Viral Video, Propagation & The Role Of Agile Marketing

I wrote a post a in 2007 that has been getting more and more traffic in the past six months. Agile Marketing. Basic Premise - the speed of change and networked ecosystem has demanded that we change the way we market.

And you know, it's really bugging me because social media type people keep using the ecosystem word, but sometimes I wonder if they really get what that means.

We aren't just sitting here creating stuff in a box.

It's interactions (not conversations).
It's a system we are part of (not one we create or control).
It can't be predicted (the only means of prediction is simulation).

Gareth Kay has a most awesome post (that everyone should read right now) on a new study by Millward Brown on how less than 15% of TD ads are 'viral hits'. Gareth takes issue with the entire premise behind the study and how they have even defined viral (for the best bits make sure you read the comments where Millward responds and then so too does Gareth).

But it's not really their fault. All that they've really done is taken how traditional agencies and companies have defined viral. And should we be surprised? Most of them have used traditional media measurement models and applied them to online video.

How many people have seen my video (aka TV commercial that I put online)?
How many people have shared my video (aka turned it into free media)?

Humph. So much for the medium is the message. So much for who we are reaching vs. how many.

The truth is that if we continue to apply traditional advertising models onto mediums that have completely different dynamics we will continue to be disappointed with the results.

It means Agencies have to change but it means clients have to as well.

In the comments Gareth talks about some emerging research by Mark Earls and frankly an entire school of thought that is looking to changing behviour through action (and active media) vs. persuasion via watching (passive media).

Because if it is "less what we do and more about what people do to what we do" - shouldn't we be putting our Agile marketing beliefs to the test?

Peter had a great quote that he first used in a Tao of Internet marketing presentation in 1998 for magazines Canada (too bad we didn't have slideshare back then):

Emergent systems are those in which perfect knowledge and understanding may give us no predictive information.... the optimal means of prediction is simulation.

A big fancy way to say:

We cannot create viral videos.

We cannot predict what will propagate (why or even how).

We cannot create community.

We cannot apply mass marketing thinking and models to a networked medium.

What we can do is discover a pattern, observe the underlying dynamics, create something (a utility, a story) and put it out there - see what happens and repeat.

And until we do that, the only thing we will continue to repeat is our own mistakes.


Photo Credit:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/31608675@N00/463506749/

Prediction For 2009 #5: The New Networked Home

My friend Dave Chant is a major geek. Peter always calls him 'King of the Kids'. Daves just one of those guys - Mr. ahead of the curve and for no other reason then he loves figuring out how to do things better, faster, smarter. Dave's home has always been networked. I remember when the Xbox came out, Dave was the first in line to figure out how to use it with his TV, Computer, Stereo system yada yada.

But it isn't just the Dave's of the world that are doing this now. In my own home, we most recently got ourselves a Mac Mini and hooked it up in the living room. We haven't quite figured out yet how to get all the computers networked the same way Dave does but we'll get around to it.

What amazes me the most about it is how it's changed our media habits. We are just as likely to watch videos and TV content through the computer now as we are from the Cable or the DVD player. And i have to tell you, every time I get a new 'we've raised your rates again for no good reason' letters from Rogers Cable, it makes me that much more committed to networking my home and completely cutting them out of my content watching loop.

It's just a simple change but the implications could be profound - Not only will it change how we consume media content, but also influence what we are willing to pay for and spawn the proliferation of new services we will be looking for.

2009. The year of the new networked home.

update: A couple good links that are related to what I said above just out today

TV.com content site

And an article on Boxee "Web TV That Makes Sense" (for anyone that didn't read it I also talked about Boxee in my first prediction for 2009, "The Rise Of The Presentation Layer"

Cultural Mood Boards Role In Brand Strategy

Designers use mood boards all the time. Why don't customer insight strategists? We used to do brand video's all the time for clients when I was at MacLaren for new businesses pitches and they always managed to capture the magic that static brand strategy documents can't. Peter thinks maybe it's a new type of mood board - as we do with planning documents - maybe a cultural mood board instead of brand? Hum...I think he's on to something...

Quote Of The Week

Peter sent me this from A List Apart:

So what is web design?

Web design is the creation of digital environments that facilitate and encourage human activity; reflect or adapt to individual voices and content; and change gracefully over time while always retaining their identity.

Let’s repeat that, with emphasis:

Web design is the creation of digital environments that facilitate and encourage human activity; reflect or adapt to individual voices and content; and change gracefully over time while always retaining their identity.


(i love the way he repeated it twice....goooooo Jeffrey Zeldman!)

Would They Have Bought Friends? Or NBC? Or Comcast?

Digital has changed the rules but does anyone even know what the game is? It has struck me that all the purchases and mergers seem to say more about what's not happening at many of these companies (tight well thought out strategy) than what is (complete reactionary chaos).

If we consider the rise and fall of so many trends on the Web, do we really think throwing a kazillion dollars at the latest one is really a good idea? SKYPE anyone?

Some might say, social networks aren't going away. I'll be a radical and say, connection on the Web will never go away and what we are calling social networks today will rise and fall and get reinvented in ten years under a new name that will spark a new buying frenzy (it’s amazing the way I go out on these limbs).

Peter had a great point the other day and asked the question whether or not any of these companies would have bought Friends at the height of its popularity. Or (just in case y'all start yelling the platform word at me) NBC or even the Comcast?

Business doesn't seem to be able to re-organize itself in an networked world. When new ecosystems pop up that gain momentum, companies want to buy communities as if they are an ownable commodity. I don't think it's going to work. I have trouble seeing what many of these businesses are going to gain.

Feel free to enlighten me....

ps. If you tell me data, i don't believe it. Most companies don't leverage the data that they ALREADY have including behavioural data on their own websites for goodness sake. And they get that for free.

Everything Is The Next Big Thing

While discussing Facebook hype and the Parakey purchase this morning, Peter articulated the way I have been feeling reading the blogosphere as of late.

"Well if you basically tout everything as the next big thing, you'll eventually be right."

Book Du Jour The Black Swan

Apparently the book de jour right now in business and marketing is called Black Swan.

The Black Swan theory?

"In Nassim Nicholas Taleb's definition, a black swan is a large-impact, hard-to-predict, and rare event beyond the realm of normal expectations. Much of scientific discoveries for him are black swans—"undirected" and unpredicted. An event often referred to as a "black swan" is the September 11, 2001 attacks.[1]"

Hum...that sounds familiar. Isn't that what an emergent system is?

"Emergent structures are patterns not created by a single event or rule. Nothing commands the system to form a pattern. Instead, the interaction of each part with its immediate surroundings causes a complex chain of processes leading to some order. One might conclude that emergent structures are more than the sum of their parts because the emergent order will not arise if the various parts are simply coexisting; the interaction of these parts is central."

Regardless if someone names it black swan or white dove, understanding emergent systems have become more important in our everyday business world.

Here is a quote from the paper "Emergent Phenomena and Complexity" that Peter used to put in our presentations talking about the new business reality with clients:

"Emergent systems are those in which perfect knowledge and understanding may give us no predictive information. The optimal means of prediction is simulation."

Peter's New Gig

........

Digitally Empowered Consumer: Peter's Rant

this is an oldie but a goodie from Peter:

"Digital customers are technology empowered schizophrenic kids in a self serve candy store. Customers from hell! They are discovering the euphoric experience of being able to indulge an ever increasing number of benefits enabled by digital communication technologies and they like it……It saves them time and money, it seems smart, it enables them instant access to whatever or whoever they want, and only when they want it. Their loyalties are fickle, their expectations high, their attention is hard to get and they want everything their way. They know their information, attention and loyalty has a value and they want to know what you are prepared to do for it. Their loyalty is based on the degree to which, information, product quality, price and personal; service are designed to provide the most convenience for their needs."

- Peter Munck 1999

The Portal is the Network

This morning, Peter and I were discussing a post by Fred Wilson on the deportalization of the Internet.

Personally I think Google has been building a portal in reverse. With all the different services they are adding on to their main search function, Google should look like a better designed Yahoo in no time. Now of course, they are smarter about it because they are not trying to centralize the eyeballs, but as long as they are centralizing all the data, it doesn't really matter does it? As Fred puts it
they have "introduced a monetization system that existed off its own network".

Peter furthered that thought and noted that what is happening is just a redefinition of the whole notion. While portal used to mean an entrance point to MY websites, now portal has opened itself up as any good healthy ecosystem should, to the Web in general. It is a starting point to discover the network.

In Peter's words, "when you are as pervasive as google the network is the portal"

The Red Wiggler and Bubble 2.0

Talking to potential smaller investors, the question of the current investment environment in technology and the Web as "bubble 2.0" keeps coming up.

Here’s why I don’t think this is a bubble or if it turns out to be a bubble, why it shouldn’t be.

People (and not just the kids) are spending more and more time online and yet, still the amount of media dollars proportionately isn’t even close to the traditional mediums of print, radio and TV. It is still painful to get clients to consider online media and when they do, often times they only think about text ads or banners.

It’s a weird generation gap in the marketing community that will need to be bridged and fast -- and when it finally does get bridged? Watch out.

When I was at MacLaren McCann in Toronto (that’s McCann Erikson to you Americans out there), I left the Interactive division and spent a year at the main Agency. There, I worked on a TV commercial that cost 1.2 million dollars. 1.2 MILLION! Built the brand. Won lots of awards, had a cool director, etc. But here is the thing.

Do you know what I could have done for 1.2 Million dollars in the interactive division? I could have conceived and built YouTube for goodness sake.

Peter (Munck) had actually suggested to the Agency in the early days that MacLaren do the first Canadian search engine. He wanted to call it the “redwiggler” (I love that!). What was their response?

What’s a search engine have to do with an Ad agency?

Um…search results? -- Knowing what consumers want to buy? --Understanding purchase behaviour? Customer insights perhaps?

They didn’t’ get it. He got totally shot down in a ‘oh you funny creative visionary kind of guy, kind of way’. The unfortunate death of the RedWiggler.

I digress. My point? It’s not a bubble. People are living online now and marketers are way behind on this one. Traditional TV, with traditional TV budgets and a traditional way of thinking about brand, that to me is the bubble. Mark my words….