I originally posted this live blogging during the Mesh Conference in Toronto…
…on my A View from the Isle blog.
As a live – blogged post, it’s a little rough. A couple days after the event, now I can reflect that Tara’s keynote was interesting and spawned ideas that might be heretical to "traditional" marketing. It certainly begs the question: Is "traditional marketing"–if there ever was such a thing–dead with the advent of blogs?
I think the answer is, no. Marketers and marketing plans have to be more blog-savvy and aware than they were a year ago (for example the Maine blogger fiasco–a fiasco for the ad/pr agency–is a good, recent example), but is it dead? No. Marketing still has to be done, there are just more tools at your disposal.
Tara is starting off with a discussion of how consumers are disenfranchised, pissed off, and ready to lash out. She showed BowieChick’s YouTube video (first time I’ve seen it … I guess I’m out of the loop, eh?) that drove Logitech’s sales into orbit. Tara related that Melody (BowieChick) didn’t want stuff from Logitech … but that actually doesn’t appear to be the case. This isn’t a bad think IMO. If Logitech just sent me something to try out, no questions asked, no strings. Sure. I generally like Logitech’s stuff. My little Bluetooth headset for my Berry was great, until it died. But … but when I called Canadian tech support … they were cool. Fax us your receipt, we’ll send you a new one. Yeah, send me a new one. Not, send the old one back, then we’ll send you one. No we’re just sending you one (once you prove that you bought it, etc). That’s cool.
Whoops, off topic. Good thing I have a multithreaded brain and have been paying attention. So Pinko Marketing, good principles. I pinged up when Tara was talking about Riya not launching a Mac uploader initialling (it’s coming this week Tara said). Qumana went through the same thing. This is why we have one now. Sure Macs only have 6% of the market … but they are active bloggers. Makes pretty good sense. Yeah, it’s a development issue.
But … it’s worth it.
Tags: mesh06, mesh06_daytwo, Tara Hunt, mesh06_pr
HorsePigCow(www.horsepigcow.com) is a must-read if you care anything about marketing, ‘Web 2.0′, and how the 2 intersect. As I’ve told Tara, I’m not thrilled with the terminology and images that ‘Pinko Marketing’ conjures, but her thinking and reasoning is rock-solid. Marketing TO the community is no longer an option, your only choice is to market WITH the community.
Tara not only understands this, she’s doing her best to see that everyone else gets the message. As only she can
Mark, Thanks for the comment. I think Tara is quite sharp, unfortunately she wasn’t on her game later in the day.
And her reflections on BowieChick … well weren’t quite accurate. It looks as if she would have accepted stuff, logitech wasn’t going to pay her, but did offer to send stuff. She just felt greedy asking for something (her parents should be very proud of that!).
I do enjoy horsepigcow and agree that it should defiantly be on any marketers reading list. One thing that strikes me about pinko marketing (simlarly with the cluetrain manifesto) is that they often turn-off the people they need to be talking through their militancy. The cluetrain IMHO is one of the most important business books in the last decade, and yet their message was so hard to swallow or a lot of business people because it was so accusatory and inflammatory. Now Tara is not quite as militant as the cluetrain, but statements like “consumers are disenfranchised, pissed off, and ready to lash out” can be perceived as hyperbole.
In fact, inspired by gaping voids microbrand rant I started writing about micromarketing to try and explore how companies can participate in the marketplace conversation through blogs, social software etc.
I for one subscribe to the “T” shaped idea that Steve Rubel has been talking about at micropersuasion. Basically that traditional media is good for building broad “awareness” and blog/social software good at building deeper, more engaging relationships with customers.
Anyway, great topic.
Karl
Gotta love Pinko! I am a big fan of Tara’s and love the anti-marketing message that gets sent out.
But maybe I am like many and too staid in my ways (at 32!) to consider that we should just throw the marketing handbook out of the window – after all, many people have made billions doing it the boring way.
That said, I think the essence of TCM and Pinko marketing are absolutely, totally correct – we are no longer marketing (directors) dictators. We must be guided by what the community wants from US. Power is money and the balance of power is shifting as individuals find a public voice.
My only negative point about Pinko is its rather loose “manifesto”. For me at the moment, PM is more a concept than a workable action plan – but maybe that’s because I don’t get it completely…yet!
Karl, I couldn’t agree more on both points. When you challenge the dominant paradigm so much that people think that you’re nuts, well …
Personally I prefer more “engagement marketing” I like connecting with Qumana’s users and non-users. We’ve found that some of our best feature suggestions and general development priorities have come directly from that.
We often base what’s the next feature to add/bug to fix on what’s making the most noise on the blogosphere.
“My only negative point about Pinko is its rather loose “manifesto”. For me at the moment, PM is more a concept than a workable action plan – but maybe that’s because I don’t get it completely…yet!”
And Tara seems to abdicate marketers giving the community complete control of the marketing message, and I don’t think that’s the best course of action. I think our roles as marketers is to give our community the tools they need to market for us. Find and identify your ‘customer evangelists’, and let them do your marketing and promotion for you.