The gospel of participation is making brands forget about mass reach

I reckon the first response from Fraser has it pretty accurate.

However to address a few points
1. All media can now be interactive so why wouldn’t you invite participation. If your idea is good enough it’s ‘as well as’ not ‘instead of’ reach.
2. Communications participation is the most basic level, we (Naked) believe participation should begin with the product, the business, the brand. Everything.
3. Participation works via many psychological mechanisms but Confucius said it best when he said ‘ Tell me, and I will forget. Show me, and I may remember. Involve me, and I will understand.

would be good for adam to chime in – the action first approach is interesting. good debate could be had here.

Branded content often suffers from a similar problem I think – focus is on the idea and little thought goes towards effective distribution and strengthening links through to the main campaign.

It’s like the old ‘tree falling in the woods’ – not making a sound if no-one’s there to hear it.

@ Paul Swann if you must quote Confucius show him enough respect to do it correctly. Confucius say ‘man who mangle me is silly pretentious twat’

I think what Simon is saying is that it’s more expensive (ROI) to get consumers to participate (respond physically to an Advertising message) than it is to just reach them the old fashioned way, with an ad in a commercial break? And some campaigns designed purely to get a reaction have very poor ROI in terms of reach for dollars spent? If these are his core messages, I agree completely. I’ve read way too many award winning, highly engaging “media campaigns” that more than likely didn’t do a thing for sales. I’ve been involved in quite a few myself (to be honest). Most of these media stunts are over intellectualized pieces of work, devised by bored media planners who don’t value what really matters to clients. The industry seems to be getting taken over by “theorists” at management level. Poor clients.

how about everyone agree no one knows anything nor what works or does not work and we’re just making it up as we go along looking for new ways to win revenue.

Is the trend participation or personalisation?

I’m thinking personalisation….

Solid piece Simon, however i would contend that maybe TV is no longer the mass broadcast medium it used to be. The great thing about the Coke strategy from my point of view was that it combined Outdoor, point of purchase and experiential to result in people having something they chose to share themselves. Instead of forcing consumers to share something for the chance to win (insert bullshit prize), Coke gave people something they thought was cool, and that they wanted to share with people for fun.

As a female, working FT and from the demographic which influences family spending – I agree with Simon re: ROI. We have other more important things happening in life – participating in a brand’s activity through SM, videos etc. Also in appears, participation strategies combined with high profile issue or crisis spells disaster. Eg. Qantas. Adding to Simon’s theory – does the brand solve my problem, what emotional response does it give me.

I cannot see who in their right mind would care enough to go online and vote to save Louie the fly. Who cares.

Coke’s cans are collector items. It’s an iconic brand with a very loyal following. Bet it wouldn’t work if AC Cola tried the same thing.

agree with the crux of what Jacqui and ROI are saying.

in my opinion the pendulum of production vs media/distribution cost has swung too far in the former direction – the false economy of the “saving” of having no media spend and instead over-investing in (usually shite) content or consumer-participation activity means there’s a whole lot of marketing tumbleweeds in the desert of unvisited websites, youtube channels, blogs, facebook pages etc.

remember remy gullible or whatever his name was as one recent example.

most of these campaigns don’t get much viewership or notice outside our own industry – beautifully described by a commenter here recently as something like “masturbating in the mirror”.

hopefully the spectacular failures we are witnessing and the lack of accountability for some of this over-intellectualised tripe will see a better balance struck in the near future, along with the sacking of a few marketing directors who have contributed to this sorry situation by their complicity.

Great article – very true

And that web site he mentions is bloody funny

things real people don’t say about advertising at http://tpdsaa.tumblr.com/

I agree. I am tired of campaigns that rely on a Like, or Check In. What does that really mean and what does it do for the brand. Also, these days brands are too narrow, forgetting that sometimes mass exposure is better at driving sales. I have not purchased a Coke for almost 12 months but their campaign was so compelling that I had to.

i agree with the article overall. the bare bones fact is that most people just dont want to participate, it would be hard enough trying to make a new friend every single day let alone a faceless brand.

Effective marketing today is about not treating consumer’s as an anonymous, homogenised mass and instead communicating with them as individuals.

Above the line advertising has become stale and (largely) ineffective because it typically does the homgenisation thing.

“Participation” (as with any form of marketing), when not done correctly, is just “anonymous homogenisation” dressed up as “engaging with the individual”.

Share a Coke really is an incredible campaign in that it managed, as Simon said, to talk to individuals whilst having the mass reach that above the line can deliver so well. Interestingly, and relating it back to the whole homogenisation thing, I did notice that the people who tended to post photos of coke bottles with their name on it were those with less common names (including yours truly). This may have just been my observation though. It’s perfectly fine though and Coke may even have banked on it “sure the James’ and Emily’s might not care but the Lachlan’s and Georgie’s will and they’ll do the heavy lifting”.

Not all brands/products can do this so easily. Here’s a tip: build a CRM system that studies your customers buying behaviour and use that to tailor marcomms to them as individuals. Forget targeting terms like “middle Australia”… WTF does that mean? (hint: it means get ready to spin your crappy results in your board presos).

well said Simon. So many mass market brands wasting time on promotions that get 200 people to click like on facebook. pathetic.

I agree with elements of your argument Simon but the overall premise I think is flawed in. Primarily because you treat all those examples of small scale particpation as if they are the only marketing activities done.
Why must it have to be smaller scale activation that enables particpation OR larger scale reach activity that does not?? Any really good marketing mix should certainly consider both.
It is entirely plausable that (for example) OPSM did a small scale activation in Melbourne as part of a local area marketing exercise and ALSO did larger scale reach activites to build brand / drive retail.
Whatever activation you do obviously should relate absolutely to the results it has to generate. Any healthy strategy should start with “how big do we need to be?” as a key consideration in planning. Maybe they only need to be small to achieve whatever it is they want to achieve? Very shaky ground criticising campaigns without having access to the brief to know what the objectives were I think.

Simon,

May I ask why it is a case of ‘one or the other’?

Achieving multiple objectives for our clients – from brand building to immediate sales uplifts – requires the strategic use of a number of advertising tactics.

Participation or engagement or whatever you’d like to call it is just one tool in our arsenal. If used correctly it can generate invaluable media and social exposure which cannot be bought. It has also been proven to successfully shift brand preference and purchase intention.

Unfortunately too many agencies (many of them media agencies that lack important skillsets in creative, digital development and social media) get it wrong and fail to drive sufficient ROI for their clients.

So what’s left to do? Form a negative opinion on this form of advertising, bash a few campaigns and peddle the strength of old fashioned interruptive advertising. Maybe also throw in a shout out to one of the best campaigns of the year from one of the world’s biggest brands, implying that this is how it’s done.

We need more media strategists who embrace participation and the role it can play within a communication plan. Media agencies hold vital relationships with the media and often call the shots when it comes to allocating funds. This should put them in poll position to drive ROI and leverage any paid media spend. Not to mention the opportunity for strategists and researchers to be at the forefront of developing the tools for the effective measurement of participative media. Many media agencies have recognised this, only a few have acted on it. I was lucky enough to spend many years at a large media company that did.

We can look back to 2008 for an inspiring example of a campaign that combined participation with scale. ‘Whopper Freakout’ by Burger King took engagement to a new level and achieved scale by broadcasting the activity nationally via TVC cut downs. The online extensions were spot on and the results showed. And there have been many examples of brands successfully achieving this.

Let’s talk about these examples. Let’s not bash the OPSM campaign or the online treasure hunt, let’s talk about how it could have been done better or combined with scale to achieve the required result. Without knowing the business challenge, it is harsh for us to make constructive comment anyway.

We have reached a point where we need to rally behind each other, build on what has been done and continually improve our approach.

2012 should be the year when co-operation and collaboration return to our industry.

John @ 4.16 you mean “pole” (not “poll”) position – the former ironically involved with Jeep in a crappy stunt for 10 people to see at the portsea polo as reported elsewhere in mumbrella

I’m liking the repeated mention of ‘over-intellectualised’ in this debate. Really sums up our industry

I agree with John, we should embrace learning about the power of participation campaigns and how they can be tracked back to ‘scalable’ ROI in both the short and long term. Measuring this is a whole different kettle of fish – research partners please step into this debate…

We need to be brave & responsible in giving clients and agency partners the best confidence in igniting a great idea and using the full breath of paid, owned and earned media. Getting the balance between credible, less controlled, more targeted messages/media v’s broadcast ‘paid’ media that can re-enforce the massage and help drive ground-swell.

The reality is we should challenge every piece of communication to deliver more. brands should invite an action and encourage participation but not just for the sake of it. There has to be a strong role for the brand in adding value in this interaction & we have to ask ourselves ‘what the f&*% is in it for people’ e.g., in the case of the brand discussed above the product played a role in helping people connect/reconnect with friends/family/new people & also make them feel famous/exclusive for having their name on a can. Above all else it was simple & easy for people to participate with, you could get said product at every corner store, supermarket, petrol station, virtually on-line or at Westfield – mass access = scale & a true social movement.

I also agree with Paul that participation shouldn’t just be thought about in terms of consumer comms to create groundswell. Business ambition/spirit, true product/format innovation, staff/trade/customers engagement, borrowed assets – leveraging brand ambassadors or sponsorship rights, all should be in your armoury to create scale.

Impressive Simon, Good work mate!

Simon nice job at cutting through the crap

Hence i had to laugh when I read LachyW’s comment:

Effective marketing today is about not treating consumer’s as an anonymous, homogenised mass and instead communicating with them as individuals.

And at the end of the article there’s not a shred of evidence to suggest any “interaction” campaign had a negative ROI or a large scale “see” campaign had a positive ROI.

Gotta love the traditionalist and their apathy for results.

BTW, many “interaction” campaigns are nearly free. No media spend. User generated content.

And I love how he mocks the idea of brand-evangelizers, as if they dont exist and arent effective.

The best part of the article is the last paragraph pointing out the Coke campaign, which is an interactive campaign, the likes of which he spent the whole article condemning.

Clearly you’re better off with more reach, but not all interactions with media are created equal. The more intense, the more likely to change behavior.

You want to talk about brands wasting money on ad campaigns, look at TV.