

1) creating something worthy for bloggers
2) finding bloggers who blog on similar topics (see Technorati, for instance)
3) writing them a short custom message (short, simple and customized to the blogger)
4) then, let it be (i.e. don’t harass)

Re: Social media sites (Digg, Youtube, Del.icio.us etc.) :

1) When you submit content (articles, video etc.) for any of the social media sites, make sure that most of your submissions are not yours and/or directly related to your business. When you develop a reputation for providing content that is interesting to others you will gain a fan base/virtual friends and build your profile.

2) Then when you eventually submit your own content you will get more attention and more mileage (link-bait).

3) In general, your own content should be useful and link-able. Do not produce mere advertising for your company/product. Rather produce an informative, useful article that stands on its own. This will benefit you far more than a cut-and-dry commercial.

I enjoyed most of the tips on the webinar, though I wouldn’t suggest the (debatable) “spammy” procedures. One quick note to Neil though: I bristle at the repeated suggestions to hire students for grunt work and pay them $6/hr. People deserve to be paid a fair and livable wage. By doing this, you set a fair standard and establish working relationships based on mutual respect.