The Dandelion Approach.
January 7, 2010
At a summit last year, I heard Rory Sutherland discussing the idea that in advertising, we should act like dandelions. I’ve since seen Faris talk about it a bit, and traced it back to this article by Cory Doctorow.
The analogy does have merit here are 5 lessons we can learn from dandelions.
1. Get lots of content out there.
Cory tells us that a single dandelion may produce 2,000 seeds per year. Most will fail, but that’s not important to a dandelion; it just wants to be sure that every single opportunity for reproduction is exploited.
On the web, it is almost impossible to predict what will be have a large “earned” impact. I freely admitted that I would not have predicted the success of the T-mobile dance clip, which to me was just a copy of things already done on the web. But it is clearly a success, with over 16 million views now, and is now one of the first things you find if you search for T-mobile on Youtube (which is the default search engine for some kids nowdays btw).
Some companies have tried to release multiple things simultaneously, and just hope that one of them succeeds. See this case study about Officemax.
2. Capitalise on fertile areas
As my good friend Juuso Myllyrinne pointed out to me, if we act like dandelions, then we perhaps fail to capitalise on successes. The randomness of the approach could mean that we are oblivious to market feedback.
But I think the analogy still holds: Some dandelion seed fall on particularly fertile ground. When this happens, dandelions reproduce quickly and plentifully.
Same with creativity: when something lands on a fertile creative patch, it is possible to take advantage of this situation and capitalise. And as Ben Mason over at 101 Culture says, organisations need to listen more and then be able to react quickly.
3. You’re not in charge. (No one is.)
Just as dandelions can’t control the wind, Brands can’t expect to control the ways in which content and stories will be reproduced, altered, improved upon.
Instead, we should actively encourage reproduction and remixing: In total, the high-quality consumer-generated Cadbury’s gorilla remixes got more views than the awesome original.
4. Make things easy to spread.
Dandelions make it incredibly easy for their seeds to fly. Any wind, from any direction is enough. Don’t restrict the ways your content can be shared.
“Send-to-friend” is not really the answer either: sometimes just making it possible to link to something – and not burying it under pages of Flash – can be enough.
5. Be a valuable part of your ecosystem
Dandelions aren’t looking to win or destroy others; they are trying to survive by being a valuable part of an ever-evolving ecosystem.
Be valuable. Keep your content flowing. Get people to create it with you.
Reach places that you could never reach alone.
Be part of something bigger than just you.
You don’t need a Social Media Strategy.
December 15, 2009
(You just need a strategy)
Right, so now I’m glad that we all agree that there is no such thing as social media.
And that we also agree that everything is social media.
So, we should move on to my next bone of contention:
There is no such thing as a “social media strategy”.
You do of course need a good strategy.
And you definitely need clear goals.
And one of the best ways for you to reach your shiny, clearly-defined goals will probably be to make use of some of the kick-ass new social tools like Twitter and Facebook.
But they don’t need their own separate strategy.
Having a social media strategy is kind of like having a paper-and-pen strategy.
And that just don’t make no sense.
Some thoughts about the PESH model
July 23, 2009
I’ve been working with my boss Arto Joensuu on what we are calling the PESH model. The idea was to find a way of mapping out the different roles that Brands need to fulfill from a digital marketing perspective.
PESH model
It seems to cover most of what we want to do at Nokia from a digital marketing perspective:
Particpate (Twitter, blogs.nokia.com etc)
Enable (Ovi Services, Royal Artist Club)
Sell (Nokia Online Store)
Help (Nokia Support Discussions)
Here are a couple of my observations about the model now that we’ve had some time to map things against it (we’re mapping everything against it, not just the examples above):
Better balanced
The model allows you to accept that not every activity and every venue needs to do everything. For instance, it tells you that a corporate site does not need to be a community, and that a participatory experience does not need to lead to direct sales. Rather than trying to do everything on one site or with one type of social media presence, instead you can build a well-balanced set of initiatives that fit with what you are trying to achieve.
Sales/supplying is vitally important for a business, but there are times to do this and times to not. Dell has used Twitter for offers and generated a lot of sales, but that does not mean that Twitter should be used exclusively for sales. As Dan Ariely has pointed out, social behaviour and sales do not often sit well together; separating the two can help people understand what your intentions are.
Metrics
In terms of fitting this approach with objectives, it is important that metrics are mapped to each segment, so that you can tell how much each is adding to your business goals.
Advocacy should absolutely be one of your goals, and one good way of measuring this is the Net Promoter Score. We’ve re-drawn the original model now with Participant and Helper on the left hand side which could be seen as representing the NPS: low-scoring Detractors at the bottom and Advocates at the top.
(One interesting side note is that Detractors can, if managed well, become your biggest Advocates: their overly negative response is often indicative of disappointment which shows them to be emotionally involved with the Brand, which is a good thing. Handle that well and you can create advocacy)
Customer Service = Marketing
“Helper” is not an obvious role for a traditional marketer, but this is one of the most important quadrants, in my opinion. As I have said before, and Faris has also said recently, helping customers is great marketing. It should not be seen as a separate activity done by the Support Team. Great customer service is the most remarkable thing you can do, it makes people happy, and causes your marketing to have Emotional Density.
Is the PESH a model only useful for “digital”?
On Arto’s blog post, you can read the typically insightful comments from Asi about how it should be tested and extended. Although the model was originally built to map a brand’s social media activities, Asi also believes that the model could perhaps be used for a broader view on what we in marketing should be doing (this is consistent with Asi’s view that essentially everything is now social media).
Anyway, we’re still working on this, so input is welcomed!
