RADAR DDB

By Steve.Wright@radarddb.com

The Borg that is Canada’s social media marketing community would have you believe that in order to get online influencers talking about your brand or product, you must first invest in becoming a trusted member of the community, before sliding into your sales pitch.

So some folks think that’s how we should have launched Radar DDB.

But that’s the kind of lemming-inspired marketing that results from consensus and committee-based thinking. It’s the kind of thinking that assumes the cozy citizens of Flacktopia will all break into an orgy of emoticon joy when what they perceive as an ad agency Death Star suddenly appears in the sky.

In reality, the entrance of a multi-national integrated communications agency isn’t necessarily welcome in the tight-knit PR agency and independent consultant dominated social media space. So when we decided to drive our tonka truck into their sandbox, we did what clients rely on DDB to do: be creative. We challenged the conventional approach and instead based our launch plans on a deeper understanding of this particular influencer community.

You see, the thing about self-proclaimed “online influencers” is that they tend to be at least somewhat ego-driven and much of their authority, audience and influence is derived from being perceived as the ones who are “in the know”. And while they may prefer the “suck up to me cause I’m important” approach to attracting their attention, we decided on a more subtle and impactful strategy: we decided to play on their ego by challenging their authority and completely ignoring them during the launch of Radar DDB.

Interweb blurbosphere suicide! — according to the accepted wisdom. But if we’d been part of their community, our new venture would have probably been greeted as yet another “oh look, billy’s got a new job” posting – quickly forgotten and not inspiring much comment. At best, they’d maybe wish us well but not play any real role in promoting awareness of our new venture. Whereas maybe if we snubbed the self-styled experts, we’d get their RSS’s in enough of a twist to generate a conversation.

But could such an apparently ill-advised strategy work? Check out PR Works, Profectio*, Webwalker, Maggie Fox and Buzz Canuck for starters.

The very influencers one might want to reach in launching a new social media startup are talking about Radar DDB. I’m ROTFLMAO as they say.

And, as per our strategy, some of them are kinda pissed, thus sparking the desired lively conversation. Sure — maybe more of these guys would’ve been singing our praises if we’d invested a bit more time throwing sheep at them on FaceBook, but really, there’s a new start-up every day so why bother to pick up on us except for the fact that we chose not to pay homage to the “experts”?

In fact, the strategy worked so well that the story has now found its way into the offline world, with a piece in this week’s Marketing Magazine, three months after the initial press coverage of the launch of Radar DDB. That article, in turn, is generating more blog coverage. How’s that for extending the news cycle, creating buzz, etc., Mr. PR Guru?

Now it’s just maybe a little bit possible that I’m post-rationalising all this and imposing a fanciful strategy on what others might view as a fortuitous accident. You can decide for yourself when you’re judging this “non-campaign campaign” in our Social Media Marketing Awards submission for best new product or service launch. And if one of you PR pro’s could take the time to send me an email accusing me of trying to put a positive spin on a corporate mis-step, I’d appreciate it. Wetting my pants laughing might help to pass this gallstone.

So can you launch a social media boutique without letting bloggers know? Yes. It’s now a proven strategy. Plus, you’re reading it right here on a bona-fide blog so it’s gotta be true AND influential!

Our sincere thanks go out to all the “influencers” who played along.

In all seriousness though, and to be fair, the comments on the blogs listed above were overwhelmingly fair and balanced and I have a real respect for the folks toiling away in this emerging sector. If anything, they soft-pedaled their arguments on both sides of the debate. If the tone of my response is more strident, it’s only out of respect for their advice to be completely honest and opinionated when blogging on the Intertube.

Let’s assume I’m wrong and it wasn’t simply a blow to their ego that sparked the chatter. Then why else is Radar DDB a subject for conversation? We might be interesting because:
a) We’re doing something really interesting;
b) we’re not playing by their rules;
c) we’re a competitive threat; or
d) they really think we don’t know what we’re doing and they’d like to lend a helping hand.

“c” can’t be right because we’re not a competitive threat. We don’t aspire to ghost-write executive blogs wringing our hands in anticipation of the next corporate-blunder-inspired opportunity to loudly proclaim our guilt in the name of social media honesty and transparency.

“d” can’t be right because large agencies aren’t in the business of losing money and smart clients aren’t in the business of hiring dopes. Plus, we have a lot of experience. I myself have been involved in social media and online communities since 1972 when I was an avid user of an application called “party line.” It allowed multiple households to share in each other’s conversations and came with plugins like “twisted cord” and widgets like “promotional magnet from local plumber.” If you “logged on” at the right time you could find out more about your neighbours than most people disclose today on FaceBook. We called it a “telephone.” Who’s the noob now, ladies? But I digress.

“b” is true — we’re not playing by their rules. And some of the community’s comments do address the question of “who’s making the rules” which we think is a very good point.

The only real option left is “A – We’re doing something really interesting”. But while this is true, it can’t be the source of the debate because no one outside of a few select clients and staff actually know what we’re doing or how we’re doing it. And the idea that anyone expected our first step in launching the company would be to circulate our business model to our “community” of competitors for review and comment seems more than a bit ludicrous. Transparency and openness may be the guiding principles for social media, but it’s a lousy way to build a competitive advantage. Seems like some members of this free-love and hey-lets-all-use-the-same-powerpoint-deck collective may have hit their head on the Yurt pole and lost a bit of their business sense.

Sorry we didn’t join your knitting circle. But in the spirit of online community, feel free to drop by and rifle through our filing cabinets. I’ll explain to Frank that while you may work at that other agency down the street, it’s ok ‘cause you’re my buddy from the chat room.

In the end, we’ve generated conversations about our brand without having to disclose any information that would erode our competitive advantage. Not bad for a bunch of amateurs.

And if the “influencers” continue to make the assumption that we’re going to do things just like they do, that’s ok too. It’s that kind of thinking that opens the door for others to create new space with new ideas.

We’ll let the other folks focus on Trojan-horsing their way into other people’s conversations for their own self-serving purposes. In the real world, we’ve always had people who insinuate their way into a social circle and act as fellow travelers and friends right up to the point where they pull out their catalog and sample case. They work for Amway. And if that’s the model that’s going to define the interaction among brands, individuals and communities in the social media space, count me out. There’s gotta be a better way.

Tell me I’m wrong on any of this.

And please try to respond by December 15th if you want your comments and blog entries tallied and included in our awards submission.

*  Apologies to Dave at Profectio.  The links listed were only meant to illustrate the fact that Radar DDB was being blogged about, but the flow of the post suggested Profectio was implicated in the debate.  It was not.