It is a good idea to trace this to the history and growth of organizations in the industrial age. This was the age where efficiency was the focus. Organizations were built around driving productivity. People were trained to do things over and over again - faster and quicker. For over a century, people worked in an era of mass production. Hence, they forgot the ability to develop conversations. They worked in large organizations that told them what to do rather than get them to explore what to do.
We therefore moved from
an era of 'inventory of goods' to an era of 'inventory of ideas'.
an era of 'scarcity' to an era of ' insatiable choices'
an era of ' information poverty' to an era of 'information overload'
Imagine the kind of shift they would have to make for this new eco-system. They had to express, share and collaborate to get prepared for such an environment. This is a new work culture altogether for them. Also, one-size-fits-all product strategy became irrelevant.
Conversation at the end of the day is two-way. Conversations require
A capability to accept reality as it were because that's how consumers talk amongst themselves
Ability to listen and respond in an unbiased manner
Skills to experiment,learn and develop
Ability to change the course of one's action swiftly, even if the decision was wrong
Hence, they were not ready for a conversation era. An environment where one has to express, empathize, engage, enable and empower. The mindset a marketer must have is not to 'inform at any cost' but 'spread at no cost'. This is a new marketing paradigm that demands new thinking, new rules and new ideas.
Styling itself the 'World's Biggest Creative Department', OpenAd is a relatively minor Slovenian-owned internet business with just thirty-nine staff worldwide. Yet some see it as the shape of things to come - maybe, even, the writing on the wall for traditional ad agencies.
However, OpenAd MD Katarina Skoberne stresses the venture isn't competing with agencies. She insists it simply supplements the use by clients of freelance creatives. "We are not an online ad agency, we are merely a resource of creative material," she says.
Although registered in Switzerland, OpenAd's sales and marketing arm operates out of London while the global support centre is based in Slovenia.
Membership of the exchange is free to the 5,000-plus creatives on OpenAd's register. Explains Skoberne: "Anyone who has registered as a creative supplier - and anyone can - is free to answer the brief, or not, as they choose. Clients pay an initial set membership fee to join OpenAd, then a licence fee for the ideas they use."
"This allows them to post briefs on the site and view existing ideas, paying somewhere between $3000 and $100,000 depending upon the number of pitches they want to hold, the number of categories they want to access and the number of [client] staff who have access."
Among those who have used OpenAd is UK-based charity Comic Relief. Enthuses Amanda Horton-Mastin, new media director: "Make Poverty History was a global campaign and the thing about OpenAd is that it opens the window to global ideas, even for very small clients. It was quick, it was cheap, and the idea we chose was excellent."
Another client is Emap's men's magazine FHM which has used OpenAd three times in the past two years. "We started off with one-off tactical promotions and recently asked for a full-blown branding campaign," says marketing manager Ben Cordle.
"The creative response was fantastic. It gave us access to heavyweight creative talent and saved us thousands or even tens of thousands of pounds on agency overheads."
Procter & Gamble is making its first foray into consumer-generated content with two new Web sites.
The company's P&G Productions unit said Monday that it has launched Capessa.yahoo.com. an "online community" where women can share information, practical advice and inspirational stories.
P&G Productions also said Monday that it will launch the People's Choice Community, an online forum that will feature voting for the People's Choice Awards, as well as blogging and chatting.
The site will go live Tuesday night, at www.pcavote.com, with programming and online activities to continue year-round.
Faith Popcorn a leading future-focused consultancy has some interesting predictions for 2007 on how they see consumers and brands evolve in the next few years. They are talking of a new identity called The New Networked Self. Take a look:
Identity Flux
Technology has enabled us to experiment with different personalities, leading to a much more fluid sense of who we are. Having tasted the nectar of virtual liberation, we're beginning to reject the singularly defined roles we're expected to play in society.
The Future: Gender-neutrality goes mainstream. People list skills on their business cards rather than title, and dress up in various costumes depending on who they feel like being that day.
Liquid Brands
Today's consumers are capricious and non-committal. Brands will have to become more liquid to keep up with their constantly moving targets.
The Future: Chameleon-like brands focus less on communicating a static message and more on being the right thing for the right persona at the right time. Constantly morphing retailers carry products until they sell out and never restock.
Virtual Immortality
Consumers globally are creating fully fleshed out existences in the virtual world-dressing up their avatars, making friends, having affairs and buying property for their pixilated alter-egos. And now that people have multiple lives, who says you can't live forever?
The Future: While some let their avatars drift away to online purgatory, many more leave behind specific instructions on how their virtual selves should proceed. Services offering avatar surrogates flourish, and we bequeath avatars to friends and family in our wills.
EnvironMENTAL Movement
Like the movement to combat environmental pollution, the next consumer-led reaction will be against the mental pollution caused by marketers. With every corner of the world both real and virtual becoming plastered with marketing messages, bombarded consumers are starting to say they've had enough. The current attack against marketing to kids is just the beginning.
The Future: Companies are expected to reduce the amount of damage they are doing to our minds. Savvy companies sponsor marketing-free white spaces in lieu of polluting the environment with models and logos.
Product PLACEment
In the globally networked age, consumers are much more concerned about the consequences of consumption. Is my garbage poisoning someone in a developing country? How much fuel was burned in order to get these strawberries to my local supermarket?
The Future: Enviro-biographies are attached to just about everything, letting consumers know the entire life story of a product: where the materials were harvested, where it was constructed, how far it traveled, and where it ended up after being thrown away or recycled.
Brand-Aides
The government has let us down when it comes to providing the social services we had once expected from it. Brands are stepping in to take over where the government left off. Companies are already finding there's profit to be made from providing affordable healthcare to the masses.
The Future: Socially responsible brands make a buck while providing desperately needed services. Communities are revived by Target daycare, Starbucks learning centers, and Avis transportation services for the elderly.
Moral Status Anxiety
In today's increasingly philanthropic climate, expect conspicuous self- indulgence to go straight to the social guillotine. The globally conscious consumer regards altruistic activities as a necessary part of self- improvement.
The Future: A person's net worth is no longer measured by dollars earned, but by improvements made. Families compete with each other on how many people they fed while on vacation, and the most envied house on the block is not the biggest, but the most sustainable.
Oldies but Goodies
Our culture is suffering from an experience deficit. With the availability of online knowledge, we're claiming expertise based only on secondary experience. Now that everyone's a web-educated know-it-all, we're secretly longing for authority figures to guide and assure us with indispensable nuggets of wisdom that could only come from having actually accumulated life experience.
The Future: Respect for elders makes a comeback in the form of Ask Your Grandma hotlines and the proliferation of online video clips by seniors showing us how to tie knots and concoct home remedies.
Very often, I find people extremely protective about their ideas. They do not want to share it.They get obssesed with it. They are unwilling to listen, change or improve upon it further. The idea then dies a natural death because in their opinion nobody is willing to buy it.
Here's some great advice from Doc Searls for such people so that they can evaluate their ideas first. Though this advice is for entrepreneurs with new business ideas, I think it holds good for anybody who is in the business of creating ideas esp. in the emerging open source marketing world:
Ideas aren't physical. Regardless of the legalities, treating ideas as possessions insults their vast combustive power. Jefferson put it best:
The moment [an idea] is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of everyone, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
Ideas aren't worth jack unless other people can put them to use.
Ideas won't change the world unless others can improve on them.
Ideas grow by participation, not isolation.
Ideas change as they grow. Their core remains the same, but their scope enlarges with successful use.
Ideas have unexpected results. No one person can begin to imagine all the results of a good idea. That's another reason to welcome participation.
Nobody's going to "steal" your ideas, any more than they can steal your cerebrum. You're the source. Authority over the idea begins with you.
Authority derives from originality and respect. You can't get respect for your original ideas unless those ideas prove useful to others.
Much has been written about the power of blogs and its power to shape customer opinion. Measuring the business impact of blogs is an area of great interest to me. Some key questions I often ask myself are:
Is blogging an island without too many inhabitants - Is it a niche waiting to get mainstream?
Does the opinion of bloggers matter at all when it comes to brand purchase decisions?
Do consumers consider blogs as a trustworthy source vis-a-vis other forms of media?
Is user-generated content considered valuable by customers?
Is it possible to summarize the business impact of blogs by way of addressable customer numbers? Is it a large enough market waiting to be tapped by marketers?
Well, there seems to be some answers for these questions. Here's a research done by IPSOS in Europe - a leading marketing research firm. I think this research clearly gives directions for other markets too, on how customers perceive this new medium and its impact on brands. Here's the presentation:
It's the right time to reflect on how advertising will have to adapt itself for the 2007 customer. NY Times has an article that captures the essence of what it will look like and what marketers have to get ready for:
CONSUMERS WITH A CONSCIENCE
Consumers want to know where products come from, how they were made and what companies and brands believe in.
Consumer interest in environmentally friendly products will grow, as will interest in the local stories of products, even those that come from halfway around the world, said Marian Salzman, chief marketing officer of JWT, a WPP Group agency, and co-author of “Next Now: Trends for the Future.”
“Every brand is going to now have to have a social conscience, and they’re going to be evaluated for their social consciousness as much as for their products,” Ms. Salzman said
LIFE ONLINE OR OFFLINE?
Consumers spend so much time online — working, playing, sharing personal details with the world and living out fantasy lives — that the online terrain is blurring with the physical world.
In 2007, more companies will start adding social networking and user-generated tools onto their intranet sites, predicted Clark Kokich, worldwide president of Avenue A Razorfish, an agency owned by aQuantive.
“People in the younger work force are going to look for an experience on intranets that looks more like the experiences they have on the Internet,” Mr. Kokich said.
PUSHING THE OFF BUTTON
Even as consumers are networked in and logged on most hours of the day, some ad executives say they think workers will be quicker to separate their work lives from their personal space. Some hotels are now offering to lock up guests’ cellphones and BlackBerrys to give them a break, said Kiwa Iyobe, trend manager at Faith Popcorn’s BrainReserve.
USER-GENERATED ADVERTISEMENTS
Ad executives are not going to be quick to give up their paychecks for creating ads. Still, a growing list of brands — among them Converse, Chevrolet, Doritos and Dove — are asking consumers to design commercials for them.
“Consumers are demanding and getting a seat at the table and defining what the brand experience is about,” said Allen P. Adamson, managing director of the New York office of Landor Associates, a WPP Group brand consultancy, and author of “BrandSimple.”
WHAT’S A BRAND TO DO?
Advertising executives said brands should focus on clear, simple messages that were consistent across consumers’ online and offline lives. Companies that scored the highest in a national brand study earlier this month were ones with well-known mass appeal, like Google, Las Vegas, the N.F.L., Sony and Amazon. YouTube, iPod and Yahoo also made the list of “top brands,” though they came in a bit behind Google.
I think the asthetics of the design is just brilliant. I do have one reservation. After having created such a 'welcoming' home page, the pages linking the other pages could have been a lot more interesting.
What do Southwest Airlines, Starbucks and Wachovia Bank have in common? They all evoke positive feelings from their customers. They know how to create an experience that creates loyal customers. Great customer experience isn’t unique to an industry. It’s driven by putting your customers first. The process to do this isn’t difficult but it takes some changing to move in the right direction. In this series, we’ll explore the Five Keys to Customer Experience and how you can implement them in any size company, in any industry. (reprinted from a series in WorldWIT's Thinking Aloud newsletter).
Eric Friedman has an excellent post on how sees the future of advertising. I can't agree with him more. With the increasing number of devices that we have come to own as consumers, advertising is increasingly changing to 'discovering' and 'informing' continously, one customer at a time. Take a look at what he has to say:
I believe that the future of advertising is in providing real time information instead of real time interruption. This is the future of advertising, or what we call marketing 2.0.
Real time information is how advertising will work (and is working) for the next generation. We have been brought up on the idea of instant gratification and having information available to use 24×7 at our fingertips. It is no surprise that advertising is now more precise and targeted to our needs - this is a direct correlation to how we consume information in general today.
The difference between the two is a generic 30 second television spot that appears between segments of your favorite prime time show and a search query performed at 3:00am when you are looking to find some information.
In a world where optimization is not only needed but expected, every display of my ad and subsequent click results in a search engine learning about the relevance of showing it to each user. Engines such as Google and Yahoo use this information to help the user experience and provide the most real time and relevant information possible.
As companies learn that their dollars can be better spent placing their ads in front of people with questions, and understanding that their ad can actually answer these questions, the true shift in advertising dollars will occur. I know we have written about the fall of the television upfront and changes to advertising many times (1, 2, 3, 4) but now the knowledge exists to make these changes possible.
