Mythology - The Meaning Behind the Marketing

Back to the Future With Sponsored Content

We've noted in earlier posts how early radio and television shows came with a singular sponsor so associated with the program that it was hard to think of one without the other (see Milton Berle and Texaco Star Theater).

Over time, in order to make advertising more affordable for more companies and to maximize their ad revenue, networks invented the :60 and :30 spots. At that point, it became about selling impressions, not aligning a brand with a popular personality or show.

Now that the Western World is thoroughly saturated with far too many commercial messages, marketers are beginning to rethink the value of impressions disconnected from the benefit they could have received back in the old "brought to you by" days.

One example of course is the smash hit American Idol, where Coke, AT&T and Ford have made long-term commitments to associate with the show.

Another example has been MSN's successful special content offering which spawned the In the Motherhood web series (which carried a "conceived by", not just a "sponsored by", tag for Suave and Sprint brands), now an ABC sitcom (hey, Cavemen aren't the only ones who can start as a commercial and end up with a real show).

The latest iteration from MSN is "The Guy's Manual- Get the Tough Things in Life Done." This time, Grape Nuts is enjoying the exclusive credit for bringing a relatively humorous look at tough life scenarios men must deal with and advice on how to handle them by host Kenny Mayne from ESPN.

This approach is an interesting mix of old school/new school advertising. While many "new marketing" gurus sniff dismissively at anything that smacks of interruptive advertising, the truth is that there are still opportunities to influence. This model is an interesting mix of desired (if done well) content with a much stronger opportunity for the brand to "take credit" for delivering it free to the viewer. The brand association is much stronger.

While not as attractive from a pure reach standpoint vs. traditional television, it attracts significant eyeballs with promotion on one of the world's most-traveled web portals, yet without the "hey, here's our advertising message" baggage. The brand is more subtly, yet powerfully, woven into the content experience.

This is most likely one of the experiences that will enable true interactive television content. While it won't be Milton Berle and Texaco any longer, it may usher in a new era of strong brands associated with specific content that develops strong emotional brand connections.

Beginning with Sticky Trust in Mind

Think of your own likelihood to open an email and act upon it. Your split-second decision process might look something like this:

• Unsolicited - Unknown Source: Spam, pure and simple. You delete it quickly and are probably more than a bit annoyed.

• Unsolicited - Known Source: You may know the company, but you still didn't request it. Still annoyed, perhaps slightly less so depending on your existing opinion of the company. However, your opinion probably went down slightly after receiving their spam.

• Opt-In - Coerced: An email received from a company who required you to give them your email address in order to get to something you wanted (a free white paper, etc.). In reality, you really don't care to hear from these folks again. Most likely you'll delete it, or perhaps open .5% - 1% of the time when you're cleaning out your Hotmail. If you have the energy and time, you'll probably opt out (although most people don't, preferring instead to ignore it or flag it as junkmail that gets routed to the delete folder).

• Opt-In - Desired: This is actually becoming less common and less needed with RSS, but there are times when you actually do want something sent to you on a regular basis. Sometimes it's related to offers, most often it's related to valued information. These emails get opened, but still only 3% - 20% of the time.

• Forwarded From an Annoying Friend/Colleague: You know the ones, thinking every other joke or urban legend is worth forwarding to their entire address book. You may pay attention for a split second, but mostly just to shake your head and wonder why they have so much time on their hands. These are tougher to opt out of receiving, but mentally you're most definitely opted out.

• Forwarded from a Trusted Friend/Colleague:  Ah, now we have something. This is an email from someone who you know personally, or have placed some trust in because of others' opinions of them. You've experienced a track record of value in what they send, so most likely you open it. You may even forgive them a couple of times if they send something less than valuable, but the long-term trust remains. These are the pinnacles of influence in a word-of-web world.

The question is: Why do we plan and spend so much time and money on architecting "campaigns" that look so much like the first few scenarios, and so little on thinking of something uniquely and consistently valuable that it would earn a forward from a trusted source?

Sure, it's harder. And we're not at a point where marketers can completely rely on word-of-web to generate enough response volume. The scale just isn't there. But...If we re-prioritized our planning, if we started with that end in mind, wouldn't even the rest of our "traditional" marketing (including traditional digital marketing) be that much more effective?

If we started with "sticky" in mind, most likely it would stick to all of our communications and lead us towards higher return on marketing investment.

Marketing Manager as Community Organizer

Hey, if "community organizer" is a stepping stone to the presidency, why not as a qualification for Chief Marketing Officer? As more and more marketing tasks are shifted to the community (The latest? Get your community to design your logo.), a key issue has been drawn out in regard to hiring marketing talent: What skills are really needed? 

In the past, a thorough understanding of traditional media planning was required. Who can we find who understands reach and frequency? Who knows solid direct marketing tactics that generate ROI? 

These days, more companies are embracing the fact that they need community organizing skills within their marketing department. It's not enough to spread the "message" through Twitter and Facebook, which are just tools; you have to understand how to build true community through those tools.  

Here's a list of a just some of the skills for a good community organizer, whether it's organizing on the streets or online:

• Building coalitions, including among those who may have felt powerless
• Mobilizing large numbers of people
• Training and empowering leaders
• Effective listening skills
• Effective questioning and messaging skills

The Marin Institute, an alcohol industry watchdog and a resource for solutions nto community alcohol problems has developed their own community organizer self-assessment test to help determine whether this is a good career choice.

Perhaps we need to adopt these kinds of organizing skill assessments for hiring marketing professionals?

What if Customers Designed Your Ads?

There have been several examples of the trend towards collaborating with actual customers to build a brand or specific marketing campaign, such as Doritos' "Crash the Super Bowl."

Now there is an actual tool that can help you organize and launch a contest in which your customers can compete with their own ads about your product or service. Zooppa - "People-powered brand energy" - provides templates and tools that make it easy for customers to share their interpretation of your brand. Here's one for Brooks bio-degradable running shoes.

Zooppa also enables you to set up contests with cash prizes for the best ad, like this one for Mini Cooper.

Turning the reins over to customers isn't necessarily the best or only way to build a brand, even in our current social media-crazed world. But it is a very cool way, as part of an overall strategy, to get them intimately involved with your message. And who knows, they might create a viral hit that your agency never would have.

Jones Soda Puts its Customers on the Map

We've often used Jones Soda, the spunky upstart soda and juice company in Seattle, as a great example of a company who has collaborated in the development of their brand (and product) with actual customers.

Now Jones Soda is putting their customers on the map, literally. Using a Frappr Guest Map by Platial, Jones Soda fans can upload themselves and find each other. Just another way Jones stays connected to customers by helping them stay connected to each other.