Marketing 2.0

There’s an MVNO in the U.K. called Blyk, who provides free wireless service in exchange for advertisements on users’ phones.  The service only works because it targets a specific segment – 16-24 year olds, making targeted advertising simple.  The service is interesting, but what’s more interesting is their marketing strategy…

They call it open-source marketing.  They have a “kernel” of hard code (e.g. brand name, symbol, target market), but they allow others to provide the marketing message.  They created a competition with a cash prize for print art, but more importantly, they strongly push current users to recruit new users.  So current users create videos on youtube with their referral codes, trying to influence new users to join.  I think this is a fairly common marketing tactic, but I also think that Blyk has done it better than anyone else.

What’s interesting is that Blyk’s team is very focused on making this an open marketing effort.

“You don’t get this by holding three-day long marketing team meetings and having a hundred people policing the brand. What you do have to do is get young creatives together, share with them the hard core and the brand values, give them proper resources and pay them properly, and let them go.” – Marko Ahtisaari (head of brand and design)

This approach is in direct contradiction to Steve Jobs’ approach to marketing (absolute control over every element).  All of my marketing experience has so far revolved around the controlled approach.  Although I have not been involved in advertising, I have seen the importance of a properly defined message in industries like consumer products and pharmaceuticals.  The use of the open-source method leads to loss of control of the message, which can pose challenges when the message reaches a large number of users.  An inconsistent message can lead to consumer confusion, and can potentially be as ineffective as no marketing at all.  I guess Blyk doesn’t face that challenge yet because they are relatively small (~30k subscribers), but I can imagine them encountering it in the future.

Open-source marketing may work, but I feel that it needs to have a strong connection to a solid marketing plan.  Many large companies employ similar strategies by using viral marketing, but most successful examples I can think of have a solid marketing backbone behind this.   Interesting to see where this will go…