Yeah, chew on that. Bud from the Internet (and Undercurrent) hooked me up with his new presentation with his thoughts on The Fan Economy and why should know what's up for '09.
His three key points for the fan economy are here for those of you with short attention spans.
- Have a point of view.
- A belief in infinity.
- Open source relationships.
Here's why I dig it.
- The old internets = mass audience. Wait, didn't cable kill true "mass" about 50 years ago? Skip it.
- We meticulously construct our identity online, or well at least we are advised to. And even if you don't think that you do, you do! Every 140 character note, every Facebook profile edit and every blog comment. These elements make us all different and we want to be different. Isn't it time people placed more value on that?
- Goodbye big media buys, hello human interaction. It's nice to meet you.
- You know I love sports, so bring on the fans. Libby talked about embracing your creators and I think fans and creators are on the same team.
- Fans = investment = metrics = $$ = happy client
- It's called the Fan Economy for a reason - fans can create the messages, name the sale price and fight for your survival.
1 comment:
Back in April, I asked David Murphy (of Barrie D'Rozario Murphy) why BD'M was going to make it through the recession. He said that they were looking to grow organically, expanding their relationships with current clients and offering more in order to gain new projects and brands from their current roster, so as not to wake up in 2010 or 2011 with strange bed partners and wonder how in the world you got to that point.
The same seems to go on this end. Instead of trying to go for mass appeal to make numbers on the short term, money is best spent on the ones who already love you, and who have the power to make you grow in a reluctant market.
I worked on Nike Running during it's brief stay at CP+B and saw this illustrated quite plainly. They had sold the idea "If you run, you're a runner" to the client, which made fantastic business sense--empower the moms who take a jog around the block, the college girls who do 20 minutes on the elliptical at the gym, etc. and make them feel like they're a part of the running community. We love broadcasting our alliances--it was sure to translate very quickly to sales. And I'm sure it would have, if it hadn't alienated all the "true" runners, the ones who compete in running, or the ones who need to run every day to feel complete. These athletes would lose their connection with Nike during these communications because it put them on the same level as your mom with her pink iPod. Now I'm not saying there isn't an option for perhaps promoting a certain line or whatnot to this new audience, but Nike is defined by their consumers, and ignoring their true, brand loyal consumers for mass appeal was sure to cause problems in the long run (no pun intended).
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