The Anti-Customer

The social networks have brought out individuals with a wide range of social aptitude. For some, this may be their only outlet -- the only place where it's possible for a group of people to hear them or take them seriously. The beauty of the medium is that it's here for everyone and anyone. All you need is a computer and the ability to push some buttons. But that certainly doesn't mean the author has any ability to engage with other users or deliver anything worth reading. But that doesn't prevent them from trying.

When I last read the book "Tipping Point" I had the frame of mind that people who become connectors or salespeople have a basic desire to influence other people in a positive way.

Silly.

As marketers, it's our job to win someone over to the "good" side. It's not that often that we think about the detractors who are trying to do just the opposite. I've recently encountered this with a corporate blog. We love our fans, our fans love us. It seems like the right time and opportunity for brands to host forums to share that love. But some of the "salespeople" in the group aren't always happy or interested in seeing that brand succeed.

Why would someone claim to be a fan of something, then try to persuade others that they should rally against it? It's as if the indignant few are hoping to expose some foul injustice and someday the wronged will become victorious.

Maybe its like that old car in high school -- you couldn't afford the car you really wanted, so it was cool to tell everyone that you hated your car. "My car sucks." So you didn't wash it, never changed the oil, filled it with empty Mountain Dew bottles...and it kept running. You didn't know until later how much you loved that car. Today you might tell someone, "I had this old car and it never owed me a thing...if only I knew then..."

So now as we try and market a brand or a product, there are forces working against the positive influence we are trying to create -- able to vocalize their disdain for the topic at lightening speed with little impunity. Maybe they're just grumpy. Maybe they need a friend. But will I ever be able to win them over? No...at least not by myself.

So, we'll continue to find ourselves in strange debates with otherwise innocuous people that somehow pushed our buttons today.

Social Influence on Shopping Behavior

A new study was just released by Jupiter and LinkShare regarding the influence of social media on shopping behavior:

http://www.linkshare.com/press/news_jupiterresearch.html

• Social and community sites impact the purchase decisions of 51 percent of online shoppers aged 18-24. This is far beyond any other age group, which averaged less than 26 percent
• More than a third (36 percent) of online shoppers affected by social/community sites said they buy offline even though they use online social/community sites to make their decisions
• 42 percent of online shoppers said consumer product reviews would make social/community sites more useful when researching and buying online; 24 percent of online shoppers said top 10 product lists would make social/community sites more useful when researching and buying online
• 77 percent of online buyers who used store websites when researching their most recent online purchase found them useful. 75 percent of online buyers who used search engines when researching their most recent online purchase found them useful. Yet online shoppers continue to seek out additional product insight, commentary, and promotions elsewhere

Can you be tipped?

I was reading the article "Is the Tipping Point Toast" here:
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/122/is-the-tipping-point-toast.html

...and then I had some thoughts:

• I love when I read something like “... a growing group of marketers believes Watts is radically altering the way companies attempt to produce trends” ...when that could mean five marketers over the year and a half.
• why does it seem like it is assumed everyone is equal — where’s the passion? Could that be the third dimension no one has figured out yet?? All ideas are equal, all consumers are equal...they just happen to fall into categories like “mavens, salesmen, or connectors” ...or “influentals”...so just because you’re connected you’ll spread the word? You have to be passionate about something first.
• people get over diseases. I spread one to my daughter last month, a few weeks later she spread it back to me. But eventually, we’re all breathing again and forget about it. She still wants another Webkinz the minute a new one comes out, and no one told her she should like it.
• they talk about influence in mechanical terms. I am most influential when I am sold (tipped) — I happen to like Hush Puppies a lot and now people know about it, but there had to be a reason for me to get hooked in the first place.
• “... the cascade began with an average Joe” and “the rank-and-file citizen” was far more likely to get things moving... BECAUSE they are were all equally BORING people.
• I’d rather think of effective viral marketing as an echo in a chamber and less of a ripple in a pond — the ripple goes out and then dissipates, but the reverberating idea is what really makes brands strong. We talk about it, we agree that it’s good, we talk about it when we buy it the second, third and fourth time. That’s different than spreading an idea/trend and never hearing affirmations of your convictions from the group you infected.
• “He simply doesn't think it's possible to ‘will’ a trend into existence by recruiting highly social people.” I agree: you’re idea or product might suck.
• “When he tried to pitch ‘some company's shitty product,’ he couldn't force it to go viral.” -- really? You’re kidding.
• If you have to work so hard to get people to grab an idea and share it, maybe your idea isn’t so good in the first place.

Another idea: maybe a product/brand just makes me happy and I don’t care what your marketing says. Some consumers don’t need to be pitched...and now most won’t allow it. If companies think this first step (to pitch the influencer) is actually a good idea, I think there’s a lot of money being wasted. The brand itself needs to be a social one...people enjoy it together, give it to each other as gifts and talk about new products that come out. They experience it together...as a group...so they influence other whole groups and not just individual people.

The Brand Transfer

The idea for this blog started with an innocent gesture: one of the Blue Men said "hello" to me after a show by placing his blue hand on my head. After his blue-ness was transferred onto my bald melon, I wasn't sure how to remove the paint. So, the mark remained on my head for several hours while we experienced the City Walk at Universal Studios. No doubt anyone who saw the hand knew where I had been -- the open hand is a trademark of the Blue Man Group and the blue color is obviously a recognizable visual queue.

This got me thinking about how other influences and preferences are transferred to everyone else we meet. The brands we like, the desires and attitudes we possess -- they all have a way of being projected at certain moments and affecting other people. Sometimes we're not even aware that it's happening.