 Umair Haque says
that "media (in fact, consumer [marketing]) strategy must shift from
Blockbuster to Snowball...[enabled by] the self-organization and
regulation of complex, interdependent collective action...This is
inevitable; it's the nearly bulletproof outcome of the economics of the
edge, and market power shifting to consumers."
Umair offers two recent examples of Snowballs: The sudden burst of popularity of some modest YouTube videos, and the rapid unmaking of Washington Post plagiarist neocon Ben Domenech.
So
what is the difference between a Blockbuster and a Snowball, and how do
you 'create' the latter? In the case of a Blockbuster, the vendor is
capitalizing on the substantial attention
(a scarce commodity) that they can command through high advertising
budgets, brand, celebrity endorsements etc. In a Snowball, the vendor
is capitalizing on the perceived value,
according to the wisdom of crowds, that their product has, and the
enormous power of the Internet and word of mouth to coordinate and
spread information about that perceived value quickly and
inexpensively. Traditional big companies want to hope that it's kinda
the same thing -- you blow enough money cleverly promoting your new
product, lots of people are going to talk about the product and the
promotion, and hence perhaps generate a Snowball on top of the
Blockbuster.
Often, however, this does not happen. Customers are
not stupid, and are often cynical, and if you hype or lie about your
Blockbuster in your zeal to promote it, the hype and lies will become
the viral story, and the Snowball that occurs will crush you rather
than rolling you to success. And sometimes Snowballs will occur in
spite of a lack of promotion and other Blockbuster qualities, as the
psychology of novelty, supporting underdogs, and 'jamming the culture'
kicks in. As the availability of more, customizable, filterable
information increases, customers will no longer need to rely on trusted
brands or celebrity endorsements as surrogates for real information on
value and quality. And they will be able to use that information to
assess value and quality on their own terms, instead of the
lowest-common-denominator terms of the mass market and mass media.
Now, here's where it gets really interesting. A Blockbuster is a complicated
phenomenon -- there are a finite number of variables that can be
carefully analyzed and used to predict, with a high degree of
certainty, that the next movie with Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts, based
on a popular mass media novel, will be a spectacular financial success
even if it's a piece of crap. The same process can be used to predict
that the sequel to this movie will attract 80% of the audience of the
original with 50% of the marketing investment, even though almost all
sequels are pieces of crap.
By contrast, a Snowball is a complex
phenomenon -- there are an infinite number of variables at work, their
cause and effect are impossible to analyze, and prediction is
essentially impossible -- you can influence
complex phenomenon with appropriate attractors and barriers, but not
control them, and the risk/return ratio to justify spending large sums
trying to influence them is, like the risk/return ratio for rebuilding
New Orleans (another complex problem) just not there. The oligopolies hate
not having any control. They'd better get used to it. The control is
passing rapidly to the customers, plural, which means essentially that,
as in most complex situations, no one is in control.
If this is the case, is trying to start a Snowball hopeless? Not at all. In fact, if
you've done your research, so you know what your 'customers' (in the
broader sense of the term: The Crowd) need, want, care about, your
product, idea or proposal is much more likely to succeed, even
without costly investment in hyping it. Could you possibly know that
three quarters of a million people would watch the aforementioned
YouTube video of a girl who "frets over the end of the relationship, as
she simultaneously cheers herself up by playing with computer effects
and altering her on-screen appearance with the click of a button"?
Well, yes.
It's novel, it's artistic, it's entertaining, and it's informative (a
ton of people have learned what software they can use to creatively
spice up their own videos on the fly). These are things people value.
It consumes only 75 seconds of user attention while accomplishing this
feat. And, of course, it's free.
Note that I said "what your customers need, want, care about" not "what your customers should need, want, care about". You cannot
get ahead of the market. There are some amazing blogs out there that
people should be reading every day, but they won't -- like many great
artists, scientists, composers and philosophers, they're too far ahead
of the curve to hope to become popular in their own time. Not Snowball
material.
So:
- Being
about something people need, want or care about is the most important
prerequisite. Useful, interesting, clever, fun. What else does a
Snowball need?
- Momentum: It can't be too
original, arcane or off-the-wall; it has to get its movement from
something already moving, feed off it, resonate with current thinking.
- Uniqueness:
It has to be imaginative, not a copycat. Making sequels is for the
Blockbuster crowd with lots of money to promote them.
- Accessibility:
People only respond to ideas and information that fit with their
worldview, so if your concept is too confrontational, too scary, too
contrary to 'accepted wisdom' it may attract a cult following but will
likely get no bigger than that. Having a good story helps make the concept more accessible.
- Simplicity: The easier it is to roll, the more people will push the Snowball.
- Credibility:
You can't exceed your reputation. If you haven't the experience and
credentials to back up what you're talking about, you better have some
compelling evidence and/or examples.
- Authenticity: People are
skeptical about being used, lied to, or misled. Any sign that they
might be being Tom Sawyered and not only will they stop pushing the
Snowball, they'll start destroying it.
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Two
obvious examples that meet all of the above Snowball criteria: The
Tipping Point (Malcolm Gladwell), and The Wisdom of Crowds (James
Surowiecki). Gladwell is an expert Snowball-maker, and some of his
Snowballs (learned helplessness, the moral hazard myth, cellular
organization) have been launched with a single New Yorker column.
An example that has 6 out of 7: Steven Levitt's idea, in Freakonomics,
that liberalization of abortion laws in the 1970s is the top reason
urban crime in America has plummeted in the past 15 years. You're
thinking it fails #2? Nope -- Lots of momentum for the discussion about
drop in crime rates. It fails #4 -- People balk at it because it's
confrontational, no matter where you sit on the political spectrum.
It's unsettling, makes people uncomfortable. So why is the book so
popular? Because it uses the same methodology to give parents comfort
that if their kids screw up their lives, it really isn't their fault. That idea meets all seven Snowball criteria.
My
list may be flawed or incomplete, and since it fails to meet criterion
#6 (I'm not a marketing expert, nor have I successfully launched a
Snowball -- yet) it is very unlikely that this post will become a
Snowball on viral marketing or customer/citizen strategy either. Unless
of course someone with credibility picks it up and -- er -- runs with
it.
In the meantime, additions to and critiques of the seven
criteria for a successful Snowball are welcome. Umair's started it,
I've added a little snow -- your turn.
Photo: Swedish snowball lamp, from odla.nu. |
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