Our three Smarter Ways of Working Book Club choices this quarter offer an insightful look at the most pressing issue concerning all of us – both at work and beyond – and also suggest two new ways of looking at consumers, either as adjuncts to your marketing department, or even as contributors to your R&D division.
This quarter’s pick is The Green Marketing Manifesto by John Grant. This isn’t the first book of John’s we’ve championed, but we make no excuses fort returning to an author who always offers a new perspective. Here he looks beyond companies jumping on the green bandwagon, in search of a sustainable marketing that actually delivers on green objectives, not green theming.
Grapevine by Dave Balter and John Butman is subtitled “the new art of word-of-mouth marketing”, which sums it up neatly. MediaCom have recently partnered with Balter’s company, BzzAgent, so sure are we of the importance of using consumers as advocates of your brand.
But why limit consumers to a role in your marketing when they can get right in there and work on new product development? Wikinomics by Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams looks at how companies can open themselves up – Wikipedia-style – to mass collaboration with their customers, turning consumers into “prosumers”.
At this stage it’s important to mention that the approach advocated is significantly different to the green consumer bandwagon of the 80’s. During this period green marketing was seen as a route to commercial success and as a result of this deliberate exploitation the movement became know as green washing and faltered. Grant does not suggest that Green Marketing is not for profit: rather that it is not just for profit.
The first step towards sustainable green marketing is to understand that green issues require ‘step change’ thinking not marginal or cosmetic improvements. Grant argues however that in a world as wasteful as ours these changes are not that hard to come by, they are highly competitive and can make strong economic sense. Importantly Grant states the critical difference between green marketing and CSR is that we are not simply on the watch for negative consequences (the ethical insurance policy) but actively pursuing positive opportunities. He suggests the biggest misconception and mistake we can make is to make brands look green, in fact the role of green marketing is about making breakthrough green ideas seem normal – not about making normal stuff seem green.
Grants book tries and succeeds, in my view, to be highly practical. Firstly he attempts to give us a number of different typologies for green marketing based on 3 broad types of green marketing objective.
These objectives are then aligned to the level at which any marketing can operate:
Through this process, and in true Grant style, we get a 3x3 grid that helps categorise the opportunities under the blanket term ‘green marketing’.
The book is designed to be used as a reference tool; it should be something that you can dip in and out of when considering green marketing or looking for stimulus.
In the main however the book endeavours to give green marketing a fresh start, by moving green marketing from ‘image marketing’ to creating sustainable brands that have social meaning. The main difference between current practices is that he advocates letting brands have an authentic connection, not simply ‘green washing’. Its only by this approach, Grant argues can we tackle the main challenge facing this generation, the environment.
Back to top
Since those early days the internet has transformed the world and been transformed itself. The “publish and browse” read-only internet has given way to Web 2.0 in which we can all interact through forums such as blogs and wikis. One of the most striking applications of Web 2.0 is Wikipedia. This vast forum has facilitated mass collaboration by hundreds of thousands of people and led to the online encyclopaedia thanks to which we are all fantastically knowledgeable without having paid a penny.
The authors believe that the potential of mass collaboration does not stop at Wikipedia and present several other examples to bolster their case. These are undoubtedly the strongest parts of the book and show how companies can unleash the creative talents of a huge pool of people within a short space of time and at low cost.
The central message of the book is that the traditional ‘big company’ – an insular and hierarchical structure of a few thousand people – can either embrace the new wave of collaboration or expect to wither under the pressure of quicker, more innovative competition.
Where companies have exploited Wikinomics successfully there is one common lesson. In order to garner trust from the online community, companies must take a brave step and share some intellectual property with the world. This acts as social capital and provides prosumers - a growing number of consumers who are prepared to have a hand in the production of goods/services aimed at them – with a platform upon which add their imagination and skills. And once the prosumers get involved, innovation, awareness and buzz flow quickly and potentially on a huge scale.
This approach has been employed by small and large companies alike. Through making significant contributions to Linux – an open source programming language which you or I could edit – computer giant IBM gained access to the work of thousands of programmers who donate code on a daily basis. Footwear company Fluevog asked customers to submit designs for consideration promising the best would be manufactured with the brand adopting the name of the designer.
The book could inspire some bold moves for MediaCom’s clients. Should our financial clients be more open with customers over their approval/refusal for personal finance products? Should our motor clients publish some designs and ask for feedback and ideas? Should our computer gaming clients allow aspects of their games to be edited and modified by keen gamers?
The book briefly touches on the ‘fine line’ that firms must walk between sparking the creativity of the masses and giving away valuable sensitive information. We are told that firms must be prepared to give away ‘non-core’ intellectual property but presumably the more ‘core’ the information the more the prosumers take interest? For me, the book does not go into enough detail to show where the fine line comes nor does it offer any counter-examples of wikinomics going wrong.
The book also suffers from its repetitive hyperbole. A frustrating 50 pages of text could easily be summed with the same sentence ‘companies can either embrace change or be overtaken by others’. However, the real world applications of wikinomics are always thought-provoking and Tapscott is surely justified to highlight the body of talent that has only recently become so quick and inexpensive to access.
Back to top
Defining ‘word of mouth’ marketing has become increasingly tricky over the last few years as brands & agencies alike have devised more and more complex ways in which to get consumers talking about their products. The trouble is quite often this can backfire or not work in quite the way expected. Take Virgin Mobiles launch into the US market for example; Branson pulled a much publicised PR stunt in Times Square by appearing naked atop a huge, inflatable mobile phone and being lowered from a building. Risky? Yes Traffic stopping? Most definitely. But what made the news certainly wasn’t anything about Virgins new tariffs or call plans; they simply created awareness of the stunt itself.
In this book Dave Balter goes back to basics and demonstrates how to properly structure a word of mouth campaign in the real world and discusses how effective this can be across a range of product categories. In fact Balter is the founder of one of the first companies to harness the power of word of mouth in a controllable and measurable way. The company’s name, BzzAgent, makes reference to the way they employ a range of agents (consumers) who are signed up to talk about and report on the product or service that they are Bzzing. The book outlines how word of mouth can be used as a complementary tool to other media and can create added value that traditional channels cannot.
“What stories are people telling about your product?” Balter asks in chapter six, going on to explain that todays marketing departments are often not close enough to the incredible insights everyday customers can bring. BzzAgents allows companies to unlock these stories, the contexts and features that can be useful in refining messaging, understanding the target market and improving the products themselves.
It’s important to remember up to 80% of word of mouth takes place as live dialogue and only 20% online, so we’re talking about about real people here – that’s the key differentiator for the channel – people instantly add credibility, we trust them more than posters, TV or newspapers.
The power of recommendation is inherently stronger than advertising. More and more brands seem to think so too and it’s easy to see why. As consumers we comment on brands or services almost every day, much of the time without even realising we’re doing it. When was the last time you visited a restaurant, saw a play, read a book or test drove a car because someone recommended it to you? Word of mouth works.
Sir Martin Sorrell recently talked about the rise in social networking sites, such as Facebook and MySpace, being about recommendation between people about the things they are interested in and what they like. He added that companies increasing focus on getting into news stories reflected an appetite among web users for ‘ideas and knowledge’ from ‘independent’ sources. Using a PR company to generate coverage about your brand is one way around this (especially for an audience increasingly averse to traditional advertising) as is using BzzAgent, whom MediaCom have recently partnered with. Grapevine charts the background and rise of businesses obsession with word of mouth and explodes the myths about what it is and how it can work. It covers areas such as;
The techniques outlined in his book have really started to take off in the states wheareas in the UK we are playing catch up. BzzAgent has worked with over 150 companies to run 300+ word of mouth programmes for brands as diverse as Wrigleys, VW, Lucozade & Transport for London. Dave Balter has been featured on the cover of the New York Times magazine and BzzAgent is widely recognised as the leading word of mouth company. Not bad for a company formed less than four years ago! This is his first book.
For more information either read the book or for an informal chat on any aspect of BzzAgent call Ryan de Cruz on ph.0207 158 5500 for further information.
Back to topIf you have any queries, please contact us
