http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11792535&fsrc=RSS

Good post and interesting discussion…

Ryan Jones

Professional marketers excel when trying to market to 100Ks to millions of consumers with the same ad. However, there are only a few professional marketers. With CGM, you get the effect of millions of monkeys all pounding away on typewriters. Very occasionally, one of those monkeys will produce a work of Shakespeare. Just don’t expect the same monkey to produce another work of Shakespeare.

However, CGM really excels when selling to “my” friends. A consumer is unlikely to produce the next big viral hit — however, every 100th consumer does have enough creative ability to produce some sort of marketing that strongly appeals to them and people like them. Instead of having the one mega-Super Bowl ad that goes viral, a brand could end up with 100Ks of ads. Each of these ads would appeal more strongly the niche market than the professional ad.

The hard problem then becomes matching the correct niche CGM content with the viewer. Once that problem is better solved then CGM will work infitiely better. How long this kind of targeting will take to develop is an open question.

Finn – Paying by the minute and still taking time to comment. A big thank you for that. I owe you a beer in Cincinnati! Now for your points, great as usual. I’m particularly interested in the 2nd point. Yes it is true that agencies generally dont have a choice when it comes to making the ads…but creatives sure do. I dont know how many times I have been trained on how to give creative feedback because we need to motivate the best creatives to work on our business. At the big agencies, the top creatives sure do have the choice to work on our business or not…its just the account people that are stuck with us no matter what! The ironic part is that is how we are trained but when I talked with my creatives over beer, they actually tell me to go against training and not sugarcoat feedback…they just want to hear it straight.

End of the day, everyone makes great points and I’m glad to see this discussion sparked by the post. Always fun to play devil’s advocate and see what sparks so thanks to everyone for the debate. Keep it up

for example, perhaps the problem with Product X isn’t awareness, perhaps the problem is that everybody knows about it but not enough people are actually buying it, so we need to drive trial, not simply awareness. or perhaps the Product X franchise in general is performing really well, but one particular SKU is languishing, so we need to prop it up, etc. these are the sort of things that consumers are very unlikely to know about, yet are vital to the business.

second, since agencies get paid, they can and will do things consumers simply don’t want to. for example, P&G is famous for making ads that are extremely effective, yet perhaps not incredibly interesting to work on or watch. consumers are probably not going to slave over a Swiffer commercial based on the old A/B comparison or a similarly proven yet creatively uninteresting premise. they make commercials, shrines, etc because it scratches a creative itch, and they’ll stop working on them as soon as it isn’t “fun” anymore. agencies don’t have this luxury, nor should they.

those are my unedited thoughts for whatever they’re worth!

People are shouting ‘louder’ vs. listening (see Greg Icenhower’s article, “Don’t Shout, Listen”, at Fast Company and others – as I am sure internal P&G docs) – great guy as well, highly recommend you connect with him if you haven’t done so already!). http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=greg+icenhower%2C+don%27t+shout%2C+listen

So many ads, consumers be fed what they should believe without context and meaning, being manipulated by numerous channels. *ironically a blog about this subject/culture/buzz and truth/substance in ads via internet/web 2.0 ‘info age’ era = http://www.culture-buzz.com/blog/Truth-in-advertising-1527.html

Don’t forget, P&G offered the same ‘Doritos’ deal via YouTube with both negative and positive feedback ; ) http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=P%26G+advertising+contest+online

Web 2.0 allows the users to have control, access, and contributive shaping power, but with limited and small amounts of accountability = what will happen next?! http://khrisnaresa.wordpress.com/2008/04/24/web-20-the-place-where-the-few-control-the-many/

It’s interesting to perform research and the first things that arise are usually Wiki and someone’s blog! If they’re truthful, it sure leaves the user a lot of responsibility to dissect and analyze if it’s meaning is of graceful truth! http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=blogs+and+wiki – just look at the shear #’s!

How do you propose that the “Internet Police” manage this, companies utilize the internet for advertising, and be more in tune with consumers? http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=policing+the+internet

Ironically, we’re shaping the internet by sharing information via your blog, our personal projects, and even when I researched for fun utilizing ‘Google’, and each ‘electronic breadcrumb’ , movement, word, or ideas has contributed to something – as to what, not too certain, ha

Nice topic, apprecaite the inspiration, interested in hearing an update as to what you have been doing, projects, and how you find all this time to read so many books! Cliff notes? Google’ing for the ideas, then posting the ‘top 3+’ points via one page format?

later bud,
Rock On!
B

2. This one is a good question as a purely Marxian thought experiment, but I don’t think that because I use Facebook or YouTube I’m entitled to some ad money. It’s the expected trade off. I get a distribution channel, data storage and/or a useful service, they sell the ads. I pay nothing, they try to keep it alive. If I don’t like that, I can build my own Web site with my own infrastructure and do my own marketing.

3. Just because something isn’t created by a “professional” doesn’t mean it can’t be created professionally. The two concepts should be separated. I am a journalist by profession, but I understand the fact that people who take pictures of a news event, who may not be professional journalists, can still make an ACT of journalism. There is no difference between what they do and what I do, beyond the fact that I likely do it more often than they do.

4. You can’t trust the Web? What? Wasn’t this argument squashed in like 1996? Sure there’s a lot of noise and nonsense out there, but rather than being a book or a newspaper article as the end-all-be-all, which have had a very long history of noise and nonsense, every piece of media on the Web is up for instant review and critique as quickly as the original content had been created.

The “democratization” of the Web as devolving into some kind of giant water-cooler conversation is exactly what we knew would happen. People talked about this stuff every day before the Web. The idea that most people would log on and suddenly not be morons is a pipe dream.

In conclusion, Andrew Keen is a moron.

What do you think are some ways professionals can add value that amateurs can’t in the creative/strategy field?