Re: UKNM: Viral Marketing

[tim.hayward]

Aaaah Lois,


I can always trust the 'Brand Goddess'(TM) to take the very purest of views.


I agree, of course, that the Eddie Stobart phenomenon has been terrifically

effective in raising awareness of the eponymous trucking operation. My

question

would have to be, aside from sales of Dinky toys, how has this made them any

money?


I mean, if I'm sitting in a Portakabin on the dockside at Avonmouth staring

at a

rapidly defrosting 40 tonne container of IQF prawns, maybe.... just maybe...

the

fact that my kid hit me with a Steady Eddie truck when he woke me up this

morning MIGHT make me reach for the phone. On the other hand, I should

imagine

I'd be more likely to purchase on price.


I think this is a common trope and at the very heart of our disillusion with

the

Web.


When writing a business plan, the most common mistake is to assume that

eyeballs

can be equivalent to money.


I met Bert Kwouk once, before the Harry Hill revival. He was in Soho, pissed

as

a rat, smelling of wee and begging for a drink. I thought, 'Fuck me. You're

Bert

Kwouk. You've been in everything from James Bond to Bridge on the River

Kwai.

You can't be poor.....you're FAMOUS!"


But he was. Half the wired world could pick him out in a police lineup and

remember his name but nobody was going to buy him a voddy.


I'm working with a .com at the moment that has 100,000 sets of highly

lucrative

eyeballs all round the world reading it every week. They just can't

understand

why they can't make any money from them.....Hell I can't understand it!


But surely the point is that on the Web ANYONE can be famous. Which means

that a

lot of people and brands are. Which means that making money is increasingly

difficult.


I keep seeing business presentations that start with rocketing internet

penetration figures. Then I see some suited fuck trying to explain how he's

going to exploit it.



Well what if we can't?


What if the internet is fundamentally an enhanced means of conversation? All

the

evidence points to the fact that people love to join things and get involved

on

the web and then just melt away the minute you try to extract the money.


The last appliance that 'penetrated' UK households as fast as this was the

telephone. Fortunately noone was enough of a cunt to try to sell t-commerce.

Sure the telephone has improved the way that business is done but it's

still,

fundamentally a communication not a commerce tool.


Personally I feel that media fragmentation is finally putting paid to the

idea

of advertising at all and our job as marketeers is going to be getting

involved

in the conversation.


The reason Eddie Stobart got huge was that it began as a completely

unmarketed

phenomenon. People were charmed by something they felt they had invented and

owned. There's something wonderful about that. The company just caught up

with

it later and, lacking any real way of making money out of it  have ended up

with

a terrific, self financing grass roots brand campaign. Ironically, Eddie

Stobart

is (that most nauseating piece of webmarketing claptrap) 'A Pure B2B Play'.

And

they've ended up with a totally free world class 'B2C' campaign aimed

squarely

at five yr olds.


Way to go Eddie!


Tx



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