Crowdsourcing in B2C marketing is not new. The most prominent example—the immensely popular fan-created commercials for Doritos as part of its Crash the Super Bowl campaign. Probably taking a leaf out of Doritos’ book, Chevrolet has also announced plans to follow a similar strategy.

However, such stories should not mislead marketers to believe that crowdsourcing is a quick way to achieve amazing results. In contrast, reaching out to a large average crowd can actually overwhelm marketers with the sheer number of ideas they receive, and the time and effort in sifting through those ideas can be much larger than engaging an agency to do the job. Moreover, the ideas can also turn out to be completely off-track and unusable.

That said, the good news is—some new agency models have evolved over the last 3-4 years that help to conduct, what can be called, “targeted crowdsourcing” or “expertsourcing.” Here, instead of broadcasting a project brief to masses, only select few specialists are chosen to do the assignment.

Here are some examples of such models: Read More »

Big consumer brands – and even some large B2B and B2G firms – spend big parts of their marketing budgets on paid media and advertising. This level of spend is universal – so brands can’t exactly opt out, at least not directly.

But evidence is emerging – not the least of which, from our 2011 B2C research – that paid media is becoming less and less effective in terms of driving sales and positive brand sentiment. It’s up to marketers to find the channels that consumers trust most, and re-optimize spend for those platforms.

Just as a review, here are the three broad buckets of media spend we’re thinking about:

Paid Media: Channels that you pay for (TV, radio, print, billboards, retail displays, online ads)

Owned Media: Channels that you own (website, blog, building, uniform, vehicles, product itself), or partially own (facebook page, twitter page, YouTube channel)

Earned Media: Consumers become the channel (PR, WOM, mentions in blogs, tweets,  or product reviews), which you can neither buy nor own

Typically, marketers use a PEO framework, where they start with Paid media first, then look to Earned, and put least focus on Owned. Some of the beliefs that drive them to do this are:

Myth #1: We don’t have budgetary limitations, so we don’t require earned media.

Some marketers and agencies put most of their resources on paid media and the leftovers are spent on earned media. Only when they’re tight on budget, they plan their entire or most of their marketing strategy around the earned media. In effect, they push down earned media’s status to a “media of last resort.”

Reality: While it’s easy to “buy” media, it’s not really easy to create the “buy-in.” With so much information overload, consumers have become highly insensitive to traditional media (Kogi BBQ learnt this the hard way). What they actually value is information that comes from credible sources. I’m sure when Mercedes-Benz wanted to capitalize on Google executive’s testimonial, cost-saving wasn’t the motivation. Rather, it was the credibility of the source that Mercedes wanted to leverage.

While earned media is relatively cheaper than paid, it is certainly not free. Nor it is easy or quick. The cost of buying media gets shifted to cost of creating and managing content. Even if the companies now will need to become creative thinkers to develop and plan content, the ROI is still better compared to paid media.

Myth #2: Earned media can’t be controlled, so there is no point planning for it.

Some marketers fear that since they don’t have any control over the reach and impact of earned media, they’ll end up wasting dollars, or probably even worse—earning negative WOM.

Reality: Though the control may not be “completely” in your hands, but with some thoughtful planning, you can initiate and drive the conversation in your favor. Generate curiosity (Kaizers Orchestra did it by launching a record on paper), create value (Best Buy’s Twelpforce), empathize (J&J’s Baby Center), or just challenge the conventions (Men With Cramps! Really?), and Voilà! You’ve influenced the influencers.

Further, owned media is a low-hanging fruit that can play a significant role in driving your influence. Brands use their website, twitter page, facebook page, or YouTube channel to seed content. Even the product (customized M&Ms), the packaging (Bronx shoes), and the distribution (Coke’s uVend) can be creatively utilized.

Are the flaws in PEO apparent now?

Imagine turning the PEO framework upside down and making it OEP. That is, try to capitalize on Owned first and use it as a driver to initiate Earned, then focus your strategy on increasing and sustaining Earned, and if necessary seek Paid support.

Earned media should play a “central role” in the marketing strategy, while owned and paid play “supporting partners.”

By the way, while you were reading this post, the brands mentioned above just earned some more media for themselves. So next time you meet your agencies, ask them (a few weeks ago, we wrote about how agencies should transform in the new advertising landscape) to utilize your budget in a way that gives you more dividends, and that too, sustainable.

None of the big boys of Madison Avenue made to the top of “Advertising Age’s Top 100 US Agency Brands for 2010” list. Acxiom Corp., an Arkansas-based database marketing company has been topping this list for the last two years. Only eight leading advertising agencies could make it to top 20, with digital and PR agencies filling the rest of the positions.

Tim Williams wowed the audience with this fact as he opened the seminar organized by International  Advertising Association in New Delhi that I attended a couple of weeks ago. Tim is a thought leader in the advertising and marketing business, and also the author of the bestselling “Take a Stand for Your Brand.” Here, he was speaking about “How Agencies are Transforming for the Future.”

He explained how the advertising landscape has changed over the years. Many CMOs are shunning “agency of record” relationships. A number of them are bypassing agencies to work directly with media companies, production companies, and even directly with creative talent via crowdsourcing. Tim called this trend of bypassing as “disintermediation” of agencies.

So, what has caused this disintermediation, and the blurring of roles between agencies and media companies? What are marketers’ expectations from their agencies? Read More »