Gonzo Marketing - No, unfortunately Hunter S. Thompson isn’t involved, as that would give this idea more entertainment value. Here’s the concept, as capsulized in The Guardian: “What replaces mass market, broadcast advertising is Locke’s ‘gonzo marketing’, which is not really marketing but ‘market advocacy’ through participation, sponsorship and support. The internet replaces the us-and-them relationship (creative people broadcasting to couch potatoes) with a network of conversations, which is all markets are, really. “
Jeff Jarvis’ summary is a little more concrete: “Instead of buying ads on blogs (which we’d all love, but which would not work even if it happened... witness other failed Internet ad movements; we will be spared that humiliation thanks to timing) the wise marketer will recognize a community of shared interest and will underwrite that community, will help make it possible, will say by that act ‘we share an interest and affection for this community.’ Thus the marketer joins with the audience and stays on the edge of buzz. “
And this is where I got both confused and bemused. Jeff’s a smart guy, who’s been ahead of the curve on quite a few things, and he likes the idea so much “I’ve been pitching to most anybody who’ll listen”. So I thought about this a bit harder. As someone who’s been in one form or another of the advertising business for 25 years, I’m bemused by the concept, because I can hear the reaction of most clients. But there’s a way around that.
Advertisers will have the same basic questions I’ve been hearing for 25 years: “Now, what the hell do I get for that? And you want how much money?” I’m no account executive (thank you again, O Deity), but I can just hear the pitch, the call and response.
So, you want me to sponsor this forum, er, community thing. What’d you call it? A Blorg? OK, whatever, they’re talking about my market, I can see these are people I want to reach. How many ads do I get for my money, and how prominently will they be located?
Um, you won’t get any banner ads or anything like that.
[Pause] OK, will my sponsorship be a prominent part of the site’s design and branding? You know, Joe’s Garage Talk is brought to you by Acme Auto Parts, plastered all over the pages?
No, this is a community, and they pride themselves on their independence. But if you underwrite this community of shared interest, well, you can’t quantify the good will that will buy your company.
No, I can’t quantify it, but my boss is sure going to want to. I’ve got to be able to show concrete returns for this investment.
Oh, but you will. By underwriting this, you’re saying “we share an interest and affection for this community,” and you get to be a part of the conversation and stay on the edge of the buzz. You do know the Internet isn’t a market, it’s a conversation, don’t you?
[Long Staring Pause] Like this one? Are you charging me for this, because I don’t seem to be getting much out of it. So far, I’m hearing that you’ll take our money, but we get no banner ads, and no dominant sponsor identification? Just a whole lot of warm fuzzy goodwill? How am I supposed to sell that to my boss?
You can tell him this is a brand new form of advertising. It’s not standard marketing, it’s ‘market advocacy’ through participation, sponsorship and support.
[Longer Staring Pause] So, in this exchange, one side gets added participation, sponsorship, and support, and the other side gets ... to be a part of the conversation? Sounds like a great deal. For one side. Come back when you’ve got something for the other.
After 25 years in the business, I can tell you the above conversation is the one you would have with a mostly clueful client. Many of them (“sure, I’m on the Net, we’ve got WebTV at home!”), would be far worse.
It’s not that this basic idea doesn’t have merit. But it currently is presented in a one-sided buzz-coded manner, and you’ve got to give the advertiser some concrete benefits they can wrap their tiny heads around. You’ve got to make it sound like the best idea they never had, but they’re glad you did. Right now, the response generated is more like, “yeah, that’s a super idea. For you.”
Like most everything in advertising, this is a concept that has to be sold on cost. That’s the only terms advertisers can parse. Advertising is an amazingly expensive business, and has been for a long time. Sponsors are used to six figure print budgets, or seven figure TV budgets. Make them a four or five figure proposal, and you’ll get their attention. Explain to them that for the same money they would spend on a one page ad in a specialist publication, they can sponsor ten or twelve specialist communities. Show them cost benefit. Give them guerilla tactics: “tell your boss these people will thing you’re a cool company because you’re helping them, but not shoving tons of ads down their throat. Tell him it’s hard for a corporation to buy ‘cool,’ but this community of enthusiasts is willing to sell it to you. Cheap.”
And this concept will be best sold by removing all the middlemen. Including those steering the ClueTrain. I can only speak for myself, but as the digital mayor of a small non-profit photo community, if a company like Nikon were interested in some form of sponsorship, I’d be willing to talk about rotating text ads on the home page. Or a new and heavily Nikon branded tech section. Or small ads on the secondary pages. Or a co-branded header/footer. Or any number of things I didn’t think of in the past 20 seconds.
Why? Because we’re small. Nikon is big. A mere five grand would insure the site’s future for years, but would qualify as “office supplies” for one Nikon employee for a year. Would I run small text ads on the home page for that? You betcha.
The point is, I might choose to do any number of things RageBoy & Co. would find antithetical to their ideology. The Nikon rep and I might have a conversation that spurred more traditional advertising possibilities, ones unique to my site and his products. Ideas that an agency never would have thought of, because they don’t fully grasp either my community, or his products. But we do. We don’t need middlemen, they just limit possibilities.
And there’s my real breakdown on “ideology,” “markets,” and “conversations.” It’s a good ideology that has driven this concept, but it has made it appear rather one sided in approach. And advertisers do need to stop thinking of the Internet in terms of markets and start thinking of conversations. In addition to hiring an agency to “market” them, the company itself needs to have conversations with the leaders of communities in which it has an interest. Those individual conversations can lead to new and very customized means of marketing within these communities.
But we’ve got to get past the ideological GeekSpeak and $peak in $imple term$ the adverti$er$ under$tand.
[Update: The conversation continues]
I think you’ve really hit on both the promise and the problems of the phenomenon, Reid. If “ad agencies” (whatever they would be called) are to survive in this sort of community-based web, I tend to think it would be as enablers of the conversation between corporations and their customers. And maybe they won’t survive--maybe the marketing departments of the corporations could rethink their role enough to do the same thing, eliminating the middleman. It’s a different world, for sure. The possibilities are really exciting.
Of course, all this presupposes that the entertainment conglomerates don’t get their way and emasculate our computers into simple entertainment-delivery boxes. Bottom-up creativity and community requires the current environment of no artificial barriers in order to flower, though that does make copyright piracy easy. Unfortunately, instead of developing new business models to take advantage of technology and connectedness, the entertainment industry is using legislation to force building of those barriers higher and higher.
I see it as all part of the same thing--the democratizing, bottom-up influence of mass access to technology vs. top-down, centralized access to media. I don’t mean it to sound like one side is all good and the other is all bad, either. Centralized access does tend to raise standards; conversely, a few hours on the Flash message boards (for example) may make one wish that a lot of people wouldn’t even try to express themselves publicly.
Food for thought, anyway. Um, thanks for letting me sound off on your blog, Reid. I’ll shut up now.