Developing trend: pointless people-powered decisions
on 11th August 2010
The trend for giving consumers the power to make decisions for the sake of it is showing no signs of stopping any time soon.
Skittles initial efforts went down well, the ‘giving tree’ was the result of a Facebook-led voting campaign, which was then built in real life to hand out free sweets. ‘Valentine the rainbow’ had similarly heart-warming results when the brand’s fans wrote love letters to a traffic warden in the US. However, its latest campaign, in which the same Facebook community was asked to help the brand send a man to ‘bowling school’, seemed to tumble into the realms of the pointless, with very little engagement involved other than clicking a ‘like’ button on the social network.
BT’s decision to let viewers choose the outcome of its next advert (is she pregnant? isn’t she?) starring Kris Marshall and his long-running ‘family’ seem equally passive. The similarities between the telecommunications giant’s efforts and Lynda Bellingham’s Bisto run (or even Anthony Head’s role in those Carte Noir adverts) are obvious. BT seems to be trying to replicate the love (or perhaps just familiarity) once felt for those relationship-based campaigns, but make it current by integrating voting via social media. But does this really strengthen the relationship between brand and customer? People are so bombarded with advertising these days that they’re far less emotive when it comes to forming relationships with such characters.
Finally, we see Domino’s jumping on the bandwagon. It’s just announced a competition that will see Facebook users choose the company’s next ‘Extreme Delivery’. Until August 30, customers will be given a chance to vote on what they think is the most extreme method to deliver a pizza, and try to win $1,000 in the process.
We talk often here on Reputation Online about the benefits of giving something back when asking people to get involved into a campaign. Sometimes it’s the satisfaction that you’ve sent in a message, had it printed and displayed somewhere offline. Other times it’s giving people the power to change something in the ‘real world’ and then track the results and watch them grow.
But more and more, the use of voting via social media seems a pointless add-on. The ‘Extreme Delivery’ idea is quirky, and will probably produce a pretty cool video to boot, but is this enough to get people to engage with the brand? Do people care if their vote results in the continuation of Marshall’s BT’s family?
We’re all for getting people involved, but we’re seeing the ‘me too’ effect rolled out far too often of late. That said, we’re also more than happy to be proven wrong here when (or if) we get to see some results.