Archive for the 'Influentials' Category
For C-level executives, what better way is there to advocate your company, product or issue than at highly acclaimed business conferences attended by the people you want to impress the most: your competitors, vendors, customers and targeted talent pool?
Apparently, a growing number of the world’s most elite C-level execs find the conference circuit a worthwhile advocacy platform. Reflecting the trend, the number of events available for such opportunities is multiplying.
We just issued the results of an analysis of speaking engagements at top-tier, or “Five-Star,” events among CEOs, CFOs, CMOs and CTO/CIOs from companies appearing on Fortune’s top 50 World’s Most Admired Companies list (”All-Stars”). Here are the big findings…
*The number of Five-Star events increased 50% from 2005 to 2007 indicating the rising popularity of executive conferences.
*All-Star CEO speakers at Five-Sar events increased 35% from 2005 to 2007. In all, more than four-in-ten (43%) have spoken at these events in the past three years.
*C-team executives (CFOs, CMOs, CTO/CIOs) have increased their visibility at these events. In 2005, only 4% of them spoke at these important conferences while in 2007, 25% of them spoke - a five-fold increase.
Companies are certainly leveraging the major forums as advocacy podiums. More will likely join the wave, as business leaders realize that advocacy is a strategic force of influence.
It’s always interesting to see what happens when new media and old media collide, intermingle and morph — sometimes all at the same time. Two stories today reminded me that the typically binary view of “new” versus “old” is completely off the mark.
Case in point #1: Some “old media” vets from the Charlie Rose show have launched a new video-driven “new media” site called Big Think – funded in part by “old academia” guy Lawrence Summers from Harvard and tech/web pioneer Peter Thiel (disclosure: Peter’s a former client and Stanford student journalist colleague of mine). The site uses an interviewing technique created by “old media” documentary maker Errol Morris, and brings the thinking of “opinion leader” types from places like Davos and TED into the public arena. Definitely not your vanilla consumer-generated YouTube videos — but nothing like “60 Minutes” either.
Case in point #2: Ad Age has a new video interview segment hosted by their EIC Rance Crain, and the first interview is with the outgoing chairman of Newsweek Rick Smith. Smith talks a lot about the evolution of Newsweek’s digital properties and the blending of extensive video coverage with a traditional print outlet. Sounds “new media” for a moment. Then he sounds decidedly “old media,” lamenting how reporting is less valued, that the “exclusive” only has a half-life of seven minutes, and is followed by a “gusher of opinion” on cable, Internet — concluding that “talk is cheap” and “opinion is cheap.”
So, who’s old and who’s new? I would certainly argue that a notion like “opinion is cheap” is old school thinking, and a dangerous one for today’s media and marketers, but I would also contend that quality reporting is more important than ever. Does that mean people like Smith and the Big Think founders are old school, new school or a little bit of both? I’m not sure it really matters — as long as they keep listening, engaging and evolving, I think they’ll be all right.
It was a retail paradox that caused me to freeze mid card swipe. There I was, returning a gadget I didn’t want, on the one hand. While, on the other, still singing its praises to anyone that would listen. Now, you typically don’t see positive advocacy like that on the return cue (least of all in the Big Apple). But this was no mere gadget. It was the biggest Apple going today of all: the iPhone.
This reminded me of an important lesson about advocacy: the who, when and where of advocacy is not always what you expect.
We see this time and again in our work. But this particular pearl came from a study to gain insight into who smart phone buyers turn to when seeking information, advice and recommendations; sources of advocacy in other words. We used a proprietary Weber Shandwick model called a Hub Analysis comprised of four main hubs. The day-to-day hub representing core ties, such as family and close friends. The social hub covering on- and off-line social groups and networks. The expert hub representing opinion shapers of scale from traditional and new media. And the mega hub for the world of celebrity and influence of culture and entertainment, even advertising.
You’re right if you guess the center of the model is the day-to-day hub. This is advocacy’s wheelhouse. Where it is most familiar, trustworthy and powerful. Not some unknown influential somwhere–no disrespect to Gladwell’s mavens (though his “law of the few” sure sounds good on paper). While the other hubs play a very important role, the relative influence weight they have will depend on the characteristic of the consumer group itself. We found in our study that some were brought into the category through the mega hub (as style cues were important). Others by the expert hub (as making the smartest decision possible was the driver). But it’s the day-to-day hub that’s most often the deciding factor and final arbiter.
But it wasn’t who shoppers turned to for recommendations that caught our attention this time. It was what they did right after purchase. Instantly, actively and some quite virally, many became advocates themselves about their brand new purchase. Spreading brand WOM and recommendations back through their day-to-day and social hubs (easy to do when trying out your new all-connecting smart phone). Stopping to show strangers in line at Starbucks or the airport. And more. Been there done that too?
The lesson here is don’t assume you know who and what makes advocacy tick for your consumer, or when it can be harnessed to the hilt. It requires looking at the world in a different way. Not top-down as in traditional marketing research. We must seek out advocates on a human scale. Look for more on this topic in future posts.
For myself, it took returning an iPhone (that I received as a gift and hadn’t even taken out of the box) to truly take the lesson to heart. And marvel again at how the game-changing iPhone can spur positive advocacy even among those who don’t own one. At least not yet anyway…
A close friend told me to wait for the next release, which will sync better with my corporate e-mail and have other improvements. Whoops–there goes that day-to-day hub again!
It remains to be seen if it will last. But, with one democratic victory under his belt in Iowa already and another upset potentially in the making in the New Hampshire primary, Barak Obama’s “it moment” in American politics is already one incredible ride. Conventional political wisdom about advertising spend and primary voter behavior is a poor guide to understand why, especially when it comes to the young people and independents who are turning out in droves.
No, you’ve got to throw away the old playbook (and I don’t think Mark Mellman and Michael Bloomfield quite got it right in their recent New York Times Op-Ed talking about word-of-mouth either). This is about something new: the advocacy mojo of a very different brand of candidate. Authentic, multi-cultural, positive, engaging, and utlimately electric, Obama not only delivers the right message about change to today’s newest voting generation. He literally embodies it. “It’s not something he’s doing… it’s something he’s being,” is how one commentator put it. And, if you’ve been following our blog or research at Weber Shandwick, you know that’s when advocacy is at its strongest. This transcends any ad spot and explains the why behind the word-of-mouth that’s at work in the Obama campaign and how it can be sustainable.
Small wonder then, as reported by the New York Times today, that fifty-seven percent of voters ages 17 to 24 said Mr. Obama was their first choice in Iowa, compared with just 14 percent for John Edwards and 10 percent for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. Even Howard Dean’s celebrated net roots campaign only turned out 23 percent of the youth vote during the last presidential primary in the state.
Advocacy is the most powerful and trusted form of communication today, particularly for a new generation of young people who are cynical not only about traditional politics but traditional methods like advertising that try to persuade them. When it’s core to your brand, like it is for Senator Obama, look out. No traditional campaign or candidate may be able to touch it. The race has already been historic. That it will continue to be exciting and interesting is an understatement. Stay tuned.
The Journal of Consumer Research published fascinating research that speaks to Weber Shandwick’s thought leadership research-based initiative on advocacy (see a previous post by Liz Rizzo on the topic last week — we are on the same wave length). The research by Columbia University’s Duncan J. Watts and University of Vermont’s Peter Dodds reports that opinion elites – that group of influentials that everyone endlessly chases – are not really the ones that make the greatest impact on public opinion. In fact, the researchers found that there is a large group of “easily influenced” people who influence other “easily influenced” individuals. For decades, the two-step flow of influence was the dominant theory of influence — when media’s influence on opinion leaders (step one) impacts the wider general population (step two). Instead, Watts and Dodds posit that although there are situations where influentials are responsible for triggering large-scale “cascades” of influence, these conditions are the exception rather than the rule: “…that under most of these conditions influentials are less important than is generally supposed, either as initiators of large cascades or as early adopters.” The question that has been raised in various postings is finding those easily influencable individuals and seeding their recommendations.
Weber Shandwick’s Advocates are those individuals who behave in such ways that they influence many people and create cascades of influence by virtue of their passion, personal investment and championship. Finding a company, brand, issue or cause Advocate is in fact easier today because of the Internet and also because nearly one-half (45 percent) of the global population is now an advocate of sorts. The ring of influence has broadened considerably and although we agree that “influentials” and offline influence should not be ignored, Advocacy represents a new shift in communications and success.
