If you have 15 minutes to spare it’s worth watching Clay Shirky’s talk at Web2Expo last month (or read it here).
Shirky’s thesis is that web 2.0 works, and engages people in interactions, because it provides an outlet for the ‘cognitive surplus’ that is untapped by conventional media (‘we produce, you consume’). According to Shirkey people seek an outlet beyond passively consuming what media pipes to them. His thesis is that media should embrace production, consumption and sharing; and that people want to take part in all three. And that rather than dismissing blogging, Twittering, YouTubing etc. as just being a fad, what we’re seeing at the moment is just a beginning; something people will grow into rather than grow out of. (Given the context for this talk, of course Shirkey is upbeat!)
I don’t buy Shirky’s thesis in total. For a long time, traditional passive media (such as print media, TV and radio) have presented some compelling experiences, which have been shared within families, with friends and colleagues. Mass media events (such as the latest Apprentice series, currently playing out on British TV) still create a shared national experience (even if it’s one of incredulity). (To be fair, Shirky says he’s not forecasting the end of passive entertainment.)
But I agree that new media create opportunities for people to go beyond traditional consumption, to produce and share, and that these opportunities are taken up in a wide range of contexts, not necessarily nerdy or techie: consider the number of book groups and craft circles using web tools to produce, consume and share.
There is something in Shirky’s thesis for Blyk, and it links to Carlo’s post on the non-distinction between advertising and content. For some of Blyk members, the mobile phone is still simply a utility and Blyk’s messages are the price to pay for free calls and texts. For others, however, Blyk is another part of the media mix they experience and there is potential for ‘cognitive surplus’ to come into play as much here as with the web. When content engages members they respond to the opportunity to go beyond passive consumption, to share and (as response to the competitions Blyk has run suggests) to produce. Just as Shirky claims for Web 2.0, this is likely to be just the beginning. It is up to Blyk to draw on members’ cognitive surplus in the opportunities for interaction it presents.
It’s pretty clear that engaging an audience via mobile advertising requires a different approach than through many other media. Simply sending an interruptive text straight to the device in somebody’s pocket isn’t likely to be received well; it’s likely to be seen as spam. Connecting with a mobile audience requires marketers to understand that they’re not sending users simple advertising, they’re sending them content.
Take, for instance, the SMS sent to Blyk members back in January from the UK government youth agency Connexions. The campaign didn’t just send users texts with a call to action, rather it sought to engage them by asking them to respond to a number of introductory questions as a lead-in to a conversation. Accordingly, the campaign got a 36% response rate — far higher than most standard, interruptive campaigns.
The campaign offered users something of value in exchange for their response, and that’s a key point. That in exchange for users’ attention, in exchange for access to their mobile phone, the most personal of devices, advertisers need to give users something in return. That something can take many different forms: a discount coupon, a piece of useful information, some entertaining video content, and so on. In some sense, the marketing aspect of the message needs to take a back seat. The initial focus needs to be on delighting the recipient in some way — and then you can get the marketing message across.
Marketers need to see themselves as content providers. A movie trailer isn’t an ad; it’s a piece of mobile content with the potential to engage and entertain the viewer. If it delights the recipient, it doesn’t simply make them want to go see the film, there’s a possibility they’ll pass it along. Do people pass advertisements along? Not really. They pass along content. Sometimes that content happens to be an advertisement.
Forget blurring the line between content and advertising. In reality, that line doesn’t exist.
Carlo Longino is a Las Vegas-based writer, analyst and consultant in the mobile industry. His past experience includes work for Nokia, Nortel, and a number of other mobile companies, and he blogs at MobHappy.
Chris highlighted this PSFK article on how young people valued the sharing of an experience more than living the experience itself.
Like the tourist, they want to share. But today they share that memory instantly via email and MMS to their friends on Facebook or readers of their blog. They share so that other people can see the photo of a moment that they actually didn’t see. And the motivation? For social status: to bolster the image their friends and network have of them.
I wonder if equally, Blyk could become something to be shared and that the action of sharing becomes something of value in itself and not only the service. A service you could virally send to your friends as quickly as an MMS ? What would that look like?
