360DigitalInfluence

I haven’t been tuned into the lives of singing group New Kids on the Block (Joey, Jordan, Jonathan, Danny and Donnie) since I last heard their hit single “Step by Step” in 1990. For years, I have taken solace in the fact that no one else has either… until I read this Associated Press story a few days ago.

Former NKOTB “bad boy,” Donnie Wahlberg, made waves when he used his Twitter following, not his dance moves, to help a fan, otherwise known as  @AuntBobbie, who desperately needed a kidney transplant find a donor. After @DonnieWahlberg re-tweeted a blog post about the situation to his nearly 190K followers, a slew of potential donors came out to help.

To me, the most surprising part of the story isn’t that a patient was able to find assistance on Twitter (because we all know the power of social media); I was shocked to hear Donnie Wahlberg had 190,000 followers! Donnie is just one example of the important roles celebrities and influential personalities can play in disseminating information, especially, health information in social media. continue reading

Who among us does not enjoy a good social experiment? As you have probably heard by now one of the themes rising out of this year’s SXSWi is the importance of game mechanics and how people engage when a game layer is added to community.

Seth Priebatsch of scvngr.com ended his presentation with a little social experiment that was a great illustration of how the game layer can bring people together. As we entered the auditorium everyone was handed one of two cards that were color coded.

One card was blue on one side and green on the other while the other card was gold on one side and orange on the other. As Seth wrapped up his presentation he announced he was launching a social experiment. The challenge: Without getting out of your seat, work with the people on your row to determine what color card your row was going to be and then negotiate from your seat to get the color card you needed. He gave us a time frame and if we made the time his company would donate $10,000 to a charity. He counted us down and the game began.

On my row and the rows around me, we had several empty seats and while you would think it made it easier to choose a color it was actually harder to communicate. As the game began, each person was created equal because each person in the auditorium was working toward their own goal as well as making their row or team reach their goal - celebrity status did not matter. Quickly, my row decided we would go green, and then the race was on to use our influence to negotiate with the rows and people around us to trade cards so that each person on my row had a green card. We quickly determined how many “greens” we needed and then went about making the necessary trades to secure green cards. The process was exhilarating and challenging and at the end of about 150 seconds, Seth called time and asked each row to hold up their cards.

Personally, I was concerned as I found myself wanting to win and for the charity to win. As we all held up our cards, much to I think everyone’s surprise, we (meaning the entire auditorium of 2,500 people) had accomplished the goal. Each row had come together and worked not just with the people on their row, but also the rows around them. It was quite a moment; 150 seconds and 2,500 people had come together and made the experiment a success.

So why am I so energized by this experiment? I think there are several reasons:

-    While Seth’s presentation was interesting I think his point was made stronger through the “game.”
-    The experiential side of this exercise made it more powerful; this was experiential learning at its best. One of the guys sitting next to me commented that he never thought he would fall for game mechanics but as soon as the challenge was on – he was all in to win.
-    Your influence comes with accountability and responsibility and you never know when you will need to exercise it. Someone sitting in front of me had a minor kerfuffle and I noticed as we started the experiment it took his row longer to embrace him. I could not help but find myself wondering if he was wishing he had made different choices about how he joined that row.

In the end, I think Seth did a great job of proving his point that a game layer not only breeds participation but that it can breed cooperation. However, I also find it troubling that the game layer is what motivates people to come together. I’ll admit the gaming made it more fun but is that what we are becoming as a community? Do we need a game to work together?

Last week I had the opportunity to travel to Bangalore for a Brand Summit event that featured many marketers, communicators and even a Bollywood star talking about the future of marketing in India as country goes through what the conference termed as the “era of discontinuity.” With a ballooning population, growing Internet penetration, arguably the largest mobile phone market on earth and an entrepreneurial culture - India is at once a bewildering and maturing market for all things social. On the streets of India, word of mouth marketing and old school lessons are actively driving commerce. In businesses, the hot topics are similar to what they are in the US or elsewhere … how can your brand reach consumers who are increasingly placing their attention elsewhere and getting progressively better at ignoring you.

On answer that has risen to some level of prominence in India is the use of celebrities in marketing. You could argue that celebrities are popular everywhere in the world, but in a country that release more films in an average week than most countries do in an entire year, the rules are slightly different. In India it is not uncommon to see a Bollywood star’s face on everything from facial tissues to pens. Celebrity is used to connote trust, and in a culture with many different socio-economic classes (they even have names), the only way that marketers can often reach across these levels is with celebrities that many people recognize.

In an illuminating panel filled with journalists, filmmakers, marketers, creative directors and one celebrity (Bollywood Actor Vivek Oberoi) the conversation turned to a in-depth discussion of the role of celebrity in marketing in India and whether it was indeed a necessity, or whether it has become a “crutch” for the lazy marketer who doesn’t want to do any real work so they just hire a celebrity and consider their marketing efforts complete. Here were some of the biggest takeaways that the conversation raised for me:

1. Understand the difference between talent and celebrity. When you hire an actor to play a part in an ad, you are hiring them as “talent.” When you get a celebrity, you are hiring them to bring their personal brand to your product or service and serve as a spokesperson of sorts. The first key is to know the difference and not confuse the two.

2. Start with an idea, not a celebrity. Often a marketing strategy starts by selecting the celebrity the team will work with and then an idea is built around that choice. This method is backwards and results in marketing that lacks strategic vision and often fails to resonate. To do better, you need to have a strong creative idea … then find the celebrity that best fits that idea.

3. Build on the personal brand of a celebrity. Vivek Oberoi raised many intelligent points about the celebrity point of view when it comes to marketing (something we don’t often hear). He understands his personal brand and what resonates positively or negatively with it. As a result, he chooses personally not to do tobacco or alcohol related advertising. Many other celebrities lack those same principles and simply go where the biggest dollars tempt them. The best marketing will be something builds on the personal brand that a celebrity has built, instead of ignoring or countering it.

4. Use real people too. Thankfully, the point did emerge from the panel that there may be times where you don’t NEED a celebrity. There is a power of real people to connect with one another that can be missing with celebrity focused campaigns and for a growing number of brands in India taking this real approach is working well and shouldn’t be discounted.