Drink our own Cool-Aid

One of our Sales staff gave the study "Profiling European Bloggers" to a Dutch blogger. Next thing we know, he published an integral version of that report on his blog, but fully translated in Dutch. His intro: "[..] from renowned research firm Forrester [..] I offer you exclusively this report."

What should we do? This blogger clearly infringes our copyrights, but he also gives us a nice endorsement. We could sue him, or thank him.

Now, Forrester has said time and again that suing bloggers is like driving a Hummer: You don't get anywhere fast, but everyone will hate you. Now we are facing the same problem ourselves that we have adviced our media clients on. How does Forrester deal with IP theft? We're not sure yet, but we're searching for some middle ground: Have a limited blogoshere distribution to stimulate a dialogue, but ensure that our respected clients maintain exclusive access to the crown jewels.

That brings me to the one thing that I disliked about that Dutch blogger -- him using the word exclusive. There was nothing exclusive about it: All our clients have access to it -- legit.      

Engagement by age

The main graphic of the forum was the engagement pyramid with the Creators on top, followed by the Critics, the Collectors and finally the Couch potatoes at the bottom. Jaap introduced the different groups and gave some insights on their distinctive profiles. When I hosted a lunch table at the first day of the event with an array of companies around the table, one of the questions that came up was how these groups differ by age: To what extend does the engagement pyramid apply to your company if your customers are closer to retirement than high school?

To answer this question we have been analyzing the data and we found some very intriguing results. The level of engagement, being part of the pyramid, is biggest with the 19 to 29 years old and after this it decreases to around 70% at the age of 65 years and older.

This means that one third of senior customers are not on the engagement pyramid at all. But it also means that two-thirds already are, independent of their age. The engagement pyramid is not something only for the young and restless – across all age categories we find creators, critics, collectors and couch potatoes.

Most consumers in the pyramid are Couch potatoes; this is true for all age categories, followed by Critics. We find most Creators between 16 and 24 years: around 15% of the engaged consumers have a blog. But Critics, consumers that post comments or write reviews, are widely spread over all age groups.

The group that currently is strongest influenced by age is the Collectors, consumers that belong to at least one social network. This seems to be a matter of time, as most current social networks are communities focusing on younger consumers. When social networks will get a broader audience and MySpace goes Silver, we will see an increase of senior collectors.

What all of this means? It means that the engagement pyramid is already strongly embedded in each age group, but that the pyramid dynamics differ still per age group.

I will continue analyzing the issue and publish on this shortly. I welcome your thoughts.

Philip’s Design Enters Second Life

Philips Design has decided to enter the virtual community of Second Life by engaging residents in co-creation and gaining feedback on innovation concepts.

It developed a creation process called Multiple Encounter Approach which consists of multiple encounters with consumers, either face-to-face or in this case online. Consumers can ‘co-create’ by commenting on the products. The aim is to intensively involve people throughout the creation process get a deeper understanding of their daily activities.

As I was discussing earlier in a post, many brands see Second Life as an opportunity but they do not know what to do exactly. It seems to me that the approach taken by Philips is a good one though I’m not sure if co-creation means commenting only.

Do you think this is going to work out?

Last week we all joined at the QEII Centre for the Consumer Forum in London. I enjoyed it very much -- especially the enthusiasm of the speakers and the audience around integrating social media. We truely seem to be at a turning point: Leading marketers don't ask "why social media?" anymore, but "how social media?" The opportunies are endless, and the case studies spectacular. Lego, Fastlane, Skyrock, l'Oréal, Bebo, Six Apart -- amongst others they showed that:

- Contact is king;
- The response is the message;
- Consumers call the shots.

Based on the feedback, the audience was the winner. This is what they told us in the feedback forms:

Satisfaction on a scale from 0-4:
3.48 Forum content
3.42 Forum theme
3.73 Forum organization
3.53 Analyst presentations
3.33 Industry speaker presentations

We received many comments in the forms. The full list of both praise and critique would flood this blog, so let me just summarize it. The audience asked us to maintain:

- The high quality of speakers and presentations;
- Being thought-provoking, innovative, and practical;
- The general program and organizational format.

And the improvements suggested were:
- Have shorter breaks;
- Organize small, interactive sessions that focus on practical or industry topics;
- Not stand in the back or talk during presentations;
- Introduce speakers with more context around company and industry;
- Brief speakers that slides are a helpful medium, while company promotions don't resonate well;
- Have more (stable) WIFI-connected PCs available.

I want to thank everyone very much for their feedback, and promise that we will take your suggestions at heart for our forums in 2007.

Jaap

A day in the life of a [super-]blogger

Loic Le Meur spoke during the final session of the Forrester Consumer Forum EMEA 2006.  His presentation was humbly titled, "The day of a blogger."

LOL!  If Loic's life as a blogger is representative, then Davos would be a bunch of ordinary people sitting around chatting about the weather [is it already?].  I prefer to call Loic's discussion "A day in the life of a super-blogger."

Le Meur is EVP/MD of Six Apart Europe.  His presentation style is very engaging and entertaining - the audience was clearly hanging on every word from the stage.  Some insight on what it's like being Loic Le Meur:

• in: 100 emails from blog (not spam) – including corporate pitches, 100 comments, learnings, 2 requests to speak, 2 journalists
• out: 3 or 4 posts, 3 to 5 comments, 1 video podcast, 1 speech/paper/TV, 2 interviews
• why?  My ego (downplayed greatly) -  My brain’s memory assistant -  Pleasure to share (even if 100 people hate what I write, there may still be one who thinks it’s interesting) - Learn from the others - Collective intelligence -  Get background on anything/everybody - Self-promotion -  Business opportunities that come to you - Incredible opportunities (Davos, TV, press…) - Could be revenue (but I am not pushing it - approx. 3,000 euro/month) - International network - High level networking - Ability to do amazing projects in a short period of time

Le Meur's recommendations for the audience on how to approach bloggers:

• Read what they say!
• Identify the influencers and sort them (by influence, number of links, audience by expertise)
• Treat them as journalists

And conversely, how to NOT approach bloggers:

• lies
• fake blogging
• fake comments
• comments spam
• press releases in standard form
• ask for positive reviews
• no response to criticism
• no follow-up

But being successful means having to "unlearn marketing."

Traditional: imagine a product; market survey; test market; production; heavy marketing; success or failure

New:  share; create a community; understand what the users want, get feedback; launch ‘beta’; launch the product

Some glimpses into the future:  la Fraise, WoW, the Venice Project, SL, GooTube, Vox.

Reinventing the Marketing Organization - Q&A

Thanks to all who attended the session on Monday. In response to the questions from my session:

"What steps should you take to convince your company that an organizational change is needed?"

- Find out how many departments focus on 'the customer.'  Then figure out who's coordinating efforts so that everyone has the same vision of your customer groups.  This will give you a roadmap for the gaps that exist in your current organization and how far you need to go to drive real customer-centricity.  Bridging the gaps = the way to get started.

"The Forum content today has focused on social media in the consumer context.  What about B2B?"

- Customer-centricity is as important for B2B as B2C.  In B2B, this happens on two levels.  The first means focusing on your customers - the buyers of your products or services.  Ultimately, people make procurement decisions, not processes or departments.  The second means helping your customers better understand their consumers.  As your customers move to a CCMO to better reach their consumers, it will make your path to customer-centricity even clearer.  [BTW my colleague Laura Ramos will be extending the Reinventing the Marketing Organization idea into the B2B space.]

"Do you have examples of Customer-Centric Marketing Organizations?"

- Yes; look at the published examples of Best Buy, Starwood Hotels, and Procter & Gamble.  Other companies that have implemented elements of the CCMO are Fidelity Investments and The Gap.

"How do you centre around customers when you have many brands in different categories with different needs and benefits?"

- I think the CCMO is critical in this type of product-centric organization.  Focusing on customers will result in persona-driven groups that align around common lifestyle solutions.  This means that some brands may need to be pruned from a large portfolio, while others are added to reinforce the cohort value proposition.

"How do you apply the CCMO in practice?  What are the 1st steps to take to move to this org model?"

- The CCMO means changes must be implemented in structure, culture, technology infrastructure and partnerships/alliances.  The first step to take is convincing your CEO to make the leap - creating a charter to support the transformation.  This charter is supported by input from other function heads, including IT, finance, and HR, among others.

"If I'm making profits and my customers are happy, why should I take your approach into account?"

- Product- and channel-based organizations work - in the short-term.  Once consumer preferences change, companies respond by reorganizing internally to address new requirements.  So profit and happy customers are typically a short-term proposition.  Long-term?  Moving to a CCMO means customers transition from one group to another as needs change, or break off the relationship once their needs are misaligned with your business strategy.  The result is good profit and growth.

For more information, check out the report or this post.

Q&As Pierre Bellanger

Question: "What do you call an active blog?"

Pierre's answer: "We consider a blog inactive when it's not been used for 90 days. We delete 5,000 to 10,000 inactive blogs a day."

Question: "If a third of your revenues come from Internet advertising, don't you think that too many ads will end up by being rejected by your subscribers?"

Pierre's answer: "The 13-24 age group is different. They grew up with ads. I don't see this as a problem since we had no complaints till now."

Q&As Jaap Favier

Question: "Which retail firm do you believe has captured the most opportunity from this trend?"

Jaap's answer: Apple stores -- offering community services, and Starbucks -- offering "checkers in the store."

Question: "With blogs, can we edit content or not -- how does it affect trust?"

Jaap's answer: "The only editing is about illegal or offensive content. Any other content editing will reduce the trust, and make communities leave."

Question: "Why does it matter for an affluent brand trying to establish exclusivity?"

Jaap's answer: "Yes -- exclusivity rarely - and only temporarily comes from products (think iPod - Zune). But an exclusive experience is harder to copy, and relatively cheap to develop with Social Media."

Q&As Michael Wiley

Question: "How do you undertake conversation research in your methodology?"

Michael's answer: "You have two ways to do this. 1) The free way: Google blog search, BlogPulse, ans others like message boards and you begin to build a list of sites that talk about you. 2) Hire an agency like BuzzMetrics."

Have a look: http://www.micropersuasion.com/

Q&As Angel Gambino

Question: "Are you trying to keep your audience in, or do you encourage distribution via these channels?"

Angel's answer: "MTVFlux is an open platform. To watch the TV channel, you must be a pay-TV subscriber on cable or satellite. MTVFlux.co.uk is opened to anyone who wants to view, read or participate. However, if you want to meet other fluxers or create a playlist for example, you need to be registered. Registration is free and we do not intend a closed environment. We plan to make it very easy for our users to coexist and thrive multiple different environments such as MySpace or any other site."

Question: "Are users more loyal?"

Angel's answer: "Users are loyal so far but they're patient (we're still in Beta version). So far, we have been able to maintain loyalty by being responsive to answer their desires and complaints. Our responsiveness will be a challenge that we must meet in order to maintain loyalty while growing our userbase."

Angel's blog is: angelgambino.blogspot.com (she will put videos about Flux and a demo)