A Million Monkeys

Are thousands of amateurs just as good (or better) than a small number of professionals?
That's the question behind crowdsourcing.
But you could even extend this to other areas of social media -- are the comments and contributions of the general public as (or more) valuable than the comments and contributions of experts? Are you better off connecting with a pro or a bunch of average Joes?

Like most questions (especially those related to marketing), the answer is: It depends.

In some situations, the crowd of amateurs is a much better resource than the professionals. Usually this has something to do with:
a.) The fact that the "professionals" are just amateurs who managed to get themselves a fancy-sounding title.
b.) The topic at hand is a matter of opinion.
c.) The amateurs are extremely enthusiastic.
and/or
d.) The crowd members are well-qualified (vs. anybody who feels like contributing)

Take movie reviews, for instance. I'd much rather hear from other movie-going members of the general public than a journalist or professor or sociologist or "academy".

Or reviews and ideas about favourite hobbies and products. If I like photography, the input I can get from the legions of other photographers out there is at least as valuable as what I might learn from a professional review, an art school, or some other self-proclaimed authority.

But in other situations... Well, all it takes is a glance at the comments on any (really, ANY) YouTube video, most news articles, or countless discussion forums to show just how sketchy the contributions of many people are. Or look at some of the top applications on Facebook, or the inane #hashtagged topics on Twitter, or the sheer volume of juvenile chatter in almost any social network.

It's pretty clear that the biggest problem with addressing the "crowd" is the crowd itself. Makes me wonder how marketers will react in the long term. Will marketers work more on filtering the garbage? (Some would say that this defeats the purpose of an open discussion). Will marketers and users accept all the useless content, but get better at just ignoring it?

There's no doubt in my mind that social media will lose its title of Trendy Tactic of the Moment, but will our collective attention shift to something similar and evolutionary (perhaps classic concepts under a different name, just like word-of-mouth became viral)? Or will there be a radical shift to something very different? Will be people suddenly get tired of belonging to a dozen different "communities", updating their status on a regular basis, and sharing their lives with everybody they've met?

Tennis, Baseball, and Golf

Play any sport that involves hitting a ball with a stick and the coach will tell you that follow-through (continuing your motion after contact is made) is just as important as your form and strength prior to contact.

Same goes for marketing.

I recently attended the big Home and Interior Design Show that comes to town a couple of times a year. Hundreds of merchants and manufacturers set up fancy (and some not-so-fancy) booths where their salesiest or salesy salespeople try to convince everybody walking past that they need a new roof/hot tub/gutter/shower/furnace/stereo/countertop...

I'm in the process of building a house so I actually welcomed the sales pitches. So, over the course of a couple of hours I gathered together as much information as I could about windows, doors, heating, cooling, and every other topic imaginable.

So on to the follow-through.

A couple of weeks later, and I don't think I've been proactively contacted by anyone I met at the show. Most of those that I've contacted have been very slow to respond (if they've had any response at all) and don't seem interested in answering many questions.

I suspect that, like most small businesses, the participants at the event saw it as a one-off. They simplistically look at the attendance numbers and hope that a significant portion of the attendees will magically turn in to buyers.
I also suspect that there are enough of these instant and easy sales to justify the expense of the show.
But if many people are like me and not quite ready to buy (which should be a safe assumption for high-consideration products like these), the vendors are missing an enormous opportunity.

Missed Opportunities (Again)

Promoting film and TV properties seems like such a fun and open area of marketing. I've only done a small amount of work in this field, but have had the chance to run a few campaigns for other fun products over the years, and they're always much more creative (and easy) than trying to market an inherently boring product or service.

So why is so much film and TV marketing so lame?
There are a million interesting and unique methods to try, and some have done a great job. But far too many are just the typical "Run a few TV spots showing a few seconds of the best scenes. Put up a few 'coming soon' Out of Home ads. Maybe run a small viral video campaign or have an interactive Web site of some sort." Yawn.

Especially when it comes to remakes and new versions of iconic characters or shows.

Take the upcoming (it starts tomorrow) new "V" series. The original was nice, cheesy, 80s sci-fi, but it's incredibly recognizable among the target audience. Scenes like Abraham, the concentration camp survivor, spraypainting a big V "For victory" on a piece of Visitors propaganda, for instance... Wouldn't it have been cool for the marketing of the new show to replicate this, with big red Vs painted (with real paint, not just a lame poster) over fake ads (of various types) in outdoor placements across North America?

Or the recent Transformers films (especially the first one) -- there would have been a collective gasp of "Oh my god!" among fanboys if the first teaser trailers had shown absolutely nothing but then played the memorable "chee-choo-choo-chaw-chaw" transforming sound effect from the original cartoon series.

Or how about the hugely-successful Spider-man films... The marketers could have run a guerilla campaign hiring stunt performers to dangle from major buildings around the world.

Just a few silly ideas, but you get the picture.
Many of these big productions pretty much sell themselves, but creating a sense of excitement is still incredibly important. Using a bit of creativity could even save a few million bucks in advertising dollars.