Ms. Adverthinker

The talk in business these days is all about how to involve the consumer–the end user–in the brand. Through brand interactions, comes loyalty. Bonus for businesses: consumers want that involvement too. They want to contribute to product creation, give their opinions on product reviews, throw out advertising ideas. All of this is an effort to be heard. Consumers are desperate to find outlets where they can feel individual and important. And brands are giving them an outlet to do this (good thing, since consumers would do it anyway).
The convergence of these two desires results in blogs, product reviews, and consumer contribution to content. The epitome of consumer contribution to content is the amazing Wikipedia. The NY Review of Books has a great piece summing up the success and addictive qualities of Wikipedia when contributing content for the world to read:

“More people use Wikipedia than Amazon or eBay—in fact it’s up there in the top-ten Alexa rankings with those moneyed funhouses MySpace, Facebook, and YouTube. Why? Because it has 2.2 million articles, and because it’s very often the first hit in a Google search, and because it just feels good to find something there—even, or especially, when the article you find is maybe a little clumsily written. Any inelegance, or typo, or relic of vandalism reminds you that this gigantic encyclopedia isn’t a commercial product. There are no banners for E*Trade or Classmates.com, no side sprinklings of AdSense.”

“It worked and grew because it tapped into the heretofore unmarshaled energies of the uncredentialed. The thesis procrastinators, the history buffs, the passionate fans of the alternate universes of Garth Nix, Robotech, Half-Life, P.G. Wodehouse, Battlestar Galactica, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Charles Dickens, or Ultraman—all those people who hoped that their years of collecting comics or reading novels or staring at TV screens hadn’t been a waste of time—would pour the fruits of their brains into Wikipedia, because Wikipedia added up to something. This wasn’t like writing reviews on Amazon, where you were just one of a million people urging a tiny opinion and a Listmania list onto the world—this was an effort to build something that made sense apart from one’s own opinion, something that helped the whole human cause roll forward.”

And on the thrills of the edit:

“I clicked the ‘edit this page’ tab, and immediately had an odd, almost lightheaded feeling, as if I had passed through the looking glass and was being allowed to fiddle with some huge engine or delicate piece of biomedical equipment. It seemed much too easy to do damage; you ask, Why don’t the words resist me more? Soon, though, you get used to it. You recall the central Wikipedian directive: ‘Be Bold.’ You start to like life on the inside.”

Providing consumers an outlet to interact with a brand and be heard can give a brand that addictive quality needed to bring consumers back again and again.

Others might view Wikipedia differently, and not quite so democratic, as noted on Slate.com:

“While Wikipedia does show the creative potential of online communities, it’s a mistake to assume the site owes its success to the wisdom of the online crowd.

“Social-media sites like Wikipedia and Digg are celebrated as shining examples of Web democracy, places built by millions of Web users who all act as writers, editors, and voters. In reality, a small number of people are running the show. According to researchers in Palo Alto, 1percent of Wikipedia users are responsible for about half of the site’s edits. The site also deploys bots—supervised by a special caste of devoted users—that help standardize format, prevent vandalism, and root out folks who flood the site with obscenities. This is not the wisdom of the crowd. This is the wisdom of the chaperones.”

Consumer Influence in Potential Buyers’ Purchase Decisions: What Does This Mean for Marketers?

A study sited in MediaPost’s Media magazine noted that “75% of shoppers say it is extremely or very important to read customer reviews before making a purchase. And they prefer peer reviews over expert reviews by a 6-to-1 margin.”

I always read consumer reviews of products when the site I am purchasing from provides the reviews next to the product I am considering. And, these reviews almost always help me decide one way or another. Zappos.com is great about providing this kind of feedback, and it is so helpful to have people tell you about the fit, size, color, etc. when you are buying online—where things don’t always show up the size or color you envisioned them, or you can’t be there to try it on. I love iTunes for this reason too—many times I have been influenced to try new music because others who bought something I liked have also purchased xx.

When I buy products online that do not provide these consumer reviews, I typically don’t actively seek out other consumer reviews. And, I am almost always disappointed with my purchase because something wasn’t as I thought it would be. You would think I would have learned my lesson by now: consumer reviews are helpful.

So, if consumers themselves are selling our clients’ products/services for us, then what are advertisers responsible for in the purchase cycle? If the product is good enough, it will sell itself, right? Maybe, but not always. Admittedly, our tactics must shift a bit, but how do consumers find out about products and services? Advertising. How do think about those products and services, and come understand the brand? Advertising.

What changes need occur in our marketing efforts? According to one of my favorite blogs, Influx Insights:
“If we shift over from the media to the marketing world, it appears that most marketing departments aren’t yet designed and organized to manage and cope with Marketing 2.0 [the Marketing 2.0 trend suggests a new open environment of participation between brands and their customers], most are still working and structured for a 1.0 world.

“The Marketing Department is going to need to change radically, but there are some questions.

“How do they make the transition?

“When does the “tipping point” occur?

“Marketing departments need fundamentally new skill sets, new positions/job titles and they are also going to need some smart technology to assist them.

“Given how little bandwidth most departments have these days, it’s safe to assume that there are quite a few brands out there who risk damaging their reputations because they simply aren’t structured to cope with the new era of conversation and participation.”

Clearly, advertising/marketing and public communications must work hand-in-hand in this new Marketing 2.0 era to craft our messages and inform consumers about our clients’ products and services, and then correct any misperceptions. And, we must learn from and leverage the consumer feedback and influence that is out there to constantly improve our communications tactics, and if necessary, make recommendations for improving the products/services we are selling. We should feel lucky that consumers are that interested and we should listen and learn from what they have to say. Let’s get out there and listen to them. In fact, let’s invite them to tell us what they think.