This presentation takes you on a journey through the world of empowered consumers, netnography, the evolution of the internet and the ways businesses and brands are looking to take advantage of the technological advances available to them.
From there it launches into real-time research and how brands need to try stay in front of their consumers rather than chasing them. It explains the pros & cons of crowdsourcing, online communities, Peer-2-Peer research and co-creation before revealing our approach and what makes it work so well for us.
Francesco & Sharmila presented this to Said Business School students in May 2010.
4. is a mix of researchers, planners, brand strategists and social media experts supported by a global network of associates and 15k people across our communities
5. youth co-creation community women’s co-creation community UboX tech co-creation community
6. international we have run communities & face to face research all over the world
8. we use co-creativity to enable brands to interact directly with consumers on and offline in real time in the UK and internationally to deliver a range of insight , innovation , inspiration and planning objectives
12. post-consumer era “this is not a question of scale. It is a different way of existing” J.Murdoch
13. omnivorous remix/review “it is no longer about what your brand does to the consumer but what consumers are doing to and with your brand” Mark Earls
17. always in beta personalization and diversification also mean that systems are getting flexible and adaptive to incorporate the users input
18. around me: pull NOT push fragmentation also means the new and only potential center is now “me”
19. rise of the real-time collective mind getting information that’s relevant to who I am, where I am and what I’m up to sharing information with the right people, at the right time, in the right way
20. It’s not information overload. It’s filter failure (c. shirky) But filters are getting better
39. for the first time we can do qualitative research on a mass scale! impressive...
40. tap into the power of the crowd , build & listen to communities made for you, work directly with 1%er consumers who can really influence your brand the research funnel tap into the power of the crowd build & listen to communities made for you work directly with 1%er consumers who can really influence your brand
41. tap into the power of the crowd , build & listen to communities made for you, work directly with 1%er consumers who can really influence your brand consumer brand agency we approach any brief by treating agency, brand and consumers as equal partners in the challenge, equal stakeholders in the success the crowd ( the web ) your crowd ( communities ) the few ( 1%ers ) the co- in co-creation the mass ( the web ) the many ( communities ) the few ( 1%ers )
44. Social Media messages do not create meaning and influence in an isolated way. They originate cross-channel conversations that only make sense as part of a broader storytelling process . In order to fully understand the meaning and impact of these conversations we designed the Story-tracker, a tool that clusters the conversations by narrative (story development), topic (e.g. iphone3gs-related) and viral structure (the distribution patterns of a piece of content) story-tracker
45. Outputs quantitative analysis of search results by time, location, language, channel measuring the levels of influence the buzz is generating defining the quality of these mentions: polarity, subjectivity, impartiality mapping out the content of these conversations, highlighting emergent issues, understanding how the brand is perceived understanding where these conversations are taking place and what are the hubs to monitor/target closely understanding who shapes these conversations and engaging with them directly brand visibility qualitative presence topics and perceptions brand influencers volumes and trends brand social graph
51. a brand issue or need is broken down into focused problem-solving tasks and broadcasted to a targeted group of solvers as an open call for solutions. the consumers generate, define, explore and validate ideas and also sort through and commenting on them to improve and develop them further. crowdsourcing for research
53. +bottom-up richness +global crowd +diversified crowd +wider range of talent +cost-effective +lots of ideas +rich insight +consumer-brand relationship +peer-rating +advocacy what you get
54. can range from simple ideas to full creative solutions needs / problems NPD insights communications visual identity user-experiences inspiration outputs
55. what’s missing many-to-one not very targeted bottom-up but still vertical access to insight and strategy collaboration editing, building on, refining funneling process face-to-face strategic thinking
58. bringing together groups of people over a certain period of time access to full range of web 2.0 tools to bring their views & experience directly to life – video, photo, images, status updates, social network profiles or simply text run by agency BUT with 24/7 client access to the content online communities
59. all stakeholders have 24/7 access to our communities they can monitor the interaction and access the discussions and the ideas as they are posted members of the core team work with Face to steer the research process as it happens agile research ongoing real-time engagement of the stakeholders
60.
61. -online skews in some markets -not as good as tackling issues in a truly structured way things to consider
62. real-time flow of information on the go status updates and multimedia geo-tagging participants observe and comment on their own behavior they are able to share their observations and encouraged to comment on the others lifelogging
63. “ A distributed research network architecture composed of participants [CONSUMERS] that make a portion of their resources (such as processing power, disk storage or network bandwidth) directly available to other network participants” “ Peers are both suppliers and consumers of resources, in contrast to the traditional client-server model where only servers supply, and clients consume” peer-to-peer research
64. Peer-to-peer research is research from the inside done with and by the people, not on them Peer-to-peer research give you access to niches, insider perspective, understanding of influencers and genuine insights. Builds on the Social Media Immersion outputs cross-validating the insight and defining the exploration platforms for the research community peer-to-peer research
65. truly flexible tool, but generally focused on insight deep dive idea generation trend tracking concept evaluation real time seasonal insights validation behaviour tracking outputs
67. Is the act of company stakeholders collaborating directly with selected (usually smaller) groups of consumers to work on a specific brief. Is about leveraging consumers’ creativity without preempting the results of the process Can take place on-line in communities or/and offline in workshops co-creation
68. The best ideas are then taken to a selected group of consumers who develop them further with the help of the brand stakeholders, the experts and agency planners and researchers. co-creation in the flow
69. strongest ideas dev tasks final concepts insights + refined concepts co-creation
70. +few-to-few-to-one +more targeted +bottom-up and top-down +collaboration, editing, building on +refinement and funneling +online & face-to-face +access to insight and strategy +strategic thinking +faster process +immersive +robust and tailored concepts what you get
71. written concepts supported by some basic visuals language NPD insights variants positioning validation inspiration outputs
72. -smaller crowd -local -less diversification -fewer ideas -more expensive than crowd-sourcing what’s missing [compared to crowdsourcing]
73. the case for a hybrid model bottom-up + top-down crowds + individuals group thinking + individual thinking
an evolving consumer has generated the demand for a new type of media education not matched by jobs they can (education) and want to give more than being just passive respondents huge untapped creative potential
beyond consumption and consumerism vs being represented and governed 徹 v er the past fifteen years the rise of the World WideWeb has resulted in remarkable new possibilities and business models reshaping our economy. An entire new generation has come of age with this technology and is committed to using its creativity, collaboration and civic-mindedness to address the challenges facing our country and the world. With the proliferation of issues and not enough resources to address them all, many government leaders recognize the value in public-private partnerships, as well as the opportunities inherent in harnessing a highly motivated and diverse population to address the great challenges facing our nation.There is a new compact on the horizon: government maintains information on a variety of issues and that information should rightly be considered a national asset. Citizens are connected like never-before and have the skill sets and passion to solve problems affecting them locally as well as nationally. Government information and services can be provided to citizens where and when they need it. Citizens will be empowered to become leaders, with government, to spark the innovation that will result in an improved approach to governance. This has never before been possible, and we now have the chance to make this compact a reality. �
James Murdoch in his Marketing Society Annual Lecture said ‘Ubiquitous connectivity means fundamentally that the individual becomes the agent of everything...we’ve learnt through experience what difference the new empowered world means for our relationship with customers. This is not a question of scale. It is a different way of existing’. The Internet allows people to freely associate, form groups and publish on a scale never imagined before. Individuals and groups have the power to get their ideas across at a level once enjoyed only by large organizations, corporations and governments. The price of knowledge is falling to zero. Anything from powerful server computer software to how to become a six-sigma black belt can be found on the Internet. A child in India can monitor classes at MIT for free[x]. The quality of this information is getting better all the time. These three factors contribute to a new economy that some companies are starting to harness. Welcome to the post-consumer era where we all pitch in to build the products & services we use: 50% of all web sites are brought to you by open source software, built and maintained by volunteers[xi].Google, the world 痴 most popular search engine and an economy unto itself, relies primarily on the recommendations of web page authors to drive its search engine[xii].A 2006 Forrester Research study shows almost 40% of Gen Y consumers research products online before making an offline purchase[xiii]. Conversely, the influence of advertising is falling at a similar rate.IBM now makes twice as much money servicing its Linux open source software customers than it does selling intellectual property and patents ($2 billion in 2003)[xiv].BestBuy allows its employees to place bets on which products will sell and which ones won 稚 [ xv]. Among all BestBuy employees, the person who consistently outperforms all other employees in this most critical task is the CEO 痴 secretary. Why? (they studied this) Because she types all the meeting minutes for important meetings. No one else in the company has such wide exposure to what 痴 going on.
continuing explosion in real time reviews / comment empowered consumers ingest and remix everything, appropriation and reshaping in own terms fosters collaboration, creativity, innovation and circulation vs closeness, control, Mark Earls author of Herd, says that it is no longer about what your brand does to the consumer but what consumers are doing to and with your brand.
top-down messages are seen as unreliable by default vs advertising as provides of role models and advice less effective mad men image: where advertising lies or 60’ad campaign image Consumers have replaced trust in advertising with trust in individuals: in particular, friends, family, and colleagues. Turning to communities and away from mass media, consumers are increasingly making traditional advertising more irrelevant. They have learned to block the ads they don 稚 want, and gate-keeping is becoming more sophisticated and widespread: according to Forrester Research DVR ownership in North America, which features ad-skipping, will grow from 19% of households in 2006 to 55% in 2011. More than half of UK consumers using the Internet at home utilize spam and popup blockers to filter unwanted messages from their online experiences, and countries like the Netherlands, France, and Germany are not far behind.
the ad system built on scarcity of channels. now not only trust in ad has fallen but also its structural capacity of generating influence (reach) Different ways of existing means there is more fragmentation: which in turn is driving more complexity. The number of media channels available to marketers, agencies, and consumers has exploded. Proliferation of choice offers marketers new opportunities, such as social networks, mobile, and branded entertainment. Social media, in which consumers become publishers and media outlets drives media buyers crazy; there are more than 59 million videos in YouTube today, and they can 稚 cut deals with every blogger.
vs one size fits all personalization and diversification led to fragmentation and niche culture, niche culture requires tailored approach niche communities map image
personalization, diversification means also that system have to be flexible and adaptive to incorporate the users input, that’s why they stay in beta vs monolitic brands that’s why tv series had a great success on the web, the series mechanics is closer to the web than the film mechanics. lost is closer to twitter than ‘pride and prejudice’ is No one knows what the world will look like in 10 years all we can be certain about is that it will be very different from today. We are only just beginning to understand the impact that social media will have on our industry. For this reason successful companies will need to adopt a culture of innovation that will enable them to quickly develop and trial products and new business models and see what works. You should identify those members of your team that are future looking and create work streams and give them clear KPIs that focus on innovation for the agency.
but fragmentation also mean that new and only possible center point is now “me” The world is built around me and i’m in control of it. I want to be able to pull and not to be pushed, unless i decide what should be pushed at me almost all consumers own a PC and mobile phone, and they spend almost half of their media time with interactive channels. Use of RSS and podcasts has increased to 10% and 14%, respectively, from virtually nothing in 2003.
vs asynchronous distance getting information that relevant to who I am, where I am and what I’m up to sharing information with the right people, at the right time, in the right way
and as the numbers of reviews, comments, verdicts grows, their influence will increase as consumer are better equipped to filter internet noise and turn it into personal wisdom (social search)
extended networks and immediacy generate the need for an ambient model this ambient model is reshaping not only the way we relate to our friends and connections but to the media, the brands and the content we interact with online vs campaigning, on/off relationships based on the tv programming paradigm Consumers want to be more involved with the brands and products they consume: this applies also to the way they are communicated to them through advertising. Doritos is the most famous example in the UK whereby consumers were invited via a competition to create the next TV campaign http://ow.ly/lntB. More recently Unilever 痴 Peperami have dropped Lowe to Crowdsource their next ad campaign with consumers at http://ow.ly/lmRh . Noam Buchalter marketing manager at Peperami says: 展 e believe Peperami is a brand that deserves radical creative solutions and are confident taking our brief out to thousands rather than a small team of 田 r eatives � will provide us with the best possible idea and take our advertising to the next level. �
location specific reviews / comment through mobile web
when we speak to marketing and brand managers, 70% of the times the conversation ends up with: “you know this is very new, the organization needs to adapt, it takes time...” well the problem is, this is not new and time’s up. the world is different and people are behaving differently so they expect you to do the same, not to come up with excuses for not changing... quick run through as it’s interesting to talk about a number of massive and evident changes/trends the industry is not responding to yet
sometimes you need to open up and retune to a wider frequency to get a bit more clarity & focus because the questions you didn’t know you wanted to ask are as important than the ones you did and because inspiration can come from anywhere – not always the usual suspects but to get to those surprises takes hard work, perspiration and a bit of process
sometimes you need to open up and retune to a wider frequency to get a bit more clarity & focus because the questions you didn’t know you wanted to ask are as important than the ones you did and because inspiration can come from anywhere – not always the usual suspects but to get to those surprises takes hard work, perspiration and a bit of process
Once the platform for collaborating are defined, it’s time to engage. Crowdsourcing is the act of a company taking a function once performed by employees and outsourcing it to a large community of people in the form of an open brief. This is primarily undertaken by individuals on-line who compete against each, with the winning idea being voted for by the community or by the company
-It is cost effective as companies pay by results -The company can tap a wider range of talent than might be present in its own organization -By listening to the crowd, companies gain consumer insight -The community may feel a stronger relationship with the company which is the result of an earned sense of ownership through contribution & collaboration
what works is an hybrid model that includes individual thinking and group brainstorming
-Produces more robust products and ideas that consumers want to buy and companies can produce -Faster way of generating new & disruptive ideas and solving problems -Immerses companies in the lives, aspirations and needs of their consumers -Builds strong and lasting relationships between companies and consumers
-Produces more robust products and ideas that consumers want to buy and companies can produce -Faster way of generating new & disruptive ideas and solving problems -Immerses companies in the lives, aspirations and needs of their consumers -Builds strong and lasting relationships between companies and consumers
This can take place on-line in communities or offline in workshops. The aim of co-creation is to develop ideas together with consumers that meet their needs and fulfill business requirements of the company.
-Produces more robust products and ideas that consumers want to buy and companies can produce -Faster way of generating new & disruptive ideas and solving problems -Immerses companies in the lives, aspirations and needs of their consumers -Builds strong and lasting relationships between companies and consumers
you need to bring top-down thinking as well, but still keeping consumers at the core of what you do. and this is what co-creation is about top down thinking, research, consumer at the center, engage the crowds