A friend of mine (who happens to be in online ad sales) recently engaged me in one of my favorite marketing debates: traditional versus “new” marketing (or, if you prefer, paid versus earned media, aka campaigns versus conversations).
Naturally, I insisted that brands should pull the plug on campaigns once and for all and instead pour their precious marketing dollars into engaging, empowering, and influencing the passionate few—instead of annoying (and mostly getting ignored by) the indifferent masses.
I rattled off a list of brands that seem to understand that the Britney Spears model of marketing is “just so done” and shared a few examples of the work Espresso has done with clients like Samsung, Koodo Mobile, and the United Way, all of which embody our brand infiltration™ philosophy (versus the traditional “spray and pray” approach).
He shrugged, threw back a beer, and responded, “Sure, brand infiltration™ might work for niche products like Red Bull, but I don’t think the same opportunities exist for not-so-sexy products like laundry detergent or tampons.”
I respectfully disagree.
In fact, that’s exactly what I’d expect a dyed-in-the-wool mass marketer to say. The indifferent masses aren’t going to spend hours of their day talking about laundry detergent or tampons. You probably wont find massively-trafficked fan pages for Tide or Tampax on Facebook.
But that doesn’t mean spending $20 million on a TV ad campaign that “raises awareness” about your decidedly unsexy product is the most cost-effective way to boost sales. I’d argue that this approach is the lazy (and costly) way out.
A few savvy folks at P&G are on the same page with me. Instead of relying on traditional advertising to introduce their feminine hygiene products to teenage girls (who represent a massive pool of prospective life-long customers) or wasting money “selling” to them, P&G created BeingGirl.com, an online community where teenage girls can “Learn and share about growing up and puberty while having fun playing girl games and listening to the latest teen music”. Instead of bombarding their target audience with ads or pouring dollars and resources into “campaigns,” P&G is investing in conversations; in context that supports the growing library of content (both user- and professionally-generated) around the issues that their target audience cares about. That issue is not tampons. It’s… well… being a girl.
The challenge in moving from traditional to new marketing is in weaning oneself off of the addiction to “buying eyeballs” instead of “earning fans”. New marketing demands that you think more creatively; that you commit to a long-term relationship; that you listen to what your loyal customers need, want, and care about (instead of forcing your own agenda down their throats—repeatedly).
It ain’t easy, but it sure does pay off. Case in point: P&G’s BeingGirl community has been four times more effective per dollar spent than traditional advertising.
My challenge to all marketers (including my dear friend) is to drop the mass-marketing mentality permanently. Just go cold turkey. Force yourself to think about the passionate few, not the indifferent many. Say goodbye to short-term, impersonal, transactional relationships.
Commit. Converse. Build relationships that are enduring, intimate, and passionate. Cultivate loyalty.
And if you need some help, give us a call!
Entries
October 14th, 2009 at 4:46 pm
I like this blog post, very cluetrain-esque. But the fact that you have little tm’s when you write “brand infiltration” seems a bit weird to me.
I mean, who would want to steal a term like brand infiltration. It reminds me of traditional marketing strategies, which rely on militaristic terms like “market penetration,” “user engagement,” etc. except it comes across as more covert.
Anyway, just my two cents.
October 15th, 2009 at 2:23 pm
Hey Max – the TM isn’t really intended to tell people not to steal it, but to identify it as what we call our business practice, to differentiate it from traditional forms of integrated marketing. We get a lot of people asking what we do, and the problem we’d previously run into was that there was no easy term for what we did, as it was a new approach. Now our answer is simply “brand infiltration” – that’s that’s what we do, that’s our strategy. We’re actually excited when we see other people using it to mean what we intend for it to mean, whether it’s connected to us or not!
October 16th, 2009 at 11:29 am
Infiltration is defined as, “A process in which individuals (or small groups) penetrate an area (especially the military penetration of enemy positions without detection)”
So my question is, who is doing the infiltration? Is it Espresso, on behalf of your client? Or your client themselves? Or the messages of your clients? If it’s the clients, is the goal really to stay undetected? Doesn’t the most important work happen after the infiltration?
Thanks for helping me understand what you mean, because before I thought you were an agency (which is fine) and now I’m confused.
October 19th, 2009 at 2:34 pm
We are indeed an agency – just not a traditional one!
The idea, really, is not only that the brand infiltrates its targeted demo group (which is, at the end of the day, the objective of all marketing programs), but that – more importantly! – the consumer is infiltrating the brand. The whole idea of co-creation of the brand is a huge discussion point around here and we feel that every brand needs to understand and believe that this “infiltration” goes both ways. The idea of “lack of detection”, to me, doesn’t necessarily mean a covert op (hah), but indeed an interaction that doesn’t feel like traditional push marketing – and indeed isn’t.
Does that make sense?
Good discussion to get us going on, Max, thanks so much for taking the time!