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February 14, 2005
Welcoming citizen marketers into your world
There's a new breed of marketer taking shape these days: Citizen marketers.
Citizen marketers are customer evangelists who generate media on behalf of products, services, companies or people who generate inspiration. Most forms of media they create is shared across the web.
Citizen marketers include:
- George Masters and his homemade iPod ad
- The volunteers who market the Firefox web browser (24 million download in 3 months)
- People who create fan sites like this one for the Broadway show "Brooklyn the Musical"
- The quirky guys behind the campaign to bring back Surge cola
- The creators of TiVocommunity.com
- Customers who post photos with their reviews on Amazon.com
- The people who created ads for the "Bush in 30 Seconds" contest from Moveon.org
The number of citizen marketers in the wild is rather small but chances are, their numbers will grow as the number of blogs, camera phones, and faster and cheaper video cameras and editing systems proliferate.
As tools, technology, bandwith, and skills for citizen marketers expand, so too will the variety of products and services showcased. Already today, some citizen marketing is as good, if not better, than the marketing produced by companies and their agencies.
Why?
In many cases, citizen media is more authentic and believable than agency work. It's created by customers not schooled in the traditional means of advertising. Citizen marketers aren't required to shimmer the truth to meet a CMO's desire for pedantic common denominators. Citizen marketers aren't beholden to often-silly categories of customer profiles dreamed up by account planners. They are the account planners.
Citizen marketers aren't required to overlook problems or mask shortcomings. But they may offer a workaround. Or justification for a feature or service some may consider wrong or short-sighted. Apple evangelists have multiple networks of stanchions standing by at all hours ready like the National Guard to jump into an argument or issue it considers unfair to Apple.
Citizen marketing is produced without the benefit of expense accounts, big budgets or pajama-clad creative directors (love that line from Sergio Zyman). Citizen marketing is more believable and impactful than the stuff being produced for mass media today. Their creative work is based on their intimate knowledge of the product, thereby making it authentic.
How citizen marketers work with an organization's marketing group is another matter. Some say bolt the doors! Shut out the citizen marketers and don't let them pollute the hard work of brand management!
That's what Jack Trout, marketing consultant and co-author with Al Ries of Positioning and 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing, advocates. He recently told the Christian Science Monitor:
"It's a real problem...And the problem gets bigger the more people see this stuff. It begins to muddy the message....The ad industry should rise up against [amateur ads]."
Not to put words into his mouth, but we gather Trout means lawsuits. While a naturally defensive position for some, suing is like poking an elephant with a stick: not very effective, and it just annoys the elephant.
For instance, Time Warner screwed up when it sued fans of the Harry Potter franchise for creating fan sites before the release of the first movie. The studio's hard line generated piles of bad press, protest websites and fan boycotts. Then there's the recording industry, whose non-stop lawsuits against music fans has generated little sympathy for its cause, nor has it lawsuits stopped unwarranted music downloads.
A better idea for companies is to adapt the open-source mindset of the software world and adopt the citizen marketers as your own. Give them the tools, the means and the permission to join your marketing department.
The marketers at Converse have embraced their citizen marketers. The 96-year old sneaker company asked loyal customers to create short films that showcase their love of the shoes. So far, they've received 700 films. [View the Converse Gallery of films here.] The best 13 entries are being shown as commercials on MTV and other cable channels.
As a result, sales are up. Online shoe sales doubled a month after the Converse Gallery was introduced, with much of those purchases occurring after people viewed the spots, Converse says.
Will citizen marketers work with you rather than against you? Yes, but they may not if they believe your existing marketing strategy is flawed, which may well be the case. Their willingness to follow your marketing guidance may hinge on how far you open the gates and invite them inside.
Traditional media structures are undergoing vast molecular changes that decentralize their power, diminish their reach and usurp their authority. This bubbling stew of change is creating the DNA for a new forum of marketing unlike any other. It may make brand managers accustomed to top-down message control blanch, but it's too late. The construct is set. Message control is obsolete. Marketing control is futile.
The citizen marketers are here.
Other blogs that reference Welcoming citizen marketers into your world:
» Citizen Marketers from BrandShift
I just noticed a nice post on Customer Evangilist by Jackie Huba today about citizen marketers, those people who decide to share their passion about a brand. This is a another good example of co-creation. However, when the people gain... [Read More]
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A must read article for all marketers and advertising execs on the rise of citizen media by Jackie Huba at the Church of the Customer. [Read More]
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Yup, branding/marketinh is not about 'getting your name out there' but rather getting the customer to say "I want it" and when they get it, they tom tom the fact !!!
from the catagory of shameless self-promotion:
www.obtainium.tv is putting together a network of people who want to produce "consumer marketing" along the lines of the converse gallery. we believe consumers are the best communicators of the brand experience, but we go a step or two further than converse. namely, we recognize that consumers don't see brands independantly of each other. our newest work integrates various related brands...current clients include pabst blue ribbon and puma. you are right that there will be more and more of this type of activity...particularly from lifestyle marketers. people like jack trout are nuts. engaged consumers can create wonderful amusing and idiosyncratic work at a fraction of the cost of agencies. he'll get left in the dust if he's not careful. (ps i spoke to ben about this site a few months ago and he had some good suggestions. we are in the process of updating it, the new site will be at obttv.com) thanks for your blog, i read it every day.
Darn righty, or open-source marketing as we call it....
...http://www.collaboratemarketing.com/open_source_marketing/
"Citizen marketing is more believable and impactful than the stuff being produced for mass media today. Their creative work is based on their intimate knowledge of the product, thereby making it authentic."
I hardly know where to start with a statement like this. For one, intimate knowledge of the product or service is clearly something agencies and clients have in droves.
This exuberance seems totally unfounded to me. George Masters made the Apple spot to showcase his abilties, not to provide new (nor better) marketing ideas from the ground up. The same is true of the team that made the VW suicide bomber spot that bounced around the web recently. I simply do not understand why so many bloggers think this is a disruptive trend.
The Converse example is different. When a marketer invites the customer to play a part in the marketing great things can and do happen. I'm all for this approach. But to think that brands should gleefully accept whatever consumer-generated ideas happen to come their way because the customer knows best, that's just crazy talk.
David, I defy you -- (sounds like a challenge to a duel!) -- to produce an agency person who is more knowledgeable about the ins and outs of a product than a hardcore customer evangelist who has:
* Started a fan site
* Supported other fans in the use of the product
* Taken apart and put together the product
* Put together their own tips and hints in the usage of the product
Agencies do important work, including helping companies clarify their strategic thinking.
But with all due respect from the outside looking in, agency people are still paid big bucks to be product cheerleaders.
A practical question first: how is this really different from "fan", "enthusiast", or "evangelist" (your preferred term)? By throwing a new name to call something so similar to existing concepts, aren't you in effect diluting those existing concepts?
And here is my theoretical question: where exactly is the "citizenship" in this phenomenon to deserve the adjective "citizen"? If you are really interested in closing the rift between consumerism and citizenship, wouldn't it be a good idea to understand citizenship first? The literature is full of criticisms about the decay of citizenship in US and elsewhere (see "Bowling Alone" from Robert Putnam at Harvard) because of expansive consumerism. I fear that critics will find one more reason to prove their very credible point that consumerism defeats citizenship by this very operation of subversion and appropriation.
What's wrong with being a product cheerleader? You make it sound so base, as if the work might be beneath a thinking person. More to the point, how is the cheerleader role any different than the evangelists you describe? Are they not unpaid cheerleaders?
I accept your point about brand evangelists living and breathing the product. Yet, that's precisely what agency people do. You can't claim "partner" (as opposed to vendor) status without living and breathing the client's product.
Furthermore, agency people have access to all the brand's numbers, trends, future plans, etc. Those "citizen marketers" who would offer to make advertising for the brands they love, do not know the brand's objectives. Sure, there's always the objective of increased sales, but via what trigger points?
The citizen journalist terminology works for me. Citizen marketer, on the other hand, seems like a reach.
I think the main difference between a citizen (of which I am one) and a paid ad agency is that the citizens can convey pure enthusiasm. Let's be honest, while ad agencies do some great things, they are passionate about whatever their client pays them to be passionate about.
Citizens like myself do what we do because, as goofy as this may sound, something about a product, tv show, etc. changed our life for the better.
I, along with a friend, started our website out of love for SURGE soda. Once we found that so many others shared our enthusiam, the site took off and a crazy little community was born. It was completely organic and something that would be very hard for an agency to duplicate.
There's no question, companies still need ad agencies to get their message across. However, I think what's going to happen is if a product develops this following of citizens, a partnership between paid ads and customer evangelism is a logical step.
Yes! Thank you, Eric. Co-creation works for me. It's the over-stated "diminshed reach" and "usurping authority" claims I have issues with. Not that I'm threatened by those supposed developments. I just don't believe that's what we're looking at.
Kerimcan,
We see citizen marketers as a special breed of customer evangelists. Customer evangelists love a product, service or company so much that they tell everyone they know about it. This could be through live conversations with neighbors, through email, etc. Citizen marketers are folks who have the skills, tools and creativity to produce an homage to the product they love. Often, it is via the web, where it can be spread to other people.
We use the term "citizen" to reference an ordinary person, or "citizen of the world", if you will. It is not dissimilar to the use of citizen in the much-used term "citizen journalist." We simply mean that you don't have to be a credential professional to be able to create professional-looking marketing.
Jackie, c'mon... You are egregiously dumbing down a status/concept for which thousands of people here and abroad toiled, fought, and sometimes even, died. Not every "ordinary person" is a citizen. I am an "ordinary person" (I hope), I lived in US for more than 10 years, I paid taxes all those years, and yet I am not a "citizen". What might be a silly semantic difference for you has real meanings and consequences for me. As for "citizen of the world", it is just an empty figure of speech. Sorry for being so blunt but as published authors you must be a bit more careful with your language.
A better idea for companies is to adapt the open-source mindset of the software world and adopt the citizen marketers as your own. Give them the tools, the means and the permission to join your marketing department.
http://www.evision.com.pk/web-promotion.html
We all need one on our side, it makes life so much easier.
Excellent post. The sad thing is that along with the "Citizen Marketers" come the "Citizen Abusers".
Any form of user(citizen)-powered marketing will always eventually be subject to abuse, and then the distinct line between a legitimate "volunteer" citizen and a "paid" citizen suddenly becomes very thin. Point in case: Digg.com, BzzAgent.com or a PayPerPost.com .
As time goes by and more "citizens" go up for hire, all user-driven marketing will be viewed through colored glasses.
So, that's where trusted networks like LinkedIn will come into the picture.
- Ravi Jayagopal
http://www.RavisRants.com
This is Great! I have posted some related sites over here: http://todaytop10.com
Blogs are good for every one where we get lots of information for any topics nice job keep it up !!!
Hi
Great article, newbies should take the time to read this again and again – before they waste their time going in the wrong direction.
