7 responses to “Marketing 2.0: brands need to be, not just act, like people”
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Nigel’s analogy works well for brands as guests at a party where it would be inappropriate to start flogging things. However, there are times when a host is expected to sell – imagine the disappointment of attending an Anne Summers party and the host not getting down to business! Provided the purpose is clearly sign-posted, blogging to sell may be appropriate. But as any good sales person knows, listening to customers is much more important than simply talking at them.
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Antony, you are an infinitely more patient person than I if you can take this kind of time and effort to explain to people how to be, er, people. I’m reminded of the Hugh MacLeod cartoon which reads something like, “Don’t try to sell a meteor to a dinosaur. It just frustrates you and confuses the dinosaur.”
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Heather: to stretch the analogy, if people turn up at your shop that’s fair enough.
Jackie: it’s a living ;-)
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Thanks for the thoughts.
“ultimately companies are going to need to sell stuff”
You are right, of course, and maybe I’ve been reading too much Seth Godin ;)
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Who is very inspirational, but doesn’t always sell stuff ;-)
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But Brands are part of Corporations which, I also read, are effectively required to be psychotic :)
I think what social media does is make the behaviour of the Brand (or any entity really) observable to all in the network, ie changing the Game Theory – so it is far more difficult to carry out a large number of one to one “cheat” transactions.
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Social Media – Village, Pillage or Silage?
In my mis-spent youth I studied some Game Theory and System Dynamics, with which I have had an unhealthy fascination ever since. A number of recent bloggings have made me think increasingly about the Game Theory and System Dynamics of Social Media.
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