 |
 |
Mike Hall - Partner, Development, Verve
Mike was the founder, Creative Director and Chairman of Hall and Partners, which he developed into a $100m business prior to its sale to Omnicom in 2005. Hall & Partners created a new philosophy about the different way advertising works to build brand relationships and was instrumental in changing the way in which advertising research is done. Now at Verve, Mike is working on a new model looking at how online brand communities work.
Read the full biography here. |
Innocence and Experience
Key pointers for how to get the best out of online brand communities
for base camp and vanguard users
By Mike Hall - 5th February, 2010
I've recently presented papers on how online communities work in London, Las Vegas and Sydney and realised that no matter where you are the audience divides into two groups - the uninitiated and the experienced. What all have in common are two general feelings: the importance of communities and anxiety about how best to use them. What they want to know in detail is quite different however, so I'm addressing them separately.
Base Camp pointers
1. How's a community different from a panel anyway?
If you're thinking of a community purely in terms of research, then the difference is that whereas a panel is used to draw sample that answers only the questions you ask for in a particular survey, a community is there all the time both to answer surveys (both quantitative and qualitative) and to generate its own feedback outside of a rigid survey structure. Community members are free to discuss their own issues and to ask their own questions on whatever subject they choose, whenever they choose to do so. In other words, it doesn't just give responses but additionally holds conversations.
2. Doesn't it have potential to spiral out of control?
True, this has happened in the past: conversations start, go off in a number of different directions and never stop, producing a mass of un-analysable and therefore unusable data. Early on this was caused by inexperience; if it happens now it's plain bad management. It's a bit like the chaos of a teacher-less classroom, but in the same way that you wouldn't dream of leaving a group of 20 GCSE students to their own devices, nor should you leave a community unattended. But you do need good community managers who know how to be light- rather than heavy-handed and encourage self-regulation with various tactics, which is where an agency like Verve comes in.
 |
In the same way that you wouldn't dream of leaving a group of 20 GCSE students to their own devices, nor should you leave a community unattended
|
 |
The deeper underlying anxiety betrayed by this question is the client's fear of loss of control. Our mantra is this: participation is the new control. Instead of just telling people what questions to answer and when and in what order, join in their conversations too and let them know you're listening and responding as well as asking and using. I'll grant you that a bit of hard work is involved, but you'll be a better manager for it.
3. Is an online brand community just for qualitative research?
I'd call this an urban myth. Pundits are far too keen to set 'rules' before ideas are fully developed - in Vegas at the IIR Conference last October, people were even dictating a maximum community size of 200! A community can be used for any research, although as a new fieldwork medium it's more ideally suited to some research (customer sat, npd, behavioural reporting, employee research, concept testing as well as most qual) than others (I have personal reservations about tracking, where brand response may be hot-housed, for example).
4. So where's a good place to start?
A particular research project is a good place to start, because they're an easy to manage and highly productive way of finding out what a community can deliver. At Verve we believe in an evolutionary approach because it's more manageable and allows different people in a client company to get on board more easily.
Pointers for the vanguard
5. I've started, but how do I stop?
Aka the snowboarder's question and deserving the same reply as the dedicated snowbunny would give: Why on earth would you want to? Imagine asking Lew Grade to stop ITV just after he'd launched it because a programme series or ad campaign had come to an end. Online brand communities are a new medium, and to make the most of it you need to treat it as a permanent resource. Owning a channel yourself brings management issues - which you can contract out - but huge savings and productivity benefits - which you can keep.
If you have contracted the community management out to an agency like Verve, stopping is not a problem. The trick is to keep everyone informed of what you're going to do in advance. It may not be as efficient as keeping it going for other purposes, but having brought a whole lot of people closer to the brand, at least you won't undo all the good work by instantly alienating them.
6. How do I get to use it for more than just surveys?
Not difficult in principle: first, identify the different business applications (which Verve has broadly done for you in its model of how brand communities work); second, make sure your community is segmented into user groups, so you don't get everybody doing everything all the time (basic stuff); Step 3 is then to get another business department to sign up, donate part of their budget, and allow the MR department to run it! Let's face it, it requires preparation, consultation and collaboration. Evidence of what it can achieve is essential. The incentive for other managers to join in is the potential reward, which far outweighs the perceived risk of 'loss of control' (see 2).
7. Doesn't it get messy, using the community for different things?
As above, the answer is to explain in advance to members what you're doing, and to segment it into different groups. People don't mind being approached by different parts of the same company for different reasons, as long as they know who it is and why. Information is the oxygen of a community - the more you share, the more people participate, and more strongly.
|
People don't mind being approached by different parts of the same company for different reasons, as long as they know who it is and why
|
|
8. What vision do I sell to the Board?
First, get out of a narrow research focus - online brand communities are a business strategy, not a marketing strategy, let alone a research strategy. They'll help the company make more, better decisions, more quickly, because they're always there to consult. They'll save huge amounts of wasted effort, time and money on new product development, and deliver a better success rate. They'll make that customer-centricity goal a reality.
Mike Hall
Comments on this article
Want to share your thoughts...?
NOTE: Please note that this board is moderated, and comments are published at the discretion of the site owner.
|
