marketing

Ideological Amplification

chrishambly — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 06:38:34 -0400

Humans are innately biased, fact is we cannot help it, we simply prefer to be in situations where we do not feel like the odd one out, we seem programmed to flock to like-minded groups. This is not anything ground-breaking or new, it's a basic human trait.

Some typical examples of like-minded groups include:

any religion
football fan
the mafia
social media evangelists

I used that list in a presentation/session I led at MediaCampLondon and I'm sure you'll agree, before we dig deeper, that most "specialised" groups or niches do exhibit similar personalities, or group thinking. For a rugby team to excel there needs to be a team mission, a team work-ethic, a cluster of similarity, or a company philosophy, policy. For the police force to work the individual soldiers much share a common belief of law enforcement.

So what can we call the glue in these "packs", "tribes" "groups", "fan bases"? What term describes this commonality of behaviour, the mind-fuck of similarity? What is it then that Chris Brogan the Pied Piper of social media evangelises, what is it that Lloyd Davis the Tart of Tuttle encourages you to love, what is it that Will McInnes the Madman of Metrics and Measurement propagates, and what is it Chris Hambly the Don of the Social Media Mafia challenges you with? - Ideological Amplification is what.

Ideological Amplification is when a belief within a tribe (niche) becomes the "norm" or "accepted" and often "expected" and is then exponentially amplified among its members. - chris hambly

If you think for a moment, all tribes have leaders, this is age-old theory, and from that a vision or a broad ideology born. When loyal members join a particular tribe it is that vision that is then perpetuated, amplified and encouraged to the expense of a nearby tribe - to an extent. Chelsea fans are not in any way waving the ideology flag of Liverpool, for example. Or David Cameron's flock will always seek ammunition to unbalance the arguments of Gordon Brown. These frictional moments and engagements may be unstated, may even take place unwittingly as part of the ideology but they DO occur.

Marketing

Many years ago merchants would tout their business wares in the village market, typically to small groups, small tribes, the merchants could operate a very specific marketing message to a known demographic. When scaling was made possible through technological developments such as printed materials, and more recently radio and television, marketing moved into a more broad-based model where above the line blanket-bombing tactics become the norm, and still are, shear numbers became the model.

The Internet now affords the rapid establishment of tribal theories once again, marketing droids (I include myself in that definition) are once again taking an interest in niche tribes, the "power" of a niche ideology, or they SHOULD be.

You see, for a marketing person we want our products to be discussed, we want the goodness, the buzz, the positive aspects to be ideologically amplified by the tribe. Steve Jobs's gang do this for him daily. Steve's long-term brand (generational) has a fiercely loyal pack of dogs, whom will enthuse and die at the gates of computer heaven before switching brands.

But even new brands to the game can now take advantage of ideological amplification, because The Internet facilitates rapid tribal community building. Never before have we been able to seek and find like-minded people, never before have we been able to run shoulders with vast amounts of people who bolster own own perception of an ideology.

Let's look at more theory.

Thomas Schelling

1971, he published a widely cited article dealing with racial dynamics called "Dynamic Models of Segregation". In this paper he showed that a small preference for one's neighbours to be of the same colour could lead to total segregation. He used coins on graph paper to demonstrate his theory by placing pennies and nickels in different patterns on the "board" and then moving them one by one if they were in an "unhappy" situation.

The positive feedback cycle of segregation - prejudice - in-group preference can be found in most human populations, with great variation in what are regarded as meaningful differences -- gender, age, race, ethnicity, language, sexual preference, religion, etc. Once a cycle of separation-prejudice-discrimination-separation has begun, it has a self-sustaining momentum.

source: wikipedia.

Dangerous stuff…

"Once a cycle of separation-prejudice-discrimination-separation has begun, it has a self-sustaining momentum."

This is what some theorists might call "going viral", I actually prefer to call this pathological, I find it dangerous, sure for a marketing person it can be golden, but and what expense?

So what are we supporting here with social media adoption?

Increase of niche gangs

- as I've stated, never before have we been able to seek out such vast extremes of ideology in one place. On the Internet there are no mechanical forces preventing us to segregate, we have no house to sell, we are free to indulge in our extremism.

Disdain for “mainstream”which actually forces us to segregate, isn’t that good? - mainstream channels DO force us to listen, watch and be presented with multiple view points. Newspapers cover a variety of themes which may draw you, something which your niche may not, ever.
Adoption of tribal mentalities, actually enthused, embraced, encouraged. - Leaders will evangelise, as the Don of Social Media Mafia I do want the members to critically analysis social media, rip it up, question it, find proof, examine it, uncover theory. Chris Brogan doesn't ask this of you, he enjoys the "magic" of it. Will McInnes will want you to find metrics, he wants an industry model, he wants something to bolster and give credibility to his products. Lloyd Davis want you to socialise in public spaces and sing his anthem of Tuttle. Makes no difference what the niche is, we are all selfish and pimping our own ideologies, and if you do not roughly come into line with that, you are marginally ostracised. Debatable, but I challenge you.
Polarisation, amazon, knows what you like every time, you are profiled. - for each click we make on the internet we are then profiled into a category one step further, for each and every cookie and derivative of YOUR choices are made narrower. You will not be displayed products which you are never likely to buy.
Additional views which support your views add to your perception of correct, or right. - If you sing hallelujah to the ideology of the group, the remaining participants will praise you, pat you on the back, thus further entrenching the ideology, thus further amplifying it.

Critical analysis skills are taught at 3rd year in the UK University system, and even then it is only the beginning, critical analysis and stepping out of your tribe takes balls, courage and a willingness to argue. This skill is not something we are born with, it takes practise and lots of it.

And that is where the problem lies for me, a serious lacking in critical skills within social media, a fundamental flaw in the system, cult-like blind faith is fucking dangerous, and there will be ferocious venomous spitting when opposing extremes come together.

Look at any war, it is no different... treat your tribe with caution, tread carefully before you preach for you may be amplifying an ideology which is in fact marginalising and segregating.

I will talk about "bridges" at a later date.

UPDATE: 13.07.08 - So what do YOU think, am I being harsh, do you not agree, or do you sense some of this in yourself, what's on your mind after reading this?

Email Segmentation

chrishambly — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 07:04:05 -0400

On a recent email newsletter I sent I got 148.3% opens, and 95.8% clicks, that's some kind of a record. secret: segmenting.

Want to discuss it?

What Does Chris Hambly Do

chrishambly — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 07:48:41 -0400

Some of you already know some of this but not all of it, and some of you do not know this but may have had some clues, I have been excited at times and have been dropping hints. It’s time to “spill the beans” and share exactly what’s going on.

I received an unsolicited approach in the last quarter of 07 for a possible partnership/merger between my established distance learning portal Audiocourses.com and the global face-to-face educational provider SAE Institute.

After various negotiations we have now struck a deal and I have signed on the dotted the line, so to speak.

SAE was established in 1976 (SAE History) and now operates over 50 institutions in 21 countries around the globe. SAE has an exceptionally strong brand name in the field of sound engineering and music production, and also more recently, film making, games, and other media related disciplines. If you are a musician or budding sound engineer/studio technologist etc, this is unquestionably “the” brand, SAE is in fact also the world's largest media education provider, fact.

Audiocourses.com is a pioneering distance learning portal working at the cutting-edge of educational technology since 2000. The portal has graduated students from most corners of the English speaking world, it is a specialist e-learning internet school, with vast experience and proven results. Considerable credibility has been established and the site is dominant in most areas of its core business.

Putting these two cultures together then and you can imagine the possibilities, exciting times ahead with enormous potentials.

Personally I am very excited by this deal, it is the coming of age of my company, something I started on the kitchen table and have shed pints of sweat over, uncountable sleepless nights and all the rest of that stuff you need to get your baby going. I’m chuffed!

So what will I be doing?

Primarily I will continue managing Audiocourses.com and with that comes the integration of the SAE Graduate College. I will also be engaged in helping restructure the SAE network of websites and market the online presence of the SAE brand worldwide.

These are huge projects requiring heaps of project management along with various milestones and launches and exciting strategies. Naturally I hope to share some of this with you as I work through it.

All of this will be carried out by my new-media web marketing consultancy company Audana, which some of you may recall carried out work for Crayon and Coca-Cola as well as other great clients through 07. Audana will grow steadily and aggressively extend its client base through 08.

Watch out for the official press releases soon.

Can’t wait to get stuck in, wish me luck!

10 Steps To A Successful Web Business

chrishambly — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 12:38:24 -0500

Ronna turned me on to this idea of posting some tips about how to be successful without launching a marketing blog. I twittered these really quickly and it seems they were popular, which means I should blog that and share it with you too.

1. create an infinite responder series of tips.. as a means of capturing a prospects email address.

2. Visit on topic forums in your niche(s) and become an authority in that channel.

3. actively take part in helping people find job through networks like LinkedIn, especially in your field.

4. publish a few ebooks which a price of zero attached, and encourage them to be distributed.

5. email is still THE method for the masses and will be in future. Run a newsletter, targetting your prospects as tightly as possible

6. pay close attention to SEO, and sift through your site access logs, build content around what people are searching you for.

7. say NO a lot to link exchanges, out-bound links to bad neighborhoods will cripple you

8. invest in a dedicated server with 24/7 live support

9. have tiered products and prices, and up-sale all the way from the free ebooks to the crown jewels.. slow buy in.

10. don't become a snob or fool yourself into thinking you are an expert, you are not. Influence doesn't carry far.. google does

Android a Spy In Your Pocket

chrishambly — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 07:01:28 -0500

So when Android, the open source mobile phone platform becomes the “normal”, you know, widely distributed, and of course I imagine it will, we will soon be carrying a cute little personalised Google spy in our pockets!

Hang on a minute, you what?

Ok think about this for a sec. Google Android is open source, it is an operating system, the thing which will make your phone work. Currently there are a variety of operating systems in use for mobile phones and depending on which provider you are signed up with will depend on how much access you have to “tweak” the that operating system.

Open Source

Yes Android is open source meaning the code is available for anyone to look at, therefore anyone can develop applications for. You know, all these widgets will appear, widgets like you see in your Facebook account? Well not exactly I predict many more useful applications will be available.

Personalised Info

Already your phone is capable of sending a signal back to HQ (where ever the HQ application is) stating “hey I am currently here at these coordinates”. Of course where this becomes particularly interesting is when your shopping habits and destinations are “learnt” by these new “lifestyle widgets”, yes folks when the crafty marketing peeps dip their toes in this, it will be game on.

Let’s say you often enjoy a morning pastry at the local Starbucks. Starbucks sign up with the application data service which sends the application server new information about offers they may have on at any point. You walk close to Starbucks and the suddenly “beep beep” you receive a text stating “Starbucks special offer half-price pastries today”.

Life Style Widgets

I’m going to go out on a limb and name these cute data mining packages Life Style Widgets. Do I mind this, will it bother me I can be profiled and offered various different products based on my geographic reference AND passed buying habits? Not at all, I’m really looking forward to the messages I’ll get when I walk passed a lap-dancing bar!

Seriously though folks it is coming, are you going to embrace that, or develop for it?

You Android you!

BLYK Between 16 and 24 living in UK

chrishambly — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 08:51:48 -0500

Are you between 16 and 24 living in UK?

Well I’ve long since passed that threshold but I’m not complaining.

I wanted to point out what seems a pretty neat service which goes by the name of BLYK. A pal of mine send me a message this morning about this service which really does look super neato.

Seems to me that if indeed you are between the age of 16 and 24 and living in UK you can sign-up, be sent a spanking new sim card for your phone on ANY network containing 217 free texts and 43 mins of free calls!

Um yes free, no strings!

Well actually I lied there are some strings, but entertaining strings it seems.

As the website states:

“Blyk goes out and finds brands that want to talk to people like you. Blyk charges them for sending you messages, and gives you money back in the form of free texts and minutes.

But Blyk doesn’t just open the door to anyone that wants to message you. Each day you’ll get up to 6 brand messages. They’ll only ever come from Blyk and brands Blyk thinks you’ll be interested in.”

Now, personally I’d find that quite an enjoyable experience of sorts, I mean it is free.

Sadly I wont be signing up (unless they would like me to), I simply cannot prove I am so young, but if you are in that demographic I’d love to have a look and invite you to guest blog about it here on my blog.

How do you choose music, games and other media

chrishambly — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 06:00:18 -0400

We are living in a changing dynamic, probably the rate of change is faster than ever, we can experience and witness mass convergence regularly. We can find ourselves exposed to more and more content from a variety of channels and mediums.

Some of us enjoy being part of a “tight-knit” community defended with furious passion, some of us enjoy only obtaining independent music, some of us only enjoying watching web TV, some of us only enjoy open source software and many of us stick to one vendor with impressive loyalty.

In all of this choice and preference this very weekend we saw Apple release their new operating system Leopard, and I’ve personally seen a frenzy take place, a buzz, a rush to the store.

Now what I find interesting in this (and I’m struggling with the conflict so need your thoughts), is that I’d call Apple a MAINSTREAM provider, nothing independent, and in fact they mostly choose mainstream channels for advertising for their product, nothing particularly social going on, from what I can see, I may be wrong.

But I’m digressing slightly this post is not about Apple it is an attempt to get to the core reasons about why YOU choose your music, where do you hear about new music, what makes you buy it, what makes you purchase a new game, a new download, what media or advertising works for you?

I want total honesty here from you, does the TV work for you, does the weekly magazine work for you, does the X-Factor, do you buy a new single cause you hear it on mainstream radio, do you buy a film because it is in the box office charts, the billboard charts, what penetrates your buying decision?

How do you choose your media?

The RIAA are Pissing Into The Wind

chrishambly — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 08:52:56 -0400

This passed week has been an absolute milestone for the music business in a bad way, well actually it’s a milestone for music and musicians in a positive way, once fully embraced. I would also argue that progressive record companies, with appropriate visionaries at the top could do very well also.

A report written by Michael Arrington published on TechCrunch called The Inevitable March of Recorded Music Towards Free basically paints a very gloomy picture for the Record Industry Association of America (RIAA) and indeed many music Industry bodies.

In the article, using the laws of economics, the discussion is how the value of music (in the sense of a physical entity) will drop to a value of zero.

Nada, zero, free…

That is music will cost you nothing…in the sense of getting a version of it.

In the same week we saw RadioHead offering their newly created album for free, well actually that’s not technically correct, they have offered the album to be purchased on YOUR grounds, YOU are able to decide what you wish to donate/pay for an mp3 copy of the album. Incidentally I grabbed a copy myself and paid 5 quid.

Probably the first time in a long time I have personally bought a digital clone of music, and aside from buying it to make a point, it is actually a cracking album, which I’m listening to as I write this.

Digital Clone?

Yes digital clone is exactly what you are buying, possibly stealing, obtaining from a peer to peer (p2p) network, sent from friends, gleaned at a LAN party. However, you are not technically stealing anything nor copying, you are actually cloning information, which is the point in this argument, the clone reproduction costs nothing, hence the drop in the value of music distribution.

Distribution version

The other thing to mention here, and something which some people miss, is that they are giving away the mp3 version of the album. Now I don’t know about you, but I think mp3 sound sucks major ass. Ok so I have audio engineer ears and I work with mp3s every day and continually publish mp3s, but let’s remember the full story here.

The average mp3 has a significant reduction in quality when you compare that to what comes out of the recording studio and onto a 16bit CD. And beyond comparison when discussing DVD audio and other higher sampling and bit rate formats. Yes, mp3 are handy for distributing around the net, and putting on your izunepodriver but they ain’t the “Full Monty”.

Why am I mentioning this?

Well of course Tom York of RadioHead knows full well that he can release his limited edition box-set in a month or two just before xmas, which will contain the “Full Monty”, along with tidy artwork and other bits and piece of merchandise at a whopping 20 quid! – very nice work if you can get it.

Many people still hold dearly the notion of owning something tangible, and of high quality, and people will continue to pay for that. Some people love the tangibility of a signed CD, a limited t-shirt. I have no doubts RadioHead will shift buckets loads of the special box-set, especially during the xmas lead-in, smart marketing indeed.

Of course the other thing that nobody is mentioning is that RadioHead gain LOTS of money for their mp3s which to be honest anyone will be able to get within hours on a p2p network anyway!

RIAA Bastards

Now in the same week, I have been really upset and shocked at the paranoid behaviour of the RIAA who have come down incredibly hard on the single mother caught file-sharing with her mates. Now I know full well that YOU (if I consider a cross section of my readers here and do a rough hands-in-the-air count for an average) have done the same. In fact in this very week I carried out three separate polls each with about 30 students in a room, and guess what? .. around 98% have downloaded music in what possibly could be construed as illegally.

It’s not surprising then that certain formats of music distribution are destined to become free. And it is with this knowledge that the RIAA are fully aware of and carried out a shocking public shaming campaign on one poor woman.

Truth is, the “war is over” as Todd Wachtel mentions. There is no battle anymore, the industry so called “experts” are frankly “pissing into the wind” and getting seriously wet, and the longer they fight against the tide the more mistrust they invoke in us mere mortals, they are not building bridges here in order to embrace the new mechanisms and emerging model.

Days after the RadioHead news Oasis and Nine Inch Nails have also stated their intention to give away their newest work thus fueling the fire to the inevitable. Personally I can see these acts doing well out of enticing more listeners to buy tickets to large concerts, thus in essence not loosing money but gaining a wider audience.

The music as an mp3 is the new banner ad, the new vehicle for viral marketing…..

Embrace and gain

I’ve heard many voices with tones of fear, mainly from musicians about lost revenue, mostly from so called “struggling” artists, but, really? I mean really?

As an artist surely the point is about getting as many people as possible to listen to your music, surely that is exactly what it is about isn’t it? It is about building a fan base and buzz, so isn’t giving your music away for free and encouraging copying/cloning and distribution, actually a good thing?

What are you concerned with then, making money?

As an artist there are countless way to re-coup money, so many I’ll save them for a future blog post, but all that is required is a slightly different mind-set on how you build your audience and what you offer in terms of merchandise.

As my friend Rich Palmer says “Why chain yourself to the old model when there are successful new systems coming into place?”.

Nobody is actually saying they do not value music, they do, I do, I’m a musician! But the voices are saying, share it with us and we’ll tell all our friends and probably come and see you live and probably buy a t-shirt maybe even a box-set with some shwag in to hang on the wall..

And of course I’ve not even mentioned mainstream play-out and royalties, which do not seem to be going away, I can’t see that happening in the short term either. Of course this is exactly why the PRS want a piece of the pie regarding netcasts and internet radio, they see it coming.

Are you pissing into the wind, what do you feel about all this?

A big thanks to the Music Technology Facebook soliders who inspired some of my words here, thanks.

UPDATE: This link just came in: Madonna ditches traditional record label

UPDATE: Month Old, thanks to Ben for sending: What's the future of the music industry

Charity Begins at Home

chrishambly — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 07:27:31 -0400

Is it just me or do I have thoughts that YOU may have regarding charities?

OK, so let me set the context here and state that if I walk down any high street in the UK, any day of the week, it is very likely some guy in dreadlocks will be aggressively marketing some form of charity, as a means of getting another signature for a monthly direct debit from the victims bank account.

The dreadlocked bozo will be equipped with a clipboard, a fluorescent apron, and much more than an over zealous delivery line. In fact deadlocked bozo will completely ignore peoples’ body language and invade body space quicker than Robin realises the drinks are on Batman!

If you are in UK I know YOU experience this, “Sir, can I tell you about”, “Madam, would you be interested in”, “hi mate did you know we are”.. get lost you snotty creep!

It’s not once or twice I have been vocally dismissive to such activity, it has become a mini-hobby and my radar can now detect these “pushers” a mile off, and I’ll stare them out in the entrance path to the engagement zone!

“Pushers” is exactly what these people are, typically students picking up some extra commission per direct debit hook, or other do-gooders who have not really thought about the fact that this really pisses people off.

Ok, rant over and now let’s ask the question about how charities should be marketed.

I am certainly not anti-charity, in fact I think that a collective of people can achieve great things for the benefit of others, and those of us who are more fortunate can, perhaps should(?), help out those of us who are less fortunate. Charity can have its place, but what I dislike most is the way a good many people feel “guilty” if they do not give to Mr Dreadlock’s oh so wonderful pitch, they feel bad, they feel to be somehow mean, or nasty, even though many of these people probably need their hard earned bucks themselves for a new pair of shoes for their own children. It is the pressure sale in the high-street I dislike and a LOT, it’s become and occupation and a career.

I sponsored a charity conference a few months ago in the 3D world of SecondLife by donating space and enabling an event to take place with my friend Pauline. The idea for the conference was to raise the awareness of differing methods of marketing charity and how to use a community to collectively support a cause (which I do support).

A friend of mine Mike sent me an invite to a Ghana Aid which is a good example of how to raise awareness and funds for a charity/cause. This is how these things should work, where a mass of people engage in something together and share. This is the exact opposite of Mr Dreadlock Pusher, (full disclosure I have no issue with dreadlocks).

Is this just me, what do you think? Is this just the UK? Is it just me?

MediaCamp BUCKS 07 Logo

chrishambly — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 07:16:12 -0400

I had an email in my inbox this morning from Eaon Pritchard who has designed an awesome logo for MediaCampBUCKS 07.

Eaon went for a “populist” and “web2.0” look which is perfect for the event, nice one Eaon!

If you have not heard about MediaCamp yet, we (that’s you) are hosting the event at BCUC, just 30 minutes west of London, which is a piece of cake to get to from any direction, on October 20.

MediaCamp is a free un-conference where the whole event is driven by the participants themselves, it is set to be a real mix-up of people too, coming from marketing, academia, b2b, bloggers, sound-designers, networkers, agencies, the whole range of peeps getting together to learn and share.

This MediaCampBUCKS 07 is heavily focussed on new-media tools, and how we can embrace them in our careers, instruction, business etc.

MediaCampBUCKS07

What do you think of the logo yourself?