Ospiti graditi o imbucati ad un party?

Ci sono dei luoghi in cui il marketing non dovrebbe entrare o dovrebbe farlo con grande circospezione e rispetto. Avere rispetto significa anche sapersi limitare, l'ho scritto più volte.

Adliterate, uno dei miei blog preferiti, sembra essere dello stesso avviso, ma rincara la dose e non ci va certo leggero.

Brand's do have personalities and I spend a lot of time thinking about powerful personalities for organisational brands that capture the specialness of the place while legislating for it to be delivered in every expression of that brand.

But just because a brand has a personality doesn't make it a person.

And I want my relationships to be with people not businesses. Sure that can be the people in those businesses but not the business as a whole.

It's why I refuse to join "loyalty" programmes regardless of how fanatical I am about the brand or the bribe that they are offering to hand over my loyalty. I am loyal to people not to brands.

Spesso le aziende sembrano abbracciare i social media senza averne compreso la cultura e quando questo avviene i disastri sono inevitabili

...And I guess that's what makes me so angry about the way brands are gatecrashing social media - media that we built to create communities and conversations with each other, not with packaged goods.

Guys just because you can doesn't mean you should.

I media tradizionali hanno le loro regole, per quanto qualcuno possa non gradire la pubblicità, può sempre evitarla, ma non c'è nulla di più insidioso di un ospite che si imbuca ad una festa. I "brand "che visitano case di altri dovrebbero rispettarne le regole.

At least in traditional media there is a basic level of respect that keeps the communication inside ad breaks and clearly demarcated from the content. But on the internet brands brands wander around like really irritating guests at a party, intent on looking in every room, having a butchers in your wadrobe and trying on your pants.

Online there are no no go areas at all, and guess what happens once a brand has had its fun? It sods off to the next big thing which, in the words of the fast show, 'this week is mainly Facebook'. Witness the speed with which brands got into and out of Second Life faster than a particulaly nasty bug gets through your digestive system.

Cercare di imporre logiche dei paid media sui social media, sembra irritare anche chi di mestiere fa il brand advisor.

"And this behaviour is driven by unscrupulous brand advisers that treat the internet like the big trawler fleets treated the oceans for much of the twentieth century - a place where you can do what the fuck you like, cause any amount of damage and never suffer the consequences in your lifetime.

Even those of us that eat, sleep and drink brands acknowledge that there are places where brands aren't welcome. And I am increasinglly of the opinion that social media is one of those places."

Non tutti hanno una posizione così radicale come Adliterate che conclude le sue riflessioni scrivendo:

there are many brands which I am absolutely fanatical about but I don't want to be their friend on facebook because, and I hate to break this to you, brands are not people.

Mi trovo più vicino alla posizione di Robin Grant, quando nel suo commento scrive:

"a). you deliberately obfuscate the real and meaningful difference between 'friend' and 'fan'. Who knows how successful Facebook's new model will be, but it certainly looks better than previous attempts to me (interrupt my viewing pleasure with something at irrelevant, anyone?)

b). you also tacitly imply that any attempt by a brand to engage with people in social media is equivalent to trying to be their friends. It isn't.

a). corporate blogging clearly is a good idea. It allows companies (more specifically individual people that hold positions in them) to have a conversation with some of their most engaged customers."

Il vero problema secondo il mio giudizio non è solo quello relativo alla frequentazione dei social media da parte dei "brand" come entità astratte, ma quello del loro "utilizzo" solo quando conviene, come ben spiega Anon

"The doors are open 24hrs nowadays old man, not just every 15 mins for 30 seconds at a time."

Robert Mortimer ritiene che i "brand" dovrebbero non solo partecipare alla conversazione, ma anche offrire un contributo (per non apparire come degli imbucati ad una festa).

"They to brands appearing on social networking is that they say or offer something to make their appearance relevant."

I "brand" devono quindi decidere se vogliono essere considerati come ospiti graditi o come degli imbucati ad un party; se impareranno a muoversi con rispetto nella "parte abitata della rete", sono sicuro che molti dei pregiudizi da parte degli abitanti della rete nei loro confronti, si attenueranno moltissimo.

L'immagine è di Better then blonde.