Random thoughts on a Friday night: when young people form groups in school, it’s as important who is in the group as who is kept out of the group.
I wonder if digital device ownership will or already has become a criteria for social interactions: John owns a Nokia and therefore hangs out with this group of people whereas Nancy owns a second-hand Blackberry given by her parents and hangs out with a completely different group of people.
Could this also possibly extend to network providers? Could Blyk become a brand that people associate with a particular mindset and serve as a social glue?
Mobile providers already have brand images that yong people recognise. Vodafone can perhaps be thought of as the “safe and grownup” network, whereas O2 and 3 are the younger-feeling brands. Could these brand “personas” become mirrors for their users not only on a personal level but also affect perception from others. Hard to tell as we don’t tend to wear our network on our sleeve, but the Blyk offering could certainly push things in that direction.
” Didn’t have to pay for tickets: You must be using Blyk ” to take a simple example. “Saw yesterday’s message of the day? Wasn’t that highlarious?” When a network starts to become a social agent, the game isn’t about how many minutes or texts you get for free, but what actual connections you create between users.
March 28th, 2008
In a recent interview Blyk members reported that the ads they enjoyed most were those that featured intriguing graphic effects. If this were taken at face value it would suggest a need for escalating innovation in Blyk advertisers’ campaigns. Not a bad thing in itself, and likely to happen anyway. But maybe not the only route to capturing members’ attention.
Blyk can, to some extent, track what members do when they receive different types of ad, as well as what they say they do. In January Blyk tracked the responses to a campaign of text messages for Connexions, the UK government youth agency, that combines traditional employment bureau with a wide-ranging advice service. The campaign was focused on 16-19 year-olds and featured a series of introductory questions covering bullying, employment and debt.
The average response rate to Connexions’ questions was 36%, and analysis of this response base revealed that 29% reported bullying problems, 29% sought careers or employment advice and 51% needed financial advice. Beyond the simple Y/N responses the campaign had anticipated, many respondents sent more expansive comments. For example
on bullying: Ma sis said she gets bullied all tha time and shes scared of them but she tryes to tell people whts goin on but they neva help her
on employment: No thanks im going into flight attendant training 4 da career of becoming a flight attendant
on debt: YeS i neva have enough.
These responses suggest a connection between the advertiser and members beyond attention-grabbing graphics. The content counts. And although members know this is not a live conversation, they’re offering a genuine exchange here.
It’s just this ‘almost human’ link via text messages that smoking cessation programmes are now exploiting to boost their impact. A trial in New Zealand showed that if people were supported by a sequence of text messages as part of their cessation counselling they were more likely to quit smoking than a control group who did not receive text messages (the trial is now being replicated in the UK to determine whether this effect lasts beyond the six-week follow-up tracked in the New Zealand trial).
Giving up smoking is a lonely process; so is worrying about money, bullying or unemployment. It may be that the private link between individuals and their phones creates a new opportunity for communication and support. One wouldn’t want to be too rose-tinted about this yet. But there was a hint of potential for a two-way connection in the pre-launch trials I ran for Blyk over 2006-7. One participant commented at the end of a post-trial interview ‘I’m going to miss my little friend Blyk.’
Part of the success of the Connexions campaign is likely to be due to its individuality among a range of different messages, and the focus on a specific target audience that Blyk can achieve. The experience would naturally be dulled if the communication was too repetitive or unfocused. And members’ willingness to engage in the future is likely to depend on the feedback and reinforcement they have received before. But if Blyk advertising comprises a balance of message type and content (something that could be hard for Blyk, as a business, to make a decision to control) it may help develop Blyk as a service that not only links members to brands they like, but also opens up communications that members hadn’t previously considered.
March 28th, 2008
