Trans-generational influence - or when did my 6-year old son's brand choices become cool?

I just purchased my first ever pair of Geox shoes.  Fans of childrens' Saturday morning television will probably recognise the brand of shoes that breathes.  The first pair of Geox shoes for myself that is, as my son, 6, has already had several pairs.  He is a big fan of the shoes, but since when was his choice of brands influencing my own choice of footwear? 

My father used to use (and vigorously encourage me to use) Kiwi shoe polish.  I have been through a long phase of not really polishing shoes at all, simply throwing them away when they get too tatty to wear.  However, can I now appreciate the pleasure of polishing shoes as well as polished shoes, and Kiwi is really the only polish to choose.  Part of the pleasure of this is the evocation of times past and the appreciation of those values.

I am still immune, as far as I can tell, to the charms of High Street Musical 3, and Marks and Spencer cardigans, but is this only a matter of time?  As we go through life, we continually become susceptible to influence from new directions, from both older and younger generations.  The interesting question for marketing is when are people most susceptible to these influences from both below and above?  At what point do the choices of both younger and older generations become desirable?  And when are you likely to find me in a Ben 10 t-shirt and a navy cardie, sat in my slippers and playing Bakugan?  

Small acts of kindness

Has anyone seen Akoha yet? Akoha is all about small acts of kindness, and it is integrating online and offline in a particularly interesting way.  Players sign up to Akoha, and purchase cards, physical cards, which are sent to them in the post.  Each card has a mission based around small acts of kindness. Missions might include giving someone your favorite book, inviting a friend for drinks, or buying a friend some chocolate.  Where it gets really interesting is in the integration into the digital space.  Anyone who is on the receiving end of a mission gets given the mission card.  they are then encouraged to register the card on the site, and to play it forward, to carry out the mission for someone else.  Each time, the recipient logs the card, and In this way, you can track the progress of the mission, potentially across the world.

In essence, it is an extension of the idea behind Bookcrossing, which has been going for a few years now, encouraging people to set free their treasured books and see where they end up.  I enjoy seeing innovative ways in which the internet is driving behaviour in the real world, and this is a nice example of how this can be done in a positive and engaging way.  We will come to a point where growth in digital media consumption will stall and reach equilibrium with the time we spend away from digital media (in the so-called real world).  This I am sure will take a few years yet, and I look forward to seeing and enjoying more and more experiences which cross both online and real world experiences.

A Strategic Approach to Social Marketing

Last night, I launched the Creston Strategic Approach to Social Marketing to a sizeable room full of largely appreciative clients.  Too often, I have attended seminars on social media and conversational marketing, to sit through case studies from the same old brands, only to come away still none the wiser often of how everything I have just heard can be applied to other businesses and brands which I work with.  This approach is different, in that it sets out how to create a social media strategy based on individual brands' strengths and weaknesses, and on understanding the reasons why their target customers engage in social media.  If you are interested, you can get to the presentation on Slideboom here: http://www.slideboom.com/presentations/51011/strategic-approach-to-social-media.  I would love to hear any comments or thoughts you might have.

At the end of the presentation, an interesting question was raised from the floor.  "What do you think that offline marketing can learn from how social media online is working?".  Honestly, I am not at all sure what the answer is.  We continue to maintain social relationships or course just as we always have done, but digital social media has affected how we maintain these relationships and with whom.  As part of the presentation, I examined my own engagement in the social media landscape, and by the time I add in the various network connections from linkedin, facebook, twitter, geni, blogs etc, then I can count up towards 500 connections.  It would be impossible to maintain anything like that number of contacts in real life, so what can we learn from the social media space that can improve or inform the way we create offline marketing?  Integrating offline events and social experiences into the online social space is one area where the two spaces will collide - things like Twestivals and even the TMobile Dance experience  are examples of this, and I expect to see more in the coming months.

Spending on conversational marketing

Here is a really interesting research piece published by the Society for communications research.  While it was published in late 2007, it seems extremely timely now as social media and conversational marketing continue to increase in importance for agencies and clients alike.  In the survey, 81% of the 260 respondents of senior marketing and PR professionals stated that they anticipated spending more on conversational marketing than on traditional marketing by 2012.  While the survey is a few months old now, having been published in late 2007, it seems particualrly timely as the importance of conversational and social media continues to increase.

For me, it raises an interesting question. If there is to be a such a seismic shift in marketing spend, then what will budgets actually be spent on?  One of the many benefits as I see it of conversational marketing is that there is far less need to purchase media.  Spend needs to move from buying communications space in media properties to developing content and maintaining relationships with prospects, customers and advoctates.  Will new agency models evolve to create and maintain these conversations on behalf of brands?  We already have experience in a european conversation project on behalf of Infiniti, working with eModeration, and we are increasing our editorial ability to develop content all the time.  And what of brand marketing teams?  Should this important function move inside marketing teams directly, requiring a substantial increase in headcount to carry out this new function.  It is well established that Dell already have a substantial in-house team doing exactly this.  This will ceretainly necessitate developing a range of new skills and processes.

2012 is only 3 years away now, and while you may think the timescales are challenging, I suspect that it is not as far off as we would guess.

Twittering Skittles

Skittles have given their main site home page a complete makeover and it is now just one big twitter feed reporting mentions of Skittles.  This is either very clever or simply indulgent, and I am not yet sure which one.  Clever certainly, as it allows pretty much anyone to get their 5 seconds of fame, having their tweet on the Skittles home page.  Self indulgent in that while it is an interesting experiment and I am sure it will generate lots of comment, how well does it support the Skittles brand. It doesnt help that it seems quite buggy. 

Maybe that is what it is aiming for - simply driving an interesting debate such as clever or self indulgent.  I will give it a try and post a reference to this post and Twitter in my own Tweet (@rosstmw) and see what happens.....