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My keynote presentation (given at JNJ, Microsoft, etc.) is called Marketing Survival Strategies for the Attention Economy.
(You can see a video mini-version of it from Jeff Pulver’s Social Media event
My favorite slide is this one.
I tell people “these are your biggest asset.” No surprise there to you, I am sure.
But, a few months ago, my client at JNJ made a great observation about fans, which has since changed my thinking dramatically.
Looking at the picture (left is Univ of Tenn, right is Cal Berkeley), there are a few things worth noting.
- This is a self-organized group of fans. Nobody called them and said “hey, go to the game with your chests painted"
- The logo for Cal is not a precise replica
- The font of Tennessee may not be the one that they use on their stationery/website.
In other words, the fans may not be exactly “on message.”
But that's ok.
When you are asking them to help promote you, you have to be comfortable with giving them a bit of latitude to do so. When a ‘raving fan’ steps forward, that is a gift. You have a wonderful opportunity to embrace that and let them celebrate us in a way that makes sense for them.
If you over-engineer the community driven marketing and send them too much ‘messaging,’ they may feel like they are being used…and the authenticity of the experience for her friends may get watered down.
And then, you are just hiring people to do advertising for you.
Comments
Adam Schorr said on 12.14.2008 at 10:00 PM
Your client at JNJ must be a very smart guy!
My most important takeaway from the above is related to #1. It's that people want to do this stuff. Not everyone. Not many. But there are people who so identify with a brand that they literally brand themselves with it.
If you will permit, I recently blogged about an issue related to your takeaway above about giving fans latitude. I totally agree. You can check out my post below, but my point as it relates to the above, is that it makes more sense to think of a brand as an effect. An affect of what you do and what it causes others to do.
Thinking about brand as a cause means that you better make sure people get the fonts right. Thinking about brand as an effect means that when people are thrilled with what you've got and are shouting it to the world, that you sit back and smile.
adam-1001words.blogspot.com/.../is-brand-cause-