Commentary

Leveraging Your Marketing Spend With The Young, Hip And Mobile

As marketers in today's tight economy, we are forced to look at channels that spread our message to the broadest audience in the quickest amount of time with the least amount of cost. However, the question remains: How exactly do we do this? For certain brands, let's say in the retail and entertainment space, the easy answer is just to hit the trendy types because we know word-of-mouth is the most influential form of communication. But not so fast: Not all trendy types are created equal.

Procter & Gamble showed us that there are two types of people associated with how trends develop, trendsetters and trend-spreaders. Trendsetters are the people whose equity is based on being different. They discover something early, broadcast it to the world and bask in the glow of being on the bleeding edge of culture. They are the people who, once someone else starts wearing their new favorite kind of sunglasses, decide that sunglasses just aren't cool anymore. And they move on.

Trendsetters can help sales, but the true drivers of sales are the trend-spreaders. These are people who notice what the trends are, see the latest movie or buy the latest gadget, then tell their friends and social network about it. Back in the '70's, Procter and Gamble discovered these people have the most value to P&G brands. Connecting with just 1% of trend-spreaders significantly increased sales. This is huge leverage that any marketer should pursue -- but the $64,000 question is how do you find trend-spreaders in today's world?

Let's look at the biggest--and potentially most lucrative--environment for trend-spreading, mobile media and social networking. Most, if not all, trend-spreaders from ages 15 to 34 are hyper-mobile yet totally "wired" to their friends at all times. They're connected and love to share their passions about movies, music and sports with their peers and social networks. And while desktop and laptop computers stay at home or in the dorm room, trend-spreaders carry their cell phones with them at all times.

So how do we connect the three dots: platform, trend-spreaders and marketing? Let's consider game playing, a huge pastime for mobile mavens. A young man calls a movie showtime application and accepts an invitation to receive a text message with a phone number to play a mobile trivia game sponsored by a fast food restaurant. He clicks on the toll-free number and is asked three multiple-choice questions. If he gets all of them correct, he is sent a text with a URL and promotion code for a free movie ticket courtesy of the fast-food restaurant chain. During the trivia game though, the chain was able insert several messages about their tasty and inexpensive food, driving the hunger pangs of the young man.

Imagine how easy it is for this guy to send that text to his social network. "Hey, gang! Check out this trivia game. It's a chance to get a free movie ticket!" Engaging and simple. He becomes the spreader of the trend and an implicit endorser of the restaurant. And since studies show that 50% of movie-goers associate a meal with their theater-going, it is likely that this caller and his buddies will show up at that fast-food restaurant later that day.

Consider another 2008 viral application: voice-blogging. Instead of typing on their social networking sites, trend-spreaders are downloading voice widgets onto their MySpace or Facebook page. While downloading the widget, most users opt-in to allow advertisers to trigger off their profile data, such as age, location, and interests. Once installed, they call a toll-free number and leave an audio blog for their peers and social network, usually about what movies or music or activities they are into. This is a marketer's dream. Now imagine an energy drink company needing to introduce their product to 17- to 24-year-old males in Chicago. They simply need to insert a short-audio ad sponsoring the voice blog of users fitting that demographic, and these trend-spreaders and all their peers will hear it. The message gets triggered off the user's profile, and the short ad can then be forwarded virally to even more friends and peers. This is way beyond what Proctor & Gamble ever imagined back during the 1970s.

Trend-spreaders are gregarious people, inclined to engage and to share, while trendsetters are lone-wolf personalities who quickly move on when others jump on their bandwagon. As the mobile revolution intensifies, it'll be the "spreader of the trends" with whom you'll want to associate your brand.

1 comment about "Leveraging Your Marketing Spend With The Young, Hip And Mobile".
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  1. Ted Wright from Fizz, January 14, 2009 at 9:12 a.m.

    Yep, the future of successful marketing is focusing on Influencers and really understanding how to implement word of mouth marketing. Since the author is using P&G as his stalking horse let's quote their data and recognize that 9 of 10 word of mouth opportunities happen face-to-face. Let's throw another P&G data point into the mix - a single Influencer (or trendsetter as Randy has labeled them) is worth 1,000,000 story sharing opportunities within his/her broad network over a one year period.

    Platforms to access these networks of Influencers and their followers vary. Most WOM gets spread face-to-face so in these trying times we emphasize this platform of communication best it is most likely to yield the best results and work the quickest.

    One thing however is constant across all WOMM platforms - the story must have three qualities to be passed from person to person. It must be INTERESTING (to the Influencers so they will want to learn more/become engaged), in must be RELEVANT to the Influencers audiences (so that the Influencer will have opportunities to share) and it must be AUTHENTIC (to the consumers understanding of the current brand promise or what is possible by brands in the category).

    There are more effective networks of Influencers and there are the less effective. There are a variety of applications out there in which to spread you message –social media apps, face-to-face conversation and video blogging all are valid. However there is only one story type that works - one that is interesting, relevant and authentic. A story that fails on any of these three criteria will fail to be spread no matter your channel or gadget choice.

    This is what we have learned over the last eight years of doing word of mouth marketing. I hope you found this helpful.

    Platforms to access these networks of Influencers and their followers vary. Most WOM gets spread face-to-face so in these trying times we emphasize this platform of communication best it is most likely to yield the best results and work the quickest.

    One thing however is constant across all WOMM platforms - the story must have three qualities to be passed from person to person. It must be INTERESTING (to the Influencers so they will want to learn more/become engaged), in must be RELEVANT to the Influencers audiences (so that the Influencer will have opportunities to share) and it must be AUTHENTIC (to the consumers understanding of the current brand promise or what is possible by brands in the category).

    There are more effective networks of Influencers and there are the less effective. There are a variety of applications out there in which to spread you message -facebook, stories spread face-to-face and video blogging all are valid. However there is only one story type that works - one that is interesting, relevant and authentic. A story that fails on any of these three criteria will fail to be spread no matter your channel or gadget choice.

    This is what we have learned over the last eight years of doing word of mouth marketing. I hope you found this helpful.

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