Posted 4 years, 6 months ago in the early evening by oso
Two weeks ago there was a conference in Orlando, Florida called “Word-of-Mouth Basic Training” and according to NY Times advertising reporter, Julie Bosman, “it was aimed at teaching attendees how to tap into the power of word of mouth, an ancient form of communication that many marketers have updated by using new technology like blogs, podcasting, and online message boards.”
The consensus is nearly unanimous amongst big and small firms alike: traditional advertising isn’t nearly as effective as what is being called “buzz marketing,” “viral marketing,” and “niche marketing.” In other words, pitch your product to the people who count and get the most popular kids on the block to start buzzing about it.
Marketers are now reaching out to “evangelists,” who are already die-hard fans of a brand, and persuading them to spread the word through their existing social networks.
Loosely borrowed from Malcolm Gladwell’s best-selling book “The Tipping Point,” Ms. Weisberg lectured on the importance of using “influencers,” or people who have large social networks and are good communicators, and “promoters,” people who talk positively about a brand.
My friend Ethan wrote a post a few weeks back, while traveling in France, that caught my eye. In it he said that entrepreneur, Martin Varsavsky hasn’t spent a single penny on marketing or PR for his new company, FON:
Speaking at Les Blogs today, Martin tells the audience that he spent €30 million in advertising on his last company, Jazztel, and hasn’t yet spent any money on advertising FON yet. Instead, he’s inviting bloggers to join his board of advisors and asking us to try the product and become evangelists for it.
I was well aware of Martin Varsavsky – an Argentinean living in Spain – for quite some time because of his influence in the Spanish-speaking blogosphere. He also maintains a couple weblogs in English where his appealing personality comes off just as much as in Spanish.
What caught my eye more than just all the adoring attention by my friends and acquaintances, Rebecca, Ethan, Eduardo, and Mariano, were some of the comments that followed them:
He only accepts positive comments, and has deleted hard criticized posts ([like] the one regarding patenting the idea/software behing Fon). The forum on their corporate website is hardly moderated. You can hardly see any critic. He only answers what he liked and interest him. That´s not bloggin, that´s cheating the audience.
As I heard the comments from the audience, it was that Martin had deleted a post, not a comment, regarding the “patent pending of FON”. Deleting comments is of course fine, but deleting posts while they are being (negatively) discussed in the Spanish/Catelan blogosphere seems absurd. Instead, if he changes his mind, he should just clarify why.
That kind of censorship is very much against the tolerant, free-speech nature of the internet, but I do have to at least commend Martin for making clear yesterday:
Now in my blogs I reserve the right to not accept commentaries. I also reserve the right to delete or change posts should circumstances arise that make me do so, for example if pressed by my lawyers or other people´s lawyers. I also reserve the right to ammend posts for the same reasons.
I’ll admit that I was down right uneasy when I saw that, in the same week, ten of the world’s most popular weblogs had, what appeared to be, a personalized press release for the company when it announced its collaboration with Google and Skype/Ebay as well as 18 million euros of venture capital from Sequoia and Index Ventures.
It’s not that I think bloggers should not be allowed to earn money. Quite the opposite, but I do think a certain etiquette should be encouraged. Big props to both Rebecca and Ethan for making so clear in their press releases that 1.) they are on the Fon board and 2.) they receive equity and 3.) what their criticisms of the company so far are. Anyone who reads their posts immediately understands where they are coming from. But that is not true of all the Fon press releases I saw. As far as I can tell, Fon is a great company whose success will be bolstered by its talented board of advisors and directors. But I really hope that an institutional policy is put into place which says that all Fon marketers (ie. “bloggers”) that gain money from the company, clearly disclose the fact. It will ensure their success all the more. Otherwise, I’ll find myself skeptical of everything I read about Fon. Does Doc Searls have a stake? What about Om Malik and Pau?
Last night I was doing some work at Influx Cafe while my sister had her first community college class. Influx is, without a doubt, one of my favorite places to both relax and do work in the city. But just writing that simple fact, I feel like a pawn in the game. Jason, the friendly hipster/father/motorcyclist/owner told me that he comes across this blog all the time when he does searches for the cafe. My initial reaction was, uh oh, I hope I didn’t say anything bad.
When I look for new places to eat and visit, I always research online to get a feel for what the “common (wo)man” has to say about the place. I’ll never ever click on a “sponsored link” on the google search results page because I know they’re trying to sell me something. But I tend to trust just about everything else as independent and sincere. Maybe it’s time I’m a bit more skeptical.
If I were dictator of my own small island, it’s not capitalism that I would get rid of, it’s marketing. That ever-present force telling us we should be more beautiful, happier, drunker, skinnier, hipper, and whatever else it takes more money to attain. I was recently chided for celebrating socialist indoctrination in Cuba … and while I agreee that indoctrination in all its forms is a bad thing, what is possibly more indoctrinating than capitalistic marketing? The demons have gone so far as to get us to call a small cup of coffee, “tall.” If that’s not playing us for the fool, I don’t know what is.
Related: Why transparency matters [via Jennifer]
Disclosure: This post was sponsored by Safari’s Fair and White anal bleaching cream. (a joke)
Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.1 Mac OS X Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.1 Mac OS X
When a writer is directly associated with a company, disclosure is not a “nice to have” but a standard that needs to be upheld to protect the credibility of both the writer and the company. This is my belief. The question is: are bloggers akin to journalists? If they are, they should feel somewhat bound to the ethical standard of journalists. Like don’t take gifts from PR people. But where is that line drawn? What of “product sampling”? PR people send the samples of beating heart pillows and the like to BoingBoing and voila, a write-up.
I think paying people to blog about your company is like paying a journalist — it’s unethical. It muddies the water of what is a credible source and what isn’t.
What you are doing for your favorite cafe is consumer evalangelism but of your own accord. Pawn in the game you are not — merely an enthusiastic supporter of a company, a genuine supporter, not one with incentives to be enthusiastic. You are the kind of WOM carrier that marketers attempt to clone via things like advisory boards and “buzz parties”.
When you rule the world and get rid of marketing, will you pay my rent?
Safari 417.8 Mac OS X Safari 417.8 Mac OS X
Well said. Whether bloggers are journalists, diarists, ranters, or whatever else, they are definitely part of the market.
I’ll pay your rent so long as HP doesn’t have his way.
Mozilla Firefox 1.0.7 Windows XP Mozilla Firefox 1.0.7 Windows XP
But Jennifer, if he accepted a free drink because the owner likes this blog, has Oso violated ethical blogging standards? Or would disclosing the free drink cleanse him from the wasteland of unethical journalists?
I think the word “ethical” isn’t really a question when it comes to commercial news. All media revolves around ratings, hits, visitors, numbers. Most journalists think they’re on the moral high ground but unknowingly include all kinds of personal bias in their stories. I think “ethical” journalism, or non-commercial journalism is rare. The idea that a story can be told in an unbiased (or even politically correct) way is a myth.
Safari 417.8 Mac OS X Safari 417.8 Mac OS X
OK, so I disclose: Jennifer bought me a couple drinks. But I had to put up with four hours of being lost in freezing-ass-cold Barcelona to get them.
Mozilla Firefox 1.0.7 Windows XP Mozilla Firefox 1.0.7 Windows XP
I have been approached already as a blogger to test a product but not to become an evangelist just yet. I would be willing to do it if it was something that I believed on. I have also done product reviews for an online tech magazine before as well as write some editorials for them, but that was not solicited persay, it was more something I believed on. I admire the people that are doing blogging as their full time job, I would love to but right now I cannot do it. Who knows, some day.
WordPress 1.5.2 WordPress 1.5.2
[...] My friend David “El Oso” Sasaki raises some issues about FON’s marketing strategy in a recent blog post. He’s concerned that the buzz FON’s recent announcement of investment has received in the blogosphere may amount to “a personalized press release for the company”. David mentions that Rebecca and I both disclosed our involvement with FON in our posts, but worries that others haven’t disclosed their involvement. [...]
Internet Explorer 6.0 Windows XP Internet Explorer 6.0 Windows XP
damn, if you were to get rid of marketing in your island, i’d be the bum!
Not cool!
I know what you mean about advertising being everywhere. That’s mainly the reason why we are so immune to it and it’s harder to get someone to buy into a product. You have to try harder to get peoples attention now-a-day’s, hence the funny commercials or the outrages advertising prices out there.
But what a company wants is not to sell you a product. . . they want to “change” people’s minds. . .opinions. And it’s getting harder and harder to do.
It’s funny you mention this blogging advertising going on, because for years I have relied on customer reviews before purchasing any product. I’m addicted to cnet.com, beauty.com, amazon.com. . .only to name a few. . .only for the customer reviews. Even when a blogger adds a plugin for a product here and there, I do my research. It’s the customer reviews that matter, not people who test the product for cash. With so many marketing researching companies out there offering 70 dollars for an hour of your time, people who need the money will say anything! I’ve been one of those people. . .cuz a broke sista has gotta make in this world no matter what!!!!
But the issue with technology advancing at such a fast pace it’s only easier to purchase anything (if one has money).
There is some device or chip (I read this somewhere, I’ll let you know if I find the article) that is being created or has been created, that you can attach to you TV that will increase advertising. What it is designed to do is automatically tell you where you can buy something that you’ve seen on TV. So lets say you’re watching your favorite TV show and the lampshade sitting on the table looks appealing. With the click of a button it can inform you of the make, model, and where it can be purchased.
And that’s only the beginning. . . .
Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.1 Mac OS X Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.1 Mac OS X
A small price to pay was it not?
Nathan, what you say is so true. Ethics in journalism is not something that many adhere to these days (CNN!), but it should be something we aspire to. If we don’t, as bloggers (or journalists) our words will become inditinguishable from all the other bullshit that’s out there. It’s not the free drink, it’s the write-up in exchange for that drink. Sure, there will be bias in the way we write, moreso in blogging, but we need to stay transparent if we expect to have any sort of credibility.
Safari 417.8 Mac OS X Safari 417.8 Mac OS X
I don’t have a stake in Fon.
My disclosures on that stuff are here: http://doc.weblogs.com/whoIsDoc
Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.1 Windows XP Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.1 Windows XP
Hey pal!, thank you for my birthday message (I’m healed now). Are you repoting to Global Voices too? Where should I look for you?
BTW, Martin Varsavsky is a honest man (I believe) with some a personal story to tell. His father was a higly respected phycicist with a public progressive high profil. Prosecuted by a military coup back in the sixties he went to teach in the States where Martin grew to play with real estate investing and became millionaire. He invested, then, in tech ventures and public welfare. In the late nineties he came back to Argentina to help building an educational digital net and lost a lot of money at the governmental bureaucrats hands. I think he deserves some success this time.
WordPress 2.1 WordPress 2.1
[...] than the for-profit and heavily patented company it is. I blogged about Varsavsky’s strategy here and two days later Rebecca Buckman wrote a similar article in the Wall Street Journal. Not [...]