Online Communities Change the World - marketing and consumer

Impact of YouTube, Facebook, Wikipedia, TripAdvisor and other online communities. Why traditional advertising agencies cannot respond. Power of community opinion. New marketing models. Why online communities are trusted more than official websites or information sources. Web 2.0. Conference keynote speaker and Futurist Dr Patrick Dixon.

Why consumers won't wait - impatience online

People do crazy things when in a hurry - the future is about emotion, not about technology. Futurist Dr Patrick Dixon lecture on future of telecom, mobile phones, marketing, management and motivation (more)

Future of marketing in a YouTube world

Interview of co-founder of YouTube Chad Hurley by Dr Patrick Dixon at Google Zeitgeist CEO Summit. Lessons on future of marketing for every brand owner, advertiser and corporate image builder.

Future of Marketing - Dr Patrick Dixon at Google Zeitgeist

In a YouTube, Wikipedia and e-Bay world - how media, marketing, and brand management is changing. Impact on every large business. Dr Patrick Dixon chairing panel for CEO event Google Zeitgeist.

Connecting with emotion of customers online - Patrick Dixon

Why consumers trust online comments on bulletin boards more than slick advertising campaigns.

Confusing insurance industry marketing messages

The insurance industry is in a mess when it comes to image, branding and marketing.

There are two conflicting messages: the first is that we are here to make shareholders wealthy – which fits with the popular image that insurance companies charge high premiums and pay out as little as possible. The second is closer to reality, which is that we exist as a community service which is run in a way that also rewards those who invest.

• Marketing: We are here to protect your family, to pay out generously and quickly if something happens to you, giving you peace of mind at a fair price. We believe in the value of what we do for you.

• Investor Relations: Our mission is to make shareholders as much wealth as we can without breaking the law and landing up in prison. We raise life insurance premiums as high as we can get away with, and pay out as little as possible.

The answer is simple: focus on the good that you do, ensure the business is run efficiently and risks are assessed accurately, eliminate fraud and pay out promptly – and the rest should take care of itself.

The alternative is to continue as we are, with a public image that is both damaging and inaccurate.

Future of online marketing - overtakes newspapers

Still short of TV spending though by a long way in the UK.

Google accounted for more than 50% online advertising spend last year.

Web advertising spend is set to grow 39% while newspapers fall 9% in advertising revenue nationally.

 

Source:  Financial Times 30 May 2006

Cause-related marketing - future of marketing

I talk more and more these days to audiences of all kinds about cause-related marketing, which is one of the fastest growing areas of marketing today. Cause-related marketing links products to something people believe in – and when products look increasingly the same on price and quality, values are what makes all the difference.

 

£50.4 million was raised in 2002 by 66 businesses benefiting 50 charities and good causes through 81 Cause Related Marketing programmes.  Over £17 million worth of gifts in kind were given as part of 23 of CRM programmes

Over £13 million worth and 65,000 hours of staff time was devoted by 27 CRM programmes

90% of US workers feel proud of their companies' values when they support a good cause

87% of workers feel a strong sense of loyalty

48% of consumers change behaviour - switch brands, increase usage or try or enquire about new products

46% of consumers feel better about using company

86% have better opinion of  companies trying to make the world a better place

 

See http://www.globalchange.com/ppt4/sustain for presentation I gave today which covers these issues in the context of creating sustainable enterprises (Impact conference in UK).

 

 

 

Radio advertising needs a rethink

While great TV advertising can rank with short films for entertainment value, it is really hard to match that quality in sound alone on radio, using just a few seconds.  That is why radio audiences get bored so much more rapidly with often-repeated radio ads.

 

The answer of course is variety rather than quality. For example making a series of 20 compelling reasons to buy a product (randomly broadcast, and not numbered).  Radio advertising at best is more about information than entertainment. This is a words and sound effects channel, and sound effects can be really irritating after a while, as well as an odd voice or anything else originally designed to catch attention.

 

Do it once, do it twice, but don’t let people hear it a thousand times unless you have something they really need to hear again… just keep the content fresh.

A new step forward in blogging and viral marketing

This message was created using Outlook as a simple e-mail and sent to my future of marketing blog…. And is just part of another step up in communit blog development globally….  It means anyone can publish the contents of any e-mail at the speed of light to the entire online community.

 

More than 200 million blogs - threat to brand management

More than 200 million people now keep a web diary of their own and their collective opinions are now a force to be reckoned with when it comes to brand protection and development of an advertising campaign.

Their collective voice is generating over 100 million pages every day of comment on a wide range of issues, many of which involve products and services people use.

For a long time now community sites like tripadvisor have been influencing consumer behaviour, yet many large corporations have hidden their heads in the sand, not really knowing how to respond.

While tripadvisor is not a blog, it is an example of what happens when hundreds of thousands of consumers start to share experiences online and the results can be devastating.

Just type in the name of a large hotel into Google and see who comes up highest - the official hotel site or the traveladvisor page with comments from people who have recently stayted there? And then the question is who do online readers trust the most? Answer: the majority of people trust community comment more than official advertising.

When community comments are loud and negative, corporations are probably wasting their time with expensive sites and online advertising campaigns.

The age of spin and hype is over. The third millennium is about revelation, reality and shared experience.

That's why so many companies are now quietly asking their own staff to go onto blogs and bulleting boards as well as other community sites to post nice positive comments, pretending to be customers.

It is just the start of a new era in advertising, branding and product promotion.

The lesson is this: get the product right every time and the online community will help sell it for you at zero cost. Get it wrong and you'll rapidly be out of the game. While that has to some extent always been true, in future brand elevation and destruction will happen faster than many marketing teams can even plan a campaign.

Marketing slides and videos

You will find a large number of marketing resources and other information including videos and presentations on my site http://www.globalchange.com/ppt/index.htm.

These are free for all to access. The site also contains the entire text of 6 of my books.