Great post, I share your interest on this topic. Having also read Connected I’m particularly excited by the first research gap you identify.

If we can accurately map out social networks and plot how influence or adoption spreads across them at a low cost I think it would really transform how we understand marketing.

In particular identifying, by product category, whether influence spreads best across genders, spouses, friends, etc. would appear to be enormously useful to me,

I’m actually in the process of writing a mini series on network effect in marketing you might find interesting: http://planningfallacy.com/

Lestermarky

Have been making the same point myself for months. Women want the elusive ‘someone like me’ presenter. Plus some male totty. So what did they go for? The opposite. Lorraine Kelly and Dan Lobb would have been perfect for them. And they were there already.

Amazing how people with a bit of success on one project ignore the many factors in that success and focus in on a couple of things. Then are surprised when it doesn’t work.

My partner worked on both programs for a while. Some of the things you hear – most of which appear in Private Eye – beggar belief. Truly have thrown out the GMTV baby with the bathwater. Processes and ideas which have been honed over 17 years to work on breakfast TV chucked out overnight. Staggering.

JimF

Agreed with your point on Influencer based marketing.. I would like to introduce our product “Factualz” which supports the influencer based marketing.

Key benefits:
• Identify new business and marketing opportunities
• Measure your social and web marketing effectiveness and ROI
• Improve your web marketing initiatives such as PPC, targeted ads, SEO
• Comprehensively track and understand your competitors marketing campaigns and strategy
• Keep track of your brand’s online reputation

For more information please visit http://www.factualz.com.

Foiaz
Project Lead,
Factualz.

Most of the examples you cite are FMCG companies. I have no doubt that TV is effective at driving sales frequency. It’s a very cost-effective means of delivering a reminder message, and shifting sales of more commodity products.

TV can shift awareness, reinforce habits, and change perceptions to an extent. My thoughts relate more to driving a change in behavior. Where marketing is tasked with this, I would argue that TV alone is likely to fall short.

Advertising is often proven to drive raised awareness, and sales, but are the econometric models that these calculations are based due for a bit of an upgrade? As brands better understand how their messages propagate online, and the impact on long-term corporate reputation, their approach to customer value, and in particular lifetime value, may change. Using a personal example, Sky can target me all they like with advertising, but due to a recent experience with how they treat existing customers, I am unlikely to listen. They will need to demonstrate their commitment in order to gain more value from me.

What you have described is how huge FMCG brands are still relying on advertising to transmit their messages. Perhaps the outlook for advertising depends on the sector. Those companies who can build their brands with unique products and customer experiences will, and those who cannot, will indeed rely on advertising. Advertising will remain an important part of the advertising mix for all companies, but I do believe it will become a less cost-effective option for a growing number of companies. If P&G were in a sector where they could invest more money in customer support and experience, I suspect they would be doing so right now. Although a step too far, I like Fast Company’s view on the matter:
“In the future, advertising will be like sex: only the losers will have to pay for it”.
In reality, I see more of a polarization. Commodity-based businesses will advertise heavily. So too may highly successful brands, which have compelling messages to communicate through all channels. For those in between, i’m not so sure. The BBC recently wrote a piece on the ads that changed the way we think: they came up with 6 compelling examples.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11963364

Oliver Snoddy

Oli

Agreed, influence based marketing will become more and more important over the coming months. It will be interesting to see how this will be adopted by companies as the meaning of influence will differ from brand to brand and how the various tools will adapt to fit the needs.

Great post to start the new year, and many thanks for mentioning Radian6.

Olivia Landolt | Marketing and Community Manager | @Olivia6C

6Consulting | UK authorised Radian6 partner