Victors & Spoils guide to successful collaboration (part 2: Common Ground)
Last week I wrote about how brands can empower consumers with collaborative tools – from basic social media engagement leading up to entire collaborative systems. But empowerment is really only half of the story for a collaborative brand. The other part is Common Ground.
Collaboration is simply put people and brands working together to achieve a shared goal. This means that a positive collaborative relationship can only exist if people have affinity for a brand (think of passion brands like Apple, Nike and Harley-Davidson), or when people share an interest with a brand. For instance, few people have affinity for GE, but many people have affinity for the environment. So brand and consumers can still find each other in GE:Ecomagination.
Simply put, it’s not enough for brands to provide collaborative tools. They also need people who want to use these tools, for which you need Common Ground.
Empowerment and Common Ground are the two main dimensions that describe a collaborative relationship. There are basically 4 types of collaborative relationships (and many sub-types that I won’t go into now):
1. Pretenders
Many brands are jumping on the collaborative bandwagon with social media initiatives or creative competitions. For instance, 3M Submit Your Idea or Nokia Tune Remake. But there’s no collaborative relationship if people don’t know about the Empowerment tools, or don’t care about them. These brands have started their collaborative journey; next step is to either increase relevance of their tools or to better promote them.
2. Potentials
These are brands that people want to collaborate with, but the brands don’t yet offer the tools to do so - at the risk of losing opportunity or goodwill. It’s not a bad position to start from; next step is to start developing collaborative tools and put people’s energy to use. Harley-Davidson and DC Shoes are great examples here.
3. Newbies
In this case there’s hardly an existing relationship; both Empowerment and Common Ground are at a low level. This can be the case with existing brands that are out of touch or with entirely new brands and startups. Next step for existing brands is to become genuinely interested in what people are passionate about – otherwise they may soon become irrelevant. New brands and startups have the opportunity to build a brand from scratch and work with consumers to figure out what the brand will become, simultaneously building Empowerment and Common Ground. Brikki.com (crowdsourced children’s stories) is an example of a completely new idea that has the potential to grow with its consumers from day 1. AirBnB is an example of a startup that went this route already. By involving consumers early on AirBnB was pushed beyond what the founders initially envisioned the brand to be, with an active community as a result.
4. Collaborators
There are many possible scenario’s here, with the most iconic relationship type being the collaborative system where reciprocity can come from anywhere in the ecosystem. Not many brands have achieved this status yet, but many are well on their way such as Threadless, AirBnB and American Express OPEN. A typical next step for Collaborators is to increase engagement with all people (not just innovators and creators), consumer segments and other stakeholders. Other typical next steps include expanding the collaboration arena (e.g. beyond digital into physical spaces) and turning one-off collaborative initiatives into an integral part of a brand’s product offering and communication.
Victors & Spoils guide to successful collaboration (part 1: Empowerment)
I’m excited by how new technology empowers social change – and marketing in the slipstream of that. When the ability to control production and distribution of information was a scarce resource, it was easy for brands to influence the way people perceived them. Those days are gone. Production and distribution of information have become abundant. Fueled by cognitive surplus and digital tools, people demand access to brands. For instance, Coca-Cola’s original Facebook page was created by two fans, Dusty and Michael. When Coca-Cola found out how popular the page was, they had to contact Dusty and Michael and ask permission if they could please participate in their own brand! Which they gracefully allowed. I admire brands that embrace collaboration instead of fight it. At Victors & Spoils we recently analyzed over 200 brands and five categories of brands emerged that successfully empower people with collaborative tools:
1. Social media engagement
This is basically collaboration 101; brands engaging with people in online conversations. Think of Old Spice, Best Buy Twelpforce and Strip To Your SmartWool.
2. Crowdsourcing
These are brands that tap into people’s collective brainpower and invite them to submit ideas that deliver against a set of rules - a brief. Think of Pepsi Max & Doritos Crash the Superbowl or Virgin America’s Toronto Provocateur.
3. Co-creation
Co-creation involves working on new product and service ideas together with the customers who are going to buy them. An obvious example is My Starbuck, but I’m also really struck by Nike 6.0 ID Nation StyleLab, which effectively turns Nike ID’s original mass customization (people designing their own shoe) into co-creation (people being able to buy shoes that other people designed).
4. Collaborative Consumption
With crowdsourcing and co-creation people help brands produce better products. But the other side of the coin, collaborative consumption, is also getting more popular, from car-sharing (Zip Car, Greenwheels) and bike-sharing (Vélib, B-Cycle) to group buying power (Groupon, Walmart CrowdSaver).
5. Collaborative System
Finally, new business models are emerging that place collaboration at their core. The brand is shaped by an ecosystem of participants. Successful recent examples are Threadless, AirBnB and American Express OPEN.
Why ordinary people are more important than opinion leaders
Paul Adams (former Google, now Facebook) argues that the importance of so-called “influencers” is overrated. Ultimately, people’s behavior is more influenced by people in their inner circle (strong ties), than by strangers (weak or temporary ties). Research on buying behavior and decision making consistently shows that we’re disproportionally influenced by the opinions and actions of the people we are closest to emotionally: family, friends and maybe co-workers. “Influentials,” the highly connected people, can only make us aware. But they’re not going to spark big changes in behavior.
It reminds me of the paper a few years ago by Duncan Watts from Yahoo!, who analyzed email patterns and found that highly connected people are not, in fact, crucial social hubs. Even the breakout success of a hot new pop band might be nearly random. More about that here.
I wonder why this topic keeps coming up. Is it because marketers are hoping to find a silver bullet to viral marketing?
O, and big thanks to Ingmar for pointing me to Paul Adams’ presentation.
Crowdsourcing.com recently published an overview of the “2011 Crowdsourcing Industry Landscape”. I’m not sure if I agree with calling crowdsourcing an industry (it’s just a different way of organizing yourself, really). But it’s interesting to see their inventory of existing crowdsourcing initiatives and how they’re clustered in 8 groups.
1. Crowdfunding
Financial contributions from online investors, sponsors or donors to fund for-profit or non-profit initiatives or enterprises. There are three types of crowdfunding models: (1) Donations, Philanthropy and Sponsorship where there is no expected financial return, (2) Lending and (3) Investment in exchange for equity, profit or revenue sharing.
2.Cloud Labor
Leveraging of a distributed virtual labor pool, available on-demand to fulfill a range of tasks from simple to complex. Crowdsourcing is used to connect labor demand and supply. Virtual workers perform activities that range from simple to specialized tasks.
3.Collective Creativity
Tapping of creative talent pools to design and develop original art, media or content. Crowdsourcing is used to tap into online communities of thousands of creatives to develop original products and concepts.
4.Open Innovation
Use of sources outside of the entity or group to generate, develop and implement ideas. In a world of widely distributed knowledge, where the boundaries between a firm and its environment have become more permeable, companies cannot afford to rely entirely on their own research and ideas to maintain a competitive advantage.
5.Collective Knowledge
Development of knowledge assets or information resources from a distributed pool of contributors. Crowdsourcing is used to develop, aggregate, and share knowledge and information through open Q&A, user-generated knowledge systems, news, citizen journalism, and forecasting.
6.Community Building
Development of communities through active engagement of individuals who share common passions, beliefs or interests. Crowdsourcing can be used to increase audience engagement and build loyalty.
7. Civic Engagement
Collective actions that address issues of public concern. Individuals or groups are invested in bettering the lives of others and in sharing information on beliefs, passions and causes.
8. Crowdsourcing tools
Applications, platforms and tools that support collaboration, communication and sharing among distributed groups of people.
In his book, Stumbling on Happiness, Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert notes that three decisions in life affect your happiness: “Where to live, what to do, and with whom to do it.” The second two have been examined in great depth; the third, up until now, not so much. Researcher Richard Florida looked closely at the 2010 edition of the Gallup-Healthyways Well-Being Index which listed 185 of America’s largest metros in terms of their relative “happiness.” What he found was that, over time, America has increasingly become unequal and divided in terms of income, jobs, education, politics and culture. The difference between being happy and unhappy has come to revolve around geographical location and urban environment. And it seems like Boulder is currently the happiest place to be.
Devaluation of “friends” may drive trust in experts
An interesting study came out from Edelman that nuances popular belief that people value the opinions of peers as most credible. As more people join social networks, the concept of friendship is devaluating.
