What if you and your friends want to be the product?

What if you and your friends actually want to be the product?

Summer 2010

Many years ago I was sharing an end of day ale with members of the advertising and marketing profession when the topic of Direct Marketing came up.

I recall one of the newly graduated business school "Tech Heads" at the table enthusing over a future filled with market segmentation, customer profiling, targeted mailings, the emergence of database marketing and telemarketing.

At one stage in the discussion one of the experienced Account Execs from a leading Ad Agency put his glassed down and simply said to the lad.

"You see that gorgeous young girl over at the bar? Now what do you think will win her heart? Seducing her or stalking her?"

Needless to say the enthusiasm for Direct Marketing wained somewhat after that. But some 20 years on the question needs to be asked. Has history proven the Account Exec wrong? Is it easier today in the world of Social Media marketing for the stalkers, rather than seducers, to win a fair maiden heart?

The updates to Google+ and Facebook has once again highlighted the fundamental reality of the Social Media (So.Me) experience.

In a So.Me world "YOU ARE THE PRODUCT" that is being sold to the world's advertisers and marketeers and the whole So.Me experience is designed to discover as much about you as you are willing to provide to the "keepers of the database".

So theoretically Social Media is a Database Marketeers dream come true. Forget the email list. Here is a pool of prospects and data mine of pure marketing gold. What's more here is a place where the prospect will not only be your fan. They'll also like you and be your friend. It's a veritable "Disneyland" for direct marketeers

In the end though one can't help but feel that here is a story of be careful what you wish for... because it may well come true.

I say that because it is self evident that the world has become not just accustomed to the idea of a Brand called ME. It is has overwhelmingly embraced the idea of Brand.ME.

And here then is the problem marketeers now face in a world where everyone is busy living the life of Brand ME. There is no room for Brand.U.

Somewhat ironically the ultimate direct marketing platform is reality a marketers worst nightmare. A place where brands have little or no currency and no oxygen for their message.

As I have said elsewhere rather than an aspirational game for customers and prospects the wonderland that is the So.Me has become an aspirational game for Brands.

Customers have shown the world that when it comes to the So.Me privacy isn't really that big an issue. Why? because they like being the centre of attention. They love spending time creating and exploring there own very personal Brand.ME.

So if brands have a role in this emerging So.Me world it is to tell the rest of the world just how great each of their customers really are... and that I some how suspect wasn't what the first generation of database marketeers were hoping for when they envisaged a brave new world of real time, uber targeted marketing :-)