by Mike O'Malley
Partner, Albright & O'Malley Consulting

The August, 2004 edition of "Inc. Magazine" reports instances of "the people's marketing have been cropping up all over the place." Mercedes-Benz has run ads featuring pictures of proud owners. KFC conducted a national contest with fans creating commercials. Coors Light has recently done the same in Canada. Jones Soda has invited its fans to submit pictures that could be used on labels.

Some companies like Jones have dedicated significant portions of their corporate web site (www.jonessoda.com) to consumer blogs, photos, comments and more.

Even more proletariat are the "ads" for Pabst and Schlitz that can be found on www.obtanium.tv.com, or the anti-Bush material on www.MoveOn.org. Many of the items have a documentary-style look; few have the appearance of something you'd see on prime time.

Which, according to Owen Mack, partner in Obtanium.tv, is the point.  "They're conversation about brands," he says. And he believes there are plenty of people who want to promote the brands they love.

Another ad exec, San Francisco's Alex Wipperfurth of Plan B, concurs. He calls this phenomenon "cocreation," and urges companies to invite brand evangelists to help shape a product's brand persona. However he warns against marketing an attitude.

"As soon as you market an attitude, a brand becomes wannabe to what it used to be - a bad and insufficient imitation of an authentic feeling. That happens when a brand starts to believe its own hype."

The lack of hype is readily apparent as you view what's online. And, if you buy into a basic "hype is dead" or a more modest "hype ain't what it used to be" philosophy - especially when it comes to impacting younger consumers - then we're seeing something that could have a basic power to resonate.

This grassroots movement wouldn't be worth much consideration if was only about "being cool." The marketing junkyards are overflowing with "cool" efforts that have had minimal or no consumer impact. Nor should we be thinking about putting all our eggs into this type of marketing; even the early corporate adopters mentioned above aren't doing that.

But as new form of peer-to-peer advertising, the "People's Marketing" could have real merit. Cocreation has the potential to fortify the power of the time-honored and historically successful testimonial spot with truth, honesty, creativity, and a sense of genuineness.

Not lost on those being marketed to, is the fact that these efforts are rooted in their creators' evangelistic feelings about a product without the promise of financial compensation.

Although Pabst apparently DID supply some cases of beer after the fact.

HOW YOU CAN BUZZ IN

1. Start by recognizing the potential power inherent in extreme brand loyalty by thinking of your station evangelists as marketing equivalents of your Super P1s
2. Invite station evangelists to participate in your marketing through web blogs, invitations to "create a commercial," etc., or to document their feelings about station, events, personalities, etc., or about how they use your station.
3. Embrace rather than fear the fact that you're giving up some creative control; instead, see this as a way of expanding your creative process and uncovering assets you may not have been aware you had, or that may not have been showcased according to their strength among partisans
4. Develop plans to use the best contributions on and off the air as subtle, supplemental marketing weapons
5. Don't overproduce and embellish what you get; keep it honest and genuine; never market an "attitude" which is an imitation of honest and genuine   

Your thoughts?

Mike
732.937.5757
mike@radioconsult.com

Other Articles in this Series:

Marketing Buzz: Show Me The Love (08/12/04)