Grassroots social marketing is catching fire, and the results can be impressive for mobile marketing. At this year's Summerfest music festival, the mobile marketing campaigns for U.S. Cellular powered by Vibes Media saw remarkable growth in attendee participation over last year, much of it apparently driven by the social-marketing savvy of the bands. "We've been doing this for three years, but the actual rate of participation was up 51% this year," says Alex Campbell, co-founder and CEO of Vibes. U.S. Cellular sponsored one of several stages at the 11-day event, at which up-and-coming bands compete for recognition and prizes. As usual, Vibes ran the live stream of projected SMS comments via its Text-2-Screen technology and ran the text voting that determined winners. Total texting volume increased 37% over last year, although attendance was up only 2%, Campbell found. More than 40,000 messages were sent and the number of unique participants in the texting was up an impressive 51%. Even the Text-2-Screen activity rose 15% over last year, Vibes says. But what was behind this spike in activity? The text platform became de rigeur for this youth segment years ago. It's not as if the audience just discovered the next new thing -- text voting. Campbell checked and compared everything across previous campaigns -- from raw head counts to differences in messaging and even weather -- to explain the jumps, but saw little evidence of change. The key variable was with social media and the bands themselves. "The bands were promoting this via their social media, so the battle of the bands was engrained from the start," says Campbell. The small garage and start-up bands have, out of necessity, learned to master the tools of Facebook and Twitter to drive activity among their fans. Campbell found that many of the bands involved were using these channels to drive the fan base to use mobile media. "So the people who came to the concerts already understood there was a social component to this. If you are an emerging band, you have to use social to market for yourselves. The bands are doing this quite well, so it is spilling over into mobile." Before one band went on stage, Campbell saw they tweeted their fan base to "do it and do it again and retweet." In effect, both Vibes and partner U.S. Cellular were increasing their scale by drafting on the authority the bands already had within their well-established social-marketing channels. Campbell says brands could do worse than to pay closer attention to what some of these local bands have achieved in moving their fan base to action via social and mobile means. A year ago, Vibes was not seeing this grassroots social media effect on mobile campaigns, but now it seems unmistakable and suggestive. "Imagine what sponsors would spend to get a 51% lift on participation," he says.
I wouldn't have predicted that I'd be seeking a new entertainment recommendation service right at the time that I've been using Netflix the most. Sadly, with its forthcoming split into two companies, Netflix has lost any concept of what it is, and it has just opened a massive window for someone to trump it. Since returning from Asia on Sept. 11, I've been using Netflix more than I ever have. It's been a perfect storm of sorts. Jet lag kept me awake at odd hours, a stomach bug kept me home more than usual (thanks, Mongolian mutton), and rerun-heavy weeks before the fall TV premieres ensured there were few new shows worth watching. Naturally, I turned to Netflix to fill the void. It proved to yield mixed results. I did watch a number of films on Netflix, mostly documentaries. I only did so after sifting through hundreds of recommendations for movies I'd never want to watch, while looking for several movies that weren't available via streaming. Alternatively, I'd sift through the more limited options from Time Warner on-demand, including selections such as the wonderful "Mao's Last Dancer" that aren't yet available from Netflix. And rewatching this season of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" on HBO on-demand got me through a very long night. All of this leads to what makes Netflix different from its competitors. Netflix isn't a movie delivery company. It's an entertainment recommendation engine that provides fast access to its recommendations. Netflix once valued recommendations so much that it offered a $1 million prize in October 2006 to anyone who could substantially improve its recommendations, a reward claimed in September 2009. The history of Netflix from 1997 to 2009 hinged on recommendations. And these recommendations benefited from the network effect: as more people participated in rating films, the ratings continually improved for all Netflix subscribers. Since then, Netflix has shifted its focus to streaming. There are several challenges with that. The first is that the best streaming companies we have in the U.S. are the cable companies, as their pipes are best equipped to transmit the content. I'm no fan of Time Warner, but most of the time, it works instantly, and the high definition quality is a great bonus. Even in this economy, with cord cutting an important trend to follow, it will take a long time for most people to wean themselves off cable. Then there's selection. Netflix has a great selection for DVDs, but the selection for streaming will always be hindered by obvious examples of what's missing. If you're looking for movies that Netflix doesn't have for streaming, and it happens over and over again, it triggers a conditioned response. You get used to the idea that it only has what it offers you, not what you're looking for. People are used to that from cable operators, but not from Netflix, which once was known for having just about everything. What Netflix is left with is a dumb pipe. It's a delivery mechanism for a lot of streaming content, and most people can probably rationalize getting their money's worth if they watch a couple movies or a chunk of a TV series each month that way. That's fine, and I'm not canceling my Netflix subscription yet. But now you have a slew of opportunities. Others can trump Netflix in providing even faster access to content (possible winner: cable operators), better guides to figuring out what's available across content providers (potentially a next-generation Google TV, or the Xbox), better recommendation engines (startups like matcha.tv, or teams that competed for the Netflix Prize), or amassing the widest range of content (Facebook may play a role here). The old Netflix encouraged others to beat it at its own game. During the 35 months of the Netflix Prize, and in the aftermath, it was clear that no one could beat Netflix at recommendations. Its analysis of user-generated content was such a competitive advantage that anyone else who moved into Netflix's space wound up falling behind from the start. Now, Netflix says recommendations don't matter so much, as the streaming recommendations won't be as good when decoupled from its DVD library. Recommendations will matter more for Netflix's DVD service, Qwikster. Yet Netflix cares so little about its new brand that it didn't even secure the seldom-used Twitter handle from Jason Castillo, who posts gems such as "About as tired as shyt n I can't sleep" and apparently may not have recovered from hitting his head with a wrench. If Netflix continues to go in this direction and hangs its hat on the dumb pipe delivery mechanism, it's a commodity. Ratings aren't commodities, though; they're personal. They'll turn a dumb pipe into a Ph.D. scholar. Who will be smart enough to capitalize on this opportunity?
Grassroots social marketing is catching fire, and the results can be impressive for mobile marketing. At this year's Summerfest music festival, the mobile marketing campaigns for U.S. Cellular powered by Vibes Media saw remarkable growth in attendee participation over last year, much of it apparently driven by the social-marketing savvy of the bands. "We've been doing this for three years, but the actual rate of participation was up 51% this year," says Alex Campbell, co-founder and CEO of Vibes. U.S. Cellular sponsored one of several stages at the 11-day event, at which up-and-coming bands compete for recognition and prizes. As usual, Vibes ran the live stream of projected SMS comments via its Text-2-Screen technology and ran the text voting that determined winners. Total texting volume increased 37% over last year, although attendance was up only 2%, Campbell found. More than 40,000 messages were sent and the number of unique participants in the texting was up an impressive 51%. Even the Text-2-Screen activity rose 15% over last year, Vibes says. But what was behind this spike in activity? The text platform became de rigeur for this youth segment years ago. It's not as if the audience just discovered the next new thing -- text voting. Campbell checked and compared everything across previous campaigns -- from raw head counts to differences in messaging and even weather -- to explain the jumps, but saw little evidence of change. The key variable was with social media and the bands themselves. "The bands were promoting this via their social media, so the battle of the bands was engrained from the start," says Campbell. The small garage and start-up bands have, out of necessity, learned to master the tools of Facebook and Twitter to drive activity among their fans. Campbell found that many of the bands involved were using these channels to drive the fan base to use mobile media. "So the people who came to the concerts already understood there was a social component to this. If you are an emerging band, you have to use social to market for yourselves. The bands are doing this quite well, so it is spilling over into mobile." Before one band went on stage, Campbell saw they tweeted their fan base to "do it and do it again and retweet." In effect, both Vibes and partner U.S. Cellular were increasing their scale by drafting on the authority the bands already had within their well-established social-marketing channels. Campbell says brands could do worse than to pay closer attention to what some of these local bands have achieved in moving their fan base to action via social and mobile means. A year ago, Vibes was not seeing this grassroots social media effect on mobile campaigns, but now it seems unmistakable and suggestive. "Imagine what sponsors would spend to get a 51% lift on participation," he says.