Marketers want to play in our pool...

This week, I read about conversational marketing...

Actually, it involves companies creating a Facebook page or blogging to get direct feedback from the customers and be closer to them.
Companies felt that they couldn't just let people talk about their products on the Internet, sometimes criticize them, and share opinions without doing anything...They had to step in.

That must feel awful... Imagine... Reading or hearing things without being able to say what you think about it... or even being asked for your opinion...
Oh, wait ! That's what used to happen to us, customers, before the Internet and Web 2.0... ! Companies sent messages we were supposed to receive, listen and buy.
Less funny when it's the other way around, huh?

The Internet is completely revolutionizing the business. Companies feel like they are being left aside from what is happening on the web. They tried to use the Web in the old-fashioned way (regular website) but they are being forced to adopt the new tools of communication their consumers are into...
As it was said in the article from the Economist:

"markets are conversations"

... and companies want to target and reach their market... But they are not part of the conversation...

So, they come up with Conversational Marketing... Brands are trying to socialize with consumers by joining the social networks. They want to show that they care about what we think...and they want to "make friends with us".

I think the real motive for this sudden interest in blogging is that companies felt the shift in power. Not being able to control the message when you are a marketer is a real problem.

The communication scheme :
identified transmitter => encoded message => receiver (and noises around that threaten the transmission) is completely renewed...

Interaction is developing, instant feedback from the receptor, and countless noises are part of the new scheme.


That seems like a big challenge to take up, doesn't it? Will conversational marketing be enough?

Photo credit to :
http://www.cartoonstock.com
http://glencarlson.com

UGC: "U" as in Untrustworthy ? Or Unmanageable?

UGC...
I was wondering what lies beneath this vague acronym... I knew what it didn't mean on reading the angry blogpost "Death to user generated content". And apparentely, it does not mean what it says it does...
I was confused.
In other words - and this is actually the issue here - it is far more than "user generated content"...and it deserves a real positive word to recognize it as an "authentic" creation or media...made by the people.

Still, I feel like it covers so many things... reviews, videos, comments, blogs, pictures... so it leads me to the title of my post...
Is it so much that it is unmanageable?
I'm sure my post will be full of other users' UGC... but I have to admit... I have no idea whose "content" I'm really using! I just follow the links... and it is quite a mess.

And that makes me think about how brands must feel.
This UGC is uncontrollable, and they can expect the best or the worst...
See these videos for instance, and tell me what you think about them for the companies and products they target...(Ipod Touch ad Nick Haley - Ipod, now powered by Windows).
Okay, not everybody will see them...
But they say there is no such thing as bad publicity... Really?
Usually, as a company, you promote your own products as well as you can, but you are not really allowed to start "negative campaigning" about your competitors' products...(except in politics...)
But consumers are not that nice. There are no fair play rules on the web...
So UGC can contribute to enrich brand content for free, but they can hurt it as well...

Finally, that leads me to the other "U"... Untrustworthy...
If brands or companies want to benefit from the positive impact of UGC, they can become their own anonym promoter... I don't know if I am being clear...
We don't know who the users are. They can be employees being paid for writing great reviews about the products of the companies they work for...
So how much can we really trust any "content" or "data" that is being released on the web?...

Photo credit to :
http://www.stockphototalk.com
http://msnbcmedia1.msn.com
http://farm1.static.flickr.com
And I suggest you this article from Time Magazine...

Alex's point of view on customization

As far as NikeiD is concerned, Alex made an interesting point in one of his blogposts about the purpose of customization and the new dimension it can give to a product.

I like the idea of custom product. The fact that it's being done by a huge company like Nike is interesting. Assembly line, automatic production takes the heart out of everyday items and doesn't allow for the product to speak enough about its owner.

"Brains up ! Ideas, skills, time, life ! Put everythin' you have in the bag !"

     I'm just starting to wonder about something...

Why is it that every time an idea sounds new, innovative and full of positive potential, it has to be used in the wrong way - meaning, to exploit people?

  Really, when I read about crowdsourcing, I was fascinated at first, but then... 

Is it yet another way for companies to reduce their costs and increase profit-making by creating an online competition between people who will be paid like, nothing, to do the job? 

   There is already a throatcut competition in the real workplace because people are so afraid of loosing their jobs to somebody that lives in China... Now you will have to explain the employee that the person who is taking their job hasn't been interviewed for it, but is cheap and will do it almost as a volunteer as some kind of hobby...?

Are some internautes being enrolled into an online "reserve army of labor" without even knowing about it, to use Marx's expression?

Is technology the brand new tool to alienate people?

   Actually, the same problem is happening with open innovation... It sounds really promising if companies open themselves to ideas from the outside...

But since big companies' strategies are always about money, how much will you get for providing them with their next innovation?... Maybe nothing. 

Thanks to a form that was mentioned in one of the articles :

"The form says that any idea an independant inventor pitches can instantly be used by the big company if it wants to. For no money".

I thought we were heading to a world of greater cooperation, trust, interaction, sharing of skills and mutual benefits... Apparently NOT.

Photo credits to : 

www.journalistopia.com

www.cartoonstock.com

www.current.com

Virtual worlds.... Keep it real?

     ...Second Life? What is the point in having the opportunity to get one if you build the exact same life you already have? On reading the articles, I came to a sad conclusion... Getting a second life only helps you understand how the real world works. And it is quite ugly. 

You would like to be creative and take a chance to become a different person (or pretend to be). Some manage to be inventive and daring, but those people are not afraid of being judged. Actually, when you are taking SL seriously, you don't want to be too original or too weird...because you don't want people to think that your real you is like that... What would people say ?!?

     As Reuben Stiger was saying, "we represent ourselves as we want to be seen". Indeed, in virtual worlds, you can make you flawless. You can become a perfect you without spending your income in plastic surgery... But for how long? Sure, it is easy to start afresh in a world of make-believes... but the same society is being created in SL...a second world, that looks just like ours...

 Consumerism, real estate, appearances, pressure to be succesful... money(Linden $)... Doesn't it sound familiar?

What is the point then?

     We wanna believe that virtual worlds will make it easier to communicate, share, interact... But no matter what we do, it will remain a delayed interaction. Through virtual puppets we try to master better than ourselves. I think it can be an enriching and convenient communication tool only to talk to people you already know (business use mostly). Otherwise, it is an easy way to escape from your life, but if you work on SL during the week-ends and evenings, when do you start living, period? 

Now, if you will excuse me... I have to go make my avatar look more like me... 

Photo credit : http://www.bigfeetstore.com/images/Man%20with%Laptop%20on%Beach.JPG