Scarcity, secrecy, exclusivity. Three words that don’t exactly reflect the transparency and freedom of information that brands are supposedly striving for in a social age. But that’s also the reason that they can be so powerful in triggering emotional impact and peer-to-peer conversation when they are used well.
Last week, a friend of mine invited me to volunteer for something called YMBBT. Armed with no more information than an address in the West End and a time for that evening, I was slightly nervous that I had signed myself up for some dubious Soho debauchery. When a quick Google search revealed nothing except for the fact that YMBBT stood for ‘You Me Bum Bum Train’, my anticipation – and anxiety – understandably increased.
For those of you who haven’t heard about YMBBT, well – the first rule of YMBBT is that you don’t talk about YMBBT. All I need to tell you is that it’s a highly sought-after interactive theatre experience run almost entirely by volunteers who, like me, don’t really know what they are volunteering for. And when I say highly sought-after, I mean sought-after. 80,000 applied for just 1,000 tickets during its last run, all without a clue what they were signing up for.
The absolute secrecy of the whole enterprise is key to its success. Counter-intuitively, explicitly asking people to restrict the nature of their word of mouth drives word of mouth like wildfire.
YMBBT is just one of several examples of brands that know the value of cloak and dagger. We’ve talked before about how pop-up shops harness people’s desire to uncover unconventional retail gems before anyone else.
Secret Cinema is another fantastic example. Paying over the odds to see a film you may or may not like in a location that may or may not be anywhere near you sounds bizarre in a world of hyper-personalisation, convenience and tribal passion groups. But it sells out every time precisely because it subverts those trends. Sometimes, not being pandered to makes you respect a brand or experience very much indeed.
Of course, exclusivity taps into very basic human drives. We’re herd animals – we enjoy inclusion and being privy to something special, and those emotions can quickly be converted into loyalty and advocacy. We want people around us to know we’re part of this magical experience, both to bond with our fellow participants and to badge our selves with a sort of ‘in the know’ cool.
Of course, not every brand lends itself to this kind of ‘popularity through secrecy’ approach, especially those that can’t rely on the impact of the live experience. Practical, non-experiential and non-luxury items such as say, household cleaner, rely on candidness, transparency and cold hard facts to make their product stand out in a sea of competitors.
But Apple is proof that you don’t need lots of stunts to make consumers feel special. Its carefully – some might say anally – controlled flow of information is absolutely key to the cult. The ultimate Generation Y brand, Apple doesn’t have a blog, Twitter account or Facebook page.
Yet by revealing so little Apple all but guarantees that every announcement it makes is met with fevered global excitement and advocacy.
So how might you be able to drive demand with a bit of social scarcity? What assets, information or experiences might you be able to withhold, tease or stagger to generate that sense of privileged camaraderie? Don’t forget: silence can be one of your most powerful tools in harnessing word of mouth.
Here at 1000heads we’ve always had a very strong belief in the value of honest word of mouth for businesses.
That means good and bad.
Our ethics policy explains that we encourage people to discuss what they *really think* about brands, products and services. They won’t get rewarded for one-note glowing reviews. They won’t be given scripts to regurgitate. As long as their conversation is authentic and constructive (i.e. not an abusive rant), we love it, and generally our clients do too.
Because of course the ‘negative’ conversation is usually the most useful stuff. Maybe not if your only objective in social is to engineer a whitewash of promotional-style blah. But definitely if you want to use this space as an opportunity to learn and grow with your customers, and let them in on the process. It’s an amazing chance to get unbiased feedback about how you’re doing, rather than spending thousands on market research that might produce a skewed result – and if you don’t want to hear it, or do something about it, then you have much bigger problems than a grumbly Facebook page.
It’s therefore great to see the latest research from our friends over at Reevoo, the social commerce crew. Digging into the data around the website review plugins they provide for clients such as Tesco, Sharp and Sony, they’ve discovered that allowing bad reviews to coexist with the good ensures that:
68% trust good reviews more when they also see the bad ones
95% suspect censorship or fake scores when they don’t see any negative reviews
people stay longer on your site, giving you more time to persuade them to buy
people view more pages – only 1% leave your site after seeing one badly-reviewed product
Surely the important word here is trust. It’s the lifeblood of effective social brands – that is, ones that don’t just forge great relationships, word of mouth and loyalty, but ones that make money from their social interactions.
I am currently attracting more sulky looks than usual in my house. They are coming from my 12-year-old son, who feels that my level of strictness has reached stratospheric heights, and that I am in risk of damaging our relationship permanently.
Of course I am not alone in this – every parent the world over would sympathise – but whilst my son has always accepted most boundaries with resigned equanimity, it is my new ‘Technology Rules’ that are causing the strop (which of course, merely serves to mitigate my actions).
The problem is that while I am a big fan of technology, fiercely defending it against those who declare that it destroys family life, social skills and kids’ brains (not if it’s employed sensibly and productively), I can’t keep ignoring the studies which point to the dreaded possibility of addiction and, I hate to say it, what look like the early warning signs in my son (ref. the excessive strop).
via softpedia-static
When he started secondary school recently, I finally allowed him to join Facebook. This really did help the transition (he was more worried about losing touch with his old friends than he was about making new ones), but he began feverishly logging on every morning after a rushed breakfast. Playing his pals on the PSP every night was also becoming more important than his homework. That is, until the ‘Technology Rules’…
What I would really appreciate is some help in all this – and I’m not talking just PHSE classes in school or government guidelines which are frustratingly and peculiarly absent in spite of expert pressure to introduce them.
No, I’m referring to brand involvement. My research shows that not one of the gaming or social media brands is taking the opportunity to engage with kids or parents about this. No social networking sites or games producers are addressing this issue in their CSR plans. Nor are they producing content to help kids and parents make sensible choices.
Crucially, it helps educate kids not yet tainted with commercial cynicism to make healthy choices independent of their parents’ nagging.
Is it really such a huge risk for technology companies to admit and take some responsibility for what appears to be adversely affecting almost every family I know?
Social media are all about the spread of information through networks of individuals. In other words, WOM: people talking.
But what happens when these conversations are curtailed, constricted and controlled?
There has been a fierce debate raging over the past few days – both online and offline – about the relative pros and cons of the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in America, and it could have big implications for the future of the WOM industry – not to mention our everyday online lives.
The bill, originally presented to the United States House of Representatives in October 2011, is intended to pre-empt the problem of Internet piracy in the US by targeting sites that promote and enable the sharing of copyrighted material.
So far, so simple.
(Flickr: spaceninja)
But what SOPA and its sister bill PIPA (the Protect IP Act) have done is effectively turned a debate on piracy into a pitched battle between two cornerstones of Liberal ideology: free speech and free markets.
The disagreement pits Internet giants such as Google, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Wikipedia against businesses such as television networks, record labels, book publishers and the film industry. The latter want to be able to protect their copyrighted material from illegal distribution over the Internet, while the former wish to enshrine the right of their users to upload and consume content according to their will (within certain legal parameters, of course).
Although the vast majority of law-abiding citizens agree that Internet piracy is A Bad Thing, many equally believe that it is not the place of government – any government – to control and restrict what they can access on the Internet.
On the other hand, companies, brands and individuals who produce copyrighted material do not want to see their goods trafficked and bandied about (either on the internet or in the so-called ‘real world’) by others who are not them.
Which puts us somewhere in the middle.
As a word of mouth company, we are committed to the spread of information and ideas around the world. Equally, we are committed to our clients and their very real need to keep their goods and services protected from those who wish to abuse them. The question here, then, is whether the proposals put forward by SOPA and PIPA will help protect both agendas. This is a question that does not as yet have a clear answer.
What is clear is that by limiting the number and type of interactions a web user can experience, the checks and controls proposed by these bills may inadvertently stifle the sort of innovation and creativity that is such an integral part of the online world.
But then again, SOPA and PIPA have got people talking – and this itself may help drive change where it is most needed.
Waterstone’s was founded by Tim Waterstone. It’s his chain. Hence the possessive apostrophe that indicates ownership. To remove it is to remove ownership (OK, he doesn’t own it anymore, but you know what I’m getting at). To remove it is an affront to the English Language. To remove it is to offend everyone who has ever written a sentence correctly.
Apostrophe – unemployed
To have a new Wiki is an admission that we have failed. ‘We’ being the proponents of the correct usage of the English language. The excuse tripped out by the chain is that the change will ‘simplify internet searches and email’. Balls. It’s just. Plain. Lazy. It’s kowtowing to the kids who can’t be bovvered to learn the rules. What happened to the three R’s? They only ever appear now when I scream ‘Arrrgh!’ at seeing another erosion of the language like this one. What happened to educating children? Where did this ‘attitude’ come from? I hate it.
To be fair, the High Street is already sending mixed signals – see Boots (founded by J.Boot) vs. McDonald’s (founded, as we all know by one Ronald McDonald – son of an old guy who had a farm). *And* as my hippy tutor at Uni used to say: ‘Language is a free-running river’, so as a grumpy old man I should adapt and move on. But I can’t. Presumably every Waterstone’s (I refuse to drop it!) has books on the shelves whose sole purpose is to inform the reader about correct grammar and the use of the apostrophe….is this going to cause a paradox and make the Universe collapse in on itself? Well no, but it begs an interesting question. Is someone going to go through all those books with a black marker and erase the apostrophe chapters?
So to all those children (and several adults) who refuse to use the apostrophe correctly I say ‘Meh’. I use and always will use the English language in the correct form. The rest of you are Dummies.
What do you think?
Cool, or not?
Technology for technology’s sake perhaps?
Next, this one from Miss Jaqui Hill, is BELIEVE IT OR NOT, nail varnish – for men.
We’re filing this under WHAT NOW?
Seriously.
And if that’s not enough, here’s a handy ‘how to’ video, for those of you who are still slightly unsure about this entire concept -
Finally, and this is by far and away our favourite entry from last week, the British Heart Foundation have recruited Vinnie Jones for this tongue in cheek but potentially life saving PSA video -
To the beat of Stayin’ Alive? Perfect. Hat tip to Ryan for finding that one…
