What's the buzz? Tell me what's happening
We are swiftly moving away from the “attention economy,” where marketers and communicators try to out-shout each other to seize your attention, and towards the “attraction economy,” where engagement, involvement and participation are now the name of the game. This is the future of brands as predicted by Saatchi & Saatchi, a leading international advertising network.
Enter community marketing (CM) that leverages on the social network mindset. CM is a new brand-building approach introduced by the communication giant that builds around the power of communities, or what other authors call tribes. The principle shifts from pushing a message out to drawing people into the brand and from broadcasting to targeted audiences to involving them with an experience. Talk about experiential marketing.
Random House Dictionary defines a community as “a social, religious, occupational, or other group sharing common characteristics or interests.” People are involved with diverse types of communities and they play different roles in different communities — amateur writers on LiveJournal or TypePad, opinion givers on Digg or Crowdstorm, content developers and self-publishers on YouTube and Flickr, information and knowledge seekers on Google and Wikipedia, buyers and sellers on eBay and PayPal, professionals on Linkedin and Monster, and social animals on Facebook, Friendster and Multiply. People belong to networks fueled by online growth. Data released by www.internetworldstats reveal that there are over one billion users worldwide with over 400 million users from the Asia-Pacific territory.
“Social technologies” have redefined and will continue to redefine communities. What you see is a new dynamic between people and brands, and there is a need to bring back “The Love” and “Lovemarks,” a proprietary concept introduced by Saatchi & Saatchi. The relationship has changed — monologue is out, multiple conversations running parallel are in. People have moved from passive receiving to proactive participation or instigation, and from mere consumption to co-creation and co-ownership of brands, which have migrated from being a broadcaster to being lighthouses of attraction.
The sphere of influence is changing. Zenith Optimedia’s ROI Tracker research and Microsoft’s digital advertising solutions survey in 2007 reveal that recommendations from friends and family have the most influence on brand choice, which is 22 percent more than TV advertising. Seventy-eight percent believe what other consumers say about other brands, and 86 percent of consumers no longer believe what brands say about themselves. In essence, people trust other people, but don’t trust brands.
This means that brands can no longer simply be imposed on people. Brands need to get themselves invited into people’s lives, and to move away from attention-seeking to participation. As A.G. Lafley, CEO and chairman of Procter & Gamble, says, “Consumers are beginning in a very real sense to own our brands and participate in their creation. We need to learn to begin to let go.”
How are brands adapting to this new order? Not very well, it seems. Media spending of brands is out of line with actual consumer behavior. The MTV Young Asians 2006, a quantitative survey among 5,000 youth 15-24 years old in 10 Asian countries, discloses that online already outstrips TV among the youth in the region. People are spending twice as much time on the Internet versus TV.
The SMG/MV Digitas for Gillette Media Allocation and the 2007 Forrester Technographics Survey tell that young men spend nearly half their media time online, but online activity is just four percent of Gillette’s media investment. In Singapore, for example, the Internet is 32 percent of media exposure hours, but is only two percent of the total advertising expenditure. For brands to stay relevant in the future, they need to build right brand perceptions and evolve with consumers at an early age.
Smart marketers are shifting focus. Does this spell the end of mass media? Of course not, Saatchi & Saatchi says, but it does mean using it in a different way — as a traffic driver, not merely as an awareness tool; as a means for tactical bursts, not slow burns; and as platforms that bring a strong call to action rather than a passive brand message.
Many brands today continue to insist on gate-crashing online communities in order to reach a target audience. Brands are rarely welcome in social networks. Facebook, for instance, is like a party. If you gate-crash it, you won’t be liked and definitely won’t be invited back. It simply does not work. Interruption-style communications have produced weak results. The average response rate to a banner ad, for example, is only 0.15 percent: 90 percent of respondents are unqualified or off-target and return on investment is low.
Many marketers approach the new world with an old-world, broadcast mentality. The question, though, is why intrude on somebody’s space when you can create a new destination for them to travel to? Rather than gate-crash, throw your own party and make it so attractive people want to come. And invite their friends, too.
So what can build this kind of attraction? Create what Saatchi calls a “happening.” All successful community marketing campaigns start with one. A happening is an idea that engages and galvanizes people. It can be an event, a hook, a cause, or a movement. It can be physical, virtual or both, must be based on an inspiring idea, and must have a natural fit with the brand. In a fragmented media world, a happening will cut through the clutter, capture mind space, and trigger action.
Saatchi & Saatchi adheres to the principles of a Lovemarks Community to attract people to the brand’s or the company’s side. Looking at the entries, they can apply as well to people who aspire to public office. The list will require marketers and integrated marketing communicators to work harder, but then again the landscape has morphed and consumers have become more empowered to demand change. Thus, marketers need to build a brand role around a happening that attracts people bound by a common cause.
Use relevant media as traffic drivers to the happening, combining traditional and online approaches. Employ influencers to become advocates of the happening. Get people involved, don’t just broadcast. Create spikes of excitement. Let people control the program, not the brand or the company. Enable people to interact with each other. Build partnerships with other brands, portals or social networks to extend the reach of the campaign.
An effective happening involves, incites and provokes. It invites people to chip in as it allows them to take ownership. It is shared and thus, viral in nature. In the new order, participation of all partners — design, direct marketing, PR, activation, event, media advertising, digital — is the catchphrase, and creating the happening together and making it work is the mantra.
Ask and demand. What’s the buzz? Tell me what’s happening.
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E-mail bongosorio@yahoo.com or bong_osorio@abs-cbn.com for comments, questions and suggestions. Thank you for communicating.
