allaboutadvocacy.com

The Community is Always Right

Blowfly and Procter & Gamble. One’s a multinational behemoth whose products have probably been used by more people on the planet than any other company’s, including Microsoft. The other is an Australian pub. Not much in common there then. Wrong.

Despite their differences in size, both organisations embraced the concept of crowdsourcing long ago and, like a thousand others businesses since, benefited enormously from it. Far beyond the realms of quantitative and qualitative research, these companies have gone to their customer base with a blank sheet of paper and asked them what they want. They’ve then gone out and done it. It’s a democratisation of the R&D function and it has since gained ground as a credible and highly valid business process.

On the other side of the boardroom table, recognition of the power of Advocacy is on a rocket-fuelled trajectory right now. Its place in the world of marketing and communications is matched only by the global embrace of emerging media. Both are inextricably linked. So add the concept of crowdsourcing to this particular cocktail and you have a pretty compelling marketing proposition.

As PR practitioners we rarely have the chance to work collaboratively with the R&D team (with perhaps the exception of the healthcare sector). So imagine the impact of a community of advocates who not only buy the products but had a part in making them too. The possibilities are mouth watering.