The good the bad & the ugly
In a document that SMLXL put together a few years ago, we quoted our good friend Perry de Havilland who famously said
People will talk about you whether you like it or not. The good, the bad, and the ugly
This quote came to mind reading the FT's How to work a rumour mill. As personal comment becomes more important to the fate of the product, a complex picture of how it works is emerging
FT Thursday June 28 2007
So Carphone Warhouse gets a tongue lashing by a very angry set of customers, whilst Masterfoods sees great sales driven through Word of Mouth Advocacy.
And of course the poster boy of communities dominating brands is Kryptonite, famously lampooned by Hugh McCleod in Destruction of a brand in six easy steps
The article talks about the upside and downsides of the power of the connected consumer. Interestingly a piece of research indicates that those that negatively advocate against brands will also postively advocate for brands. Yet, there is no mention of why that is.
These are called Alpha Users the most connected and connecting people in a social network. And they do all sorts of bad things to companies
On an otherwise quiet Friday afternoon in Guangzhou, a city in southern China, 500 shoppers gather outside a Gome electrical superstore in the downtown district. They arrive en masse at the designated time—June 16th at 4pm—that they had previously agreed online. Several hours later, they emerge clutching boxes, having secured 10-30% discounts on cameras, DVD players and flat-screen televisions. “It was great,” says Fairy Zhang. “We just bought an apartment and this way we can afford nice things for it.” The previous weekend, over 100 locals visited Meizhu Central, a well known furniture outlet, to haggle over the prices of kitchen cabinets and dining-room furniture.Tuangou , or team buying, aims to drive unprecedented bargains by combining the reach of the internet with the power of the mob. It is spreading through China like wildfire. The practice originated in online chat-rooms but has quickly inspired several specialist websites, such as 51tuangou.com and teambuy.com Zhang Wei, who helped to set up teambuy less than six months ago, says the site has 10,000 registered members. The company plans to expand into Beijing and Shanghai.
Paul Marsden at the LSE believes that cutting negative advocacy can triple the amount of sales of a product. I wonder if US Airways are listening?
We devote quite a bit of out book to exlore the impacts of the connected community.
We live in a networked ecology, where the collective impact of connected groupd and individuals challenges the structure of markets and marketing.
And this effect will not stay within the confines of business and marketing.
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