Journal of integrated marketing communications

Integrating Integrity into IMC lynn upshaw

Generations of Consumers and the Consumer Generated pradeep kumar, michelle hsiao & barry chiu

Unauthorized Verses chris barrows

Using Events to Drive an Integrated Marketing Model mary fehrnstrom & david m. rich

Adapting IMC to Emerging Markets: Importance of Cultural Values in the Indian Context s. ramesh kumar

Beyond the Last Click: Measuring ROI and Consumer Engagement with Clickstream Analysis megan halscheid, micheline sabatté & sejal sura

The Next Generation of the IMC Database: Confessions of a Believer chuck sharp

B2B and B2C Marketing: Organizing to Maximize Brand Value wendy c. wong

Heavy Buyers: Are They Even More Important Than Generally Thought? deb rapacz & martin reilly

2009

Inventing the Future, Honoring the Past

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unauthorized verSeSby Chris Barrows

abStractHow can brands get consumers to virally swarm around them as loyal brand evangelists? For a clue, it’s worth looking at what may be a surprising source, the hip-hop industry. By utilizing online communication and content-sharing, hip-hop has capitalized on fans’ loyalty to fan the flames of brand, or rather band, loyalty. This article explores such efforts to create truly original content that develops a connection between those that embrace it and sets a benchmark for general marketers trying to engage audiences in a continually evolving culture.

Sharing is not a new phenomenon; only the infrastructure to facilitate sharing has changed. Some marketers create content for social media that encourages interaction. In practice, mar-keters must target an evolving audience with their brands. The increasingly complex audi-ence, coupled with converging media, work in tandem to render traditional marketing strate-gies obsolete.

One purpose of a brand is to define and con-nect groups of people. Thus common interests and characteristics help groups move in the same general direction, through increased interaction both off- and online. The group’s direction, however, can change when a mem-ber gets new information that causes him to alter his course. Often, the slightest change in behavior by one person causes the entire group to do the same. Chuck Brymer, CEO of DDB Worldwide, calls this swarm theory. Swarm theory suggests that communities swarm around their brands of choice. It is the job of marketers to introduce their brands to such groups.

This thinking is a departure from the tradi-tional marketing approaches, which bombarded groups with messages, without considering

the audience’s social behavior. The new breed of marketing is less about the message sent by marketers, and more about how the audience interprets and uses the message.

As technology evolved to allow easy com-munication, it also paved the way for content-sharing. Napster, a pioneering peer-to-peer music sharing service, was one of the first popular tools for content-sharing. Created by Shawn Fanning, the application facilitated uploading and downloading of free copyright-protected tracks. Major players in the music industry, like Metallica, famously fought the application.

Others, like the Vermont band Dispatch, embraced it and used the free service to de-velop a broad fan base (Nome, 2001). Dispatch was relatively unknown when Napster first became popular. They later went on to perform a sell-out show at New York’s Madison Square Garden: an enormous feat for a small, regional group. Dispatch’s foresight demonstrates that sharing and creating content online, with the intent of sharing, can aid in the distribution of their brand message

The hip-hop industry has expanded in spite of a declining music industry. Hip-hop has

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Picture of the completed “green art” at San Francisco’s Broadway Tunnel. Photo by Laura Morton.

survived by utilizing online communication and content-sharing in a way that leverages customer loyalty. Hip-hop’s ascendance amid a downward industry is a result of its adapt-ability to changing consumer behavior. General marketers may draw guidance from trends in hip-hop as they reshape their communica-tion strategies. A second arena that marketers should consider emulating is the blogosphere.

Blogging began in online forums in which people shared a similar interest. Blogging evolved from town hall meetings where par-ticipants speak easily and freely. The creation of Web sites rooted in consumer reviews, like Yelp, Amazon and Epinions, allows feedback to be transmitted instantaneously. Many blog-gers profit from displaying the shortcomings of companies and products. Consumers’ poor experiences, represented through multiple blog postings, can instantly deflate the most art-ful brand strategy. As Brymer’s white paper observed, “today what a mother in Minneapolis or a businessman in Bangladesh thinks of your brand now carries equal weight with the best-

crafted marketing strategy. We are entering an age of reference, not deference” (Brymer, 2008).

Most musicians make music for the enjoy-ment of their audience, hoping that they will rave about it to their friends. The savvy musi-cians encourage fans to burn a copy of their record if it means another fan will attend an upcoming show, or purchase merchandise. In the early 1970s, large record labels dominated the music industry.

Hip-hop musicians of this era, like Grand-master Flash, profited by selling recorded cop-ies of live performances. The recordings, known as mix tapes, ranged in price from $30 to $120. A premium version, called a private mix tape, included the DJ shouting the purchaser’s name over a live set of beats. Alternatively, public mix tapes targeted a larger audience and were predominantly sold at live performances from the trunk of the DJ’s car.

As technology has evolved, so has mix tape delivery. Artists distribute mix tapes online, generally free of charge. Combining social interaction with free content on blogs and

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message boards provides artists with instant feedback. Artists can record a mix and offer it as free content online within days, since they generally forgo the expensive and time-con-suming process of getting their music samples cleared.

Current legislation upholds that such re-cordings are for promotional use only. The right combination of positive feedback, along with wide distribution, enables artists to achieve rapid brand awareness. This awareness is of minimal cost to the artist and has the addi-tional benefit of securing long-term success by building a loyal, enthusiastic fan base.

In early 2008, a relatively unknown Wash-

ington, D.C.-based MC named Wale released “The Mixtape About Nothing.” The mix tape utilized scenarios and quotes from the 1990s sitcom Seinfeld to launch a commentary on the hip-hop industry. Wale and DJ Nick Catch-dubs recorded the mixtape in approximately four weeks utilizing verses from high-profile artists like Bun B and Lil Wayne. Bun B is a southern rap legend, one-half of the now defunct group, UGK; Lil Wayne’s album “Tha Carter III” spent multiple weeks at the top of the Billboard Album charts in June 2008. Wale’s strategy of featuring high-profile artists is the equivalent of forging brand-partnerships to promote cognitive associations between the

Album cover for “Mixtape About Nothing”

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artist and mainstream rappers. Wale and Catchdubs seeded tracks to the

industry blog TheFader, which previewed the mix tape weeks before its release. Certain hip-hop blogs are highly influential. An endorse-ment from TheFader often leads to recognition in mainstream music publications. Upon its release “The Mixtape About Nothing” received reviews from the blog of Village Voice music critic Tom Breihan, a primary authority on hip-hop music. Breihan’s recognition of the mix tape legitimized its existence. The endorsement of Wale’s free, downloadable album furthered its mainstream reach.

Cleveland-based DJ Mick Boogie says that the benefit of giving content away free is that “everyone hears you. I get booked all over the world from the fame my [mix tapes] have given me(E-mail interview, 2008). Boogie has cre-ated mix tapes of music from artists like Jay-Z, Kanye West and Talib Kweli, all of which are downloadable, free of charge on his Web site. The buzz from releasing mix tapes has resulted in Boogie appearing as the Cleveland Cavaliers’ official DJ as well as frequent performances at some of the world’s highest profile clubs.

For general marketers, one solution is to cre-ate a mix tape equivalent, which promotes con-sumer sharing and interaction. In April 2008, DDB San Francisco commissioned reverse graffiti artist Moose to use one of its clients’ brands, Green Works™, in a local art project. Reverse graffiti is a process during which a dirty area is cleaned in a way that leaves the re-maining dirt as art. In conjunction with DDB San Francisco, Moose utilized Green Works to clean an area next to San Francisco’s highly visible Broadway tunnel. The resulting 140-foot mural generated positive local press.

An award-winning documentarian, Doug Pray, captured the project on film. A condensed version of the documentary posted on YouTube received more than 400,000 views in less than a week. Users ultimately posted their tours of the mural online as well. The documentary even received honors at the Los Angeles Film Festi-val. Most importantly, the project emboldened Green Works’™ brand strategy to promote natural cleaning in an entertaining way that is

accessible to swarms of people who are passion-ate about green living.

Mix tapes provide free content to audiences in exchange for the audience’s reciprocal contri-bution to the artists’ long-term brand develop-ment. As artists continue to tour and diversify business ventures, through clothing lines and other merchandise, free mix tapes that generate word-of-mouth marketing directly enhance the artists’ more profitable ventures.

Many general marketers are learning how small investments in shareable content can achieve long-term goals similar to those tradi-tionally achieved through TV and print execu-tions. Some refer to this type of marketing as a niche “viral” campaign, but like a record, if the audience will not pass it along, the campaign carries no weight.

References

1. Boogie, Mick DJ. E-mail interview. 23 May 2008.

2. Brymer, C. (2008). Swarm Marketing. White paper. Page 4.

3. Chang, J. & DJ Kool Herc. Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation. New York: Picador, 2005.

4. Nome, V. “Napster forum praises founder.” USA Today. 4 Apr. 2001.

5. Wang, O. “Tales of the Tape.” Village Voice. 22 July 2003.

6. Wortham, J. “After 10 Years of Blogs, the Future’s Brighter Than Ever.” WIRED: Weblog. 17 Dec. 2007.

Chris Barrows works in business development at a Seattle-based natural language process-ing start-up, Evri.com. He previously worked at advertising and public relations agencies on brands like Sony PlayStation 3, HP Consumer PCs and Microsoft Games for Windows. He has a bachelor’s degree in communication from the University of Washington.