Archive for October 12, 2005

Good article by Nino Marchetti, Staff Writer, Designtechnica News

New study from Intelliseek suggests that, especially in the case of iPods, consumers are very heavily influenced in their tech buying decisions by personal recommendations.

A new study out today by research firm Intelliseek suggests that iPod-owning consumers are significantly more like to be cutting edge personal technology and Internet users who speak their mind on these products and make buying recommendations to others. This translates into word of mouth recommendations from personal relationships, however the medium it is delivered, can carry a great deal of weight in someone else’s buying decision.

Intelliseek said that according to their 2005 Consumer-Generated Media and Behavior Study, “iPod users are twice as likely to have authored a blog than consumers who do not own MP3 players, and they outpace other MP3 owners on creating and posting content online. iPod users are also 2.5 times as likely to exchange text messages on cellular phones (59% vs. 24% of non-owners), three times as likely to take photos with a camera phone (45% vs. 15%), and three times as likely to download video clips and movies to a personal computer (47% versus 16%).”

The representative study of 660 online consumers was conducted in August, 2005. It showed that in the category of iPods alone, “nearly 1% of all new blog entries directly or indirectly mention iPod products, roughly equal to the total amount of online conversations citing MP3 players in general. First-person product testimonials about iPods also index highly across message boards, forums and ratings sites.”

"iPod users have more word-of-mouth tools at their disposal to spread opinions and reviews about their iPod experiences," said Pete Blackshaw, Intelliseek’s chief marketing officer. "Provided iPods continue to delight consumers, Apple will benefit from a growing volume of free, trusted advertising from other consumers."

Came accross these two great quotes while reading Gaping Voide

"Word of mouth is the best medium of all."
Bernbach (1989), of Doyle Dane Bernbach

"The best advertising is Word Of Mouth"
David Ogilvy

Underscore Marketing’s Tom Hespos  writes in OnlineSpin about  Ad Age Editor Scott Donaton’s new book Madison & Vine. The chapter discusses product placement and integration – fancy terms for bribing producers to incorporate brands into a television show hoping to glean some "cool factor" with consumers. Hespos questions why a marketer would want to engage in product integration in the first place knowing most fail and are scoffed at by increasingly marketing-savvy consumer s as lame attempts to sell product.

Hespos also discusses what really amounts to fear and laziness on the marketer’s part to engage with the consumer in a meaningful conversation and suggest the creation of simple brand-hosted message boards and discussion lists the draw consumers into a conversation about a company’s product. Certainly, bad things will be said about any given product but wouldn’t a smart marketer want to know everything about their product including what might be wrong with it?

I’d go a step further and suggest the creation of an entirely new discipline headed by a director of customer/consumer conversation/dialog. The sole responsibility if this person/department would be to converse and listen to the consumers with no interest in selling product. Sure, product management, marketing, sales and customer service touch this area but not enough to make it effective. Each of those disciplines has a goal that is counter to having an open, honest and friendly discussion with a customer of prospective consumer.

This is not achieved though doing surveys or hosting focus groups or through agency account planning efforts. It is achieved by talking to customers/consumers as one would if they were discussing a product at a cookout or dinner party. This is not stuff that can be rolled up neatly into a spreadsheet of a PowerPoint presentation. This is roll-the-sleeves-up, get-dirty-with-the-customer conversation.

If a customer were to say, "the hose on my Kenmore vacuum always gets twisted because the connection between the handle and the hose doesn’t turn," the correct response is "I’ll run over to Jim’s (hose designer) office and see what he can do and get back to you" and not "Well, we’ve designed it that way so that the hose won’t lose too much suction."

Give a shit. Basically, that’s what this boils down to. Consumers are not a vast collection of numbers on a spreadsheet or a nice collection of 5 categories with silly marketing names like "early, suburban adopter." They are people with real concerns that will, ultimately, lead to a better product. Listen and give a shit. That’s good marketing medicine.

Long but great article in AdAge (annoying registration required)

Here’s an eye catching quotes from this well reasoned article

… many functions of marketing research, R&D and advertising itself are being rendered obsolete by ….

How the Open Source Revolution Impacts Your Brands

By Bob Garfield

Hear that?

In the distance? It’s a crowd forming — a crowd of what you used to call your “audience.” They’re still an audience, but they aren’t necessarily listening to you. They’re listening to each other talk about you. And  they’re using your products, your brand names, your iconography, your slogans, your trademarks, your designs, your goodwill, all of it as if it belonged to them — which, in a way, it all does, because, after all, haven’t you spent decades, and trillions, to convince them of just that?

Congratulations. It worked. The Great Consumer Society believes deeply that it has a proprietary stake in you. And like stakeholders everywhere, they are letting their voices be heard.

Why? Because the information society is reversing flow. What began as an experiment among a few software nerds has, thanks to the Internet, expanded into other disciplines, notably media and law. But it won’t stop there. Advertising. Branding. Distribution. Consumer research. Product development. Manufacturing. They will all be turned upside down as the despotism of the executive suite gives way to the will, and wisdom, of the masses in a new commercial and cultural epoch, namely: The Open Source Revolution.

Yeah, yeah. Sure. Linux. Zzzzz. Wikipedia. Zzzzz. Blogging. Podcasting. RSS feeds. Zzzzzzzzzzzz. This cultish open-source stuff is undeniably a snooze — a handful of evangelistic cybergeeks yammering on till little beads of white goo form at the corners of their mouths, as you struggle to remain conscious. If you can’t get jazzed by “Open Source Revolution,” fine. Maybe you prefer “Reverse Flow Economy,” or “Listenomics.” Whatever. Any which way, the herd will be heard. And, any which way, it is underway.

Commercials by ordinary consumers
If you can keep your eyelids propped open, you’ll have a chance here to consider the implications of TV commercials produced not by agencies, but by ordinary consumers. The stuff is out there already. More significantly, though, you’ll see how many functions of marketing research, R&D and advertising itself are being rendered obsolete by Web sites devoted to the merits, demerits and improvement of existing goods and services. At the same time, you’ll be asked to confront the double-edged sword of consumer participation.

… see the full article in AdAge