Another week and another piece of research saying that UK marketers don’t get social marketing. Well is it any wonder. Marketing either as an art or science has been built upon barging in or interrupting since it was first conceived and delivered by the Mad Men in the 1960s. It is quite an admission that marketers don’t know where to start and in fact they feel less confident that they did the previous year. Why might that be?

Well it is the O word – ownership. Social networkers – the ultimate in egalitarian mutual interest and supportive behaviour – do not take kindly to being pushed around by brand managers who want to control opinion, perception and engagement. Not that this is inappropriate – that’s what they are paid to do but they are going to find it difficult to achieve sensitively and with empathy in social networks. Perhaps that’s why they want to create their own.

Travel brands seem the most active. BA’s Metrotwin and now Virgin is having a shot. Doomed to fail. Why? Because people tend to congregate around issue and interests they have in common not brands. That’s why Coke never got to own music irrespective of how much they spent. They even launched a musicstore that went head to head with Apple’s iTunes. Crass stupidity or mind-blowing arrogance. In the travel space there are significant and successful social networks – Tripadvisor and WAYN to name a couple. What does Virgin think they can bring to the party and why do they think people will shift from where they go now.

Brands can be active in social networks. In fact they have to be or how else are they going to persuade and influence over the next twenty years – the age of the power reviews and personal recommendation on steroids. They just have to be sensitive and fish where the fish are not great try and create a whole new pool from scratch, and then entice the fish only to disappoint. The brands who succeed are going to be those who engage, empathise and enrich consumers lives not infiltrate and irrigate all over them

0 Comment   |   Posted in Uncategorized March 15, 2009