“Clusty” and its Impact on Brand Zeitgeist

A new web-search engine that is starting to gain some traction in cyber-scape is Clusty. It is built around the principal that any topic that you might search by will actually generate clusters of websites around common ideas that you may not have thought of and may lead to something more specific that you were looking for.

For example: If I go to the main screen and type “Ferrari”, it takes me to a results page that looks similar to something that Google might give you, except for a box on the left side that has the following Clusters:

• Pictures (32)
• Enzo (19)
• Owners (12)
• Reviews (12)
• Maserati (12)
• Ferrari Club (11)

They are ranked by the number of unique sites in each cluster (numbers in the bracket).

So if I were an avid Ferrari owner – I would be asking myself why does Maserati come up with more pages than Ferrari clubs given that I was searching for Ferrari?

Where I see this adding value for a marketing managers is that it provides a quick snap-shot of what anyone and everyone in the world (wide web) is currently talking about with your brand. It sorts through not just websites, but blogs, job postings, images.

Here is another example: Southwest Airlines

This company has always been the darling of business school case studies for their contrarian business practices, fun work culture and their success at being a low-cost airline. This past week, they had to ground several planes because of FAA safety violations.

When I searched Southwest Airlines – the first page generated a list of pages you would expect to be no different if it were pulled prior to this FAA ruling.

Clusty came back with the following Custers:

• Airports
• Tickets
• Planes, Grounded
• Safety, Investigating

I think this paints a more accurate picture of what everyone is thinking about the brand.

Does it not seem like this might be a useful tool to instantly gauge the marketplace? While rudimentary, it certainly can’t get much more current (or dynamic) for market research data.

Digital Marketing Mash-up

I think that a lot of marketers and businesses large and small know that social networking is a trend and not a fad – but still struggle to see how these online communities can exist to enhance a consumer experience beyond narrowing and targeting advertising.

A post on Digital Hive (who we will add to this sites blogroll), supported by an article from the Wall Street Journal gives a great case study (And who doing their MBA doesn’t like a case study?) of the web-company called Etsy that is effectively using social networking to bring together buyers and sellers of hand-crafted goods.

The post talks about bringing together “really crucial interactive consumer behaviours: shopping for and buying stuff, social networking and e-commerce”

Probably one of the more interesting uses of this site is the “Alchemy” section – where potential customers can post what products they would like from the community that currently aren’t available. Next to the hypothetical product – the request also includes an “Ideal Price”.

“Buyers can post requests for custom handmade items, and then sellers bin on the opportunity to make the goods.”

So there is a lot going on with this site: community building, customization, brokering, branding, brand loyalty & entrepreneurship.

We at the SMA wonder if there might be lessons that bigger firms could take from this growing web-business?

Zombie Guerrilas

As cool as it would be to have walking undead monkeys as part of anyone’s marketing mix, this post is slightly more conventional in marketing topics.

The New York Times reported this weekend about Sony BMG’s Guerrila marketing campaign to get people talking about the 25th Anniversary of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” being re-released.

Dance groups from London to Copenhagen have been asked to break into a full choreographed homage to the 15-minute dance in the original music video in public spaces – and then disband as soon as they are formed.

Needless to say – clips of the “spontaneous” dance breakouts have been posted to what is becoming an increasingly important battleground for viral and guerrila marketers: YouTube.

It isn’t exactly clear if Sony is commissioning these dancers, or if the dancers are approaching Sony who is supporting the performances.

Sony IS making it clear they are involved in these events. This is an often overlooked component of other guerilla marketing which have done more to alienate consumers who feel duped.

John Ingrassia, the Sony BMG commercial music group president says that campaigns like this are about “Engaging Consumers.”

I wonder what the SMA community feels like about these marketing tactics – and specifically in this case – where a non-traditional campaign might actually serve the brand better (and be easier to execute) than trying to involve the original artist.

Dis-Obay (Part 2)

Part 2 of this campaign is now at your local bus shelter and billboard.

It reads ” Luckily, Obay isn’t real. Sure, you want what’s best for your kids, but when it comes to post-secondary education, pushing them to do what you want isn’t right.

Explore all the options at ontariocolleges.ca”

Dis-Obay (Part 1)

This “fake/real” ad is showing up everywhere in Toronto, but probably more importantly, in a lot of places on the net.

What happened to the good old days (i.e. maybe as much as 3 years ago) when viral marketing campaigns at least gave us a “real” URL that could take us to a “fake” website that would redirect us to the “Real” product behind them and let us in on the joke without much effort.

Apparently Colleges Ontario (according to Torontoist) is behind this spot and in a few weeks they are going to reveal the connection between . I hope so, because I don’t get it with only the first half – and I worry that I won’t really care in three weeks when the second half comes out.

Personal opinions aside – is this effective? Is this creating word of mouth and is it creating it with the right target market (assuming the bloggers got the source right)?

…to be continued (when the second installment comes out)

What we have here is a Failure to Communicate

Most companies, brands and marketing departments are not used to having a conversation with their consumers. Although humans have been conversing since before Socrates, it has been more of a “we talk about our product, you listen, (and hopefully) you buy” structure for the greater part of modern marketing’s 100+ year history.

But in more recent years, technology has taken what was an asymmetrical control of the communication and marketing mix, and spread it evenly between consumers and marketers. If you like a product or service, consumers can become “brand evangelists” and spread their message to message to the world, sometimes showing higher on a Google search than the actual brand.

Of course, the same can happen with a negative experience. Frankly, frustration, disappointment or the feeling of being ripped-off tends to motivate people start talking much more than a positive experience. (Please see Dell Hell)

Brands and companies have reacted in several different ways to this shift in power. Some operate in a state of denial, choosing neither to acknowledge or participate in a dialogue that might run the risk of saying something negative about their product.

Others have taken a different approach, taking an active roll in the conversation with their clients. And if it is genuine interaction (which is not always a guarantee), it can be very powerful for both parties.

I would argue that every company that has something to sell to someone (i.e. every company) has to participate in a conversation with its clients if it truly wants to evolve for the following 3 reasons:

1) People are already talking about your brand or product, so sitting in the boardroom denying that this is happening around you and refusing to participate may lead to some regrettable decisions that could have been avoided if someone was listing.

2) Involvement does not equal just another location to handle complaints. There are lots of ways that ongoing, honest and genuine communication can increase brand affinity. If these consumers are already willing to engage in dialogs, why not give them insight into information beyond the typical campaign.

I am not suggesting throwing intellectual property out the window. But people have a strong desire to be a source of authority on any given topic, so if you as a company are satisfying that need, then we start to enter into a much more meaningful relationship with our customers.

3) To cite Join the Conversation by Joseph Jaffe: Good Conversation is Productive. Conversation gets stuff done. “By interfacing with the blogosphere, [The Company] fundamentally changes how it looked at treating all their primary customers.” Why fight to resist something that is happening and instead work with it to grow together? Conversation seems to lead to collaboration and isn’t that what we all want to have with our customers?

This blog is simply another product, tell us what you think…