Is Human Media the Next Frontier? A Chinese Case Study

By now, we all know that we live in a world in which word-of-mouth rules.  The recommendation of a friend or family member outweighs anything a brand may have to say for itself.  

As a result, marketers from around the world are racing to measure the degree in which their customers, and the market at large, is likely to recommend them.  And, more importantly, what they should do to be more liked in the social media space that is called my kitchen.

For this, various measures are used, of which my favourite is the Net Promoter® Score.  It not only measures the propensity of customers to recommend, but also links these insights to economic behaviour, competitive position and opportunities for operational improvement.  But ever since I discovered it in 2006, I’ve had this feeling that there was even more mileage to be gotten out of that famous question “How likely are you to recommend this brand … ?”.

A few weeks ago, Futurelab’s Shanghai associate Jan Van den Bergh proved that there was.  Together with two partners he has set up Holaba, China’s first brand recommendation platform. 

In line with Net Promoter® thinking, Holaba surveys an ever increasing group of Chinese netizens on the likelihood in which they are willing to recommend 5,000 different brands (50,000 products), as well as their reasons for doing so.  Combining this NPS®-data, with additional customer experience, shopping and popularity measures, allows them to create an ongoing picture of every brand’s recommendation power.

But more importantly, by offering brands to connect out to individual consumers which declare themselves to be promoters (or in China recommenders) Jan’s team has effectively created the first human media network in China.

How this will effectively be used by brands, the future will tell.  But the following two slides are already a nice illustration of the information this can generate.  It’s all still experimental, yet the direction is quite promising (for the full Holaba presentation scroll to the bottom of this post):

• The first slide gives an overview of the recommendation scores achieved by the top 18 social networking services in China, using the Net Promoter® methodology  (n = 1500 to 7500 per brand)
• The second one cross-correlates the propensity to recommend a given social media brand (Tencent) with the loyalty to other brands.  This opens up a world of opportunities for cross-promotions, multi-brand community development, etc.

Recommendation scores of social networking sites in China

Have you heard of other human media initiatives that operate at this scale?  If so, I’d be quite interested to hear about them.

Social Networks & Recommendation in China

Full disclosure: As is apparent from the article, Jan Van den Bergh is a Futurelab associate, which is a cause for bias.  Still, even if a complete stranger would have walked in with the same proposition, I dare say I would have reacted the same.

Trademark notice:  Net Promoter, NPS, and Net Promoter Score are trademarks of Satmetrix Systems, Inc., Bain & Company, and Fred Reichheld.

Change Marketing, Yes We Can (presentation)

I don't know about you, but for years now I've had the feeling there's something wrong in the land of marketing.  After all, we all read that the world has changed. That media consumption has changed.  Consumer behaviour has evolved.  That brands aren't trusted.  That mass media are dead. 

But at the same time the basic principles of marketing as I learned them in business school have remained the same.  While the media have changed, the majority of marketing initiatives are still about "shouting and selling" rather than actually engaging with a customer and gaining his respect.

I believe this has to stop and that is why – today – in Helsinki I gave a presentation which called upon the marketers in the room to stop the madness. 

To stop talking about what the brand wanted to say, and start focusing on what we, the customers wanted to hear.  To stop shouting at us, and start engaging us.  To start building a lifelong reputation, instead of trying to be a “one night brand” merely focused on quarterly campaigns.  In short, to help start a revolution that would change the essence of marketing itself.

The experience was unnerving.  After all,  it was the first time I have ever been that explicit.  Calling for a revolution is something you don’t do every day.  And in a country as advanced as Finland, there is of course the chance that no one would rise to the occasion.

But they did.  In fact, many people came up to me with the message that I was articulating what they were thinking.  Others also came up with suggestions on how to make the presentation better.  Areas I had missed and that could be included.

So with the Finnish digital marketing world on my side, I’ve decided it is now time to challenge the world.  Or better, I should say “we”, because my business partner Stefan Kolle has been at the heart of the new marketing model we propose in the presentation below.  A marketing reality which lets go of the “product push” mentality, and focuses on relevance, engagement and reputation.

Change Marketing v01

About the presentation

This presentation offers a digital perspective on life, as the audience at the event (Twitter: #Fword) was active in digital. But our view is larger than that.  That is why we will be applying the concept of  relevance, engagement and reputation to every aspect of the marketing mix.  From ROI to innovation.  From television to Twitter.

It also is an “open source project”.  Even though at Futurelab we can consider ourselves a bit ahead of the curve, reality is that we don’t know every detail on how the future of marketing will look either.  But we do believe that if we all work together, we can work it out.  So I would like to call on you to contribute.  We will shortly be launching a Ning community where all fellow revolutionaries can unite and discuss.  But until then I suggest you use the comment section below.

Because as the man said: Change Marketing.  Yes, We Can.

On Accountability, now on Slideshare

Apparently the guys at Marketing3 in the Netherlands liked my I am the media slide-show enough to ask me back for more.  This means that this year, I had the honour of sharing the stage with Charles Leadbeater and Andrew Keen.

To take a different tact from last year's journey into the land of Web 2.0, I went all out on the topic of marketing accountability and combined a few earlier presentations with new material into an updated version of the Marketer's Bushido.

I've published it on Slideshare, so feel free to mash-up, abuse, re-use and distribute to your heart's content.  Credits are appreciated :-)

Marketing3 Presentation

View more presentations from Alain Thys.

A Little Less Conversation ... (slideshow)

A few weeks ago I spoke in the Netherlands at a Marktplein 2.0: A Little Less Action, A Little More Conversation, a conference, which essentially wanted to encourage (direct) marketers to engage in conversations with the consumer, rather than just shout at him.  Confronted with the hyperbolic language of the conference brochure indicating the "'newness" fo the conversation phenomenon, I couldn't resist the jab of inverting the title of the conference for my keynote.  In stead of talking about conversations with customers, I think it's time marketers got out of their office and actually had them.

I hope you find the slides of use.

A Little Less Conversation Slideshare

Anyone for Inspiration Overload?

If you decide to start your weekend with a little bit of inspiration overload, have a look at A Blog List which Stefano Ricci put together.  Stefano runs Elmanco, an Italian consultancy in art direction and cool hunting. He's put together this list to provide inspiration to professionals in graphic and industrial design, fashion, technology, advertising and new trends.

I haven't gone through all the links, but at first sight it looks like one of the most comprehensive listings I've ever come across in this field, including many blogs and sites I had never heard of before.  He has been kind enough to include Futurelab :-)

One health warning though.  If you're already suffering from RSS overload, your family may not want you to click :-)

Thanks Stefano!