audience engagement
12
share their experience of you and your brand, HOW tHe BeHaViOuR OF tHe audience HaS cHanged
their thoughts and feelings with each other. Your
role as speaker, or leader, is always secondary
to that of their conversation, their interaction
FROm tO
and their relationship with each other.
this changes the power balance dramatic­
Passive recipients active users
ally. Rather than the individual audience
interested in you each other
mem ber being isolated and tied into a primary
relationship with the brand, he/she is now able independent of each other Socialising with each other
to take advantage of their peers’ knowledge and
experience: indeed, they have access to it at all
times. the more people are able to see each the broadcasters and production companies
other, the more they are able to take their lead work hard to amplify this built­in tendency
from each other and thus the less compliant to stimulate participation and interaction.
they are to the wishes of authority figures. Just Similarly, more experimental news organis­
as most of us go to the doctor having googled ations have made strides to stimulate readers
our symptoms in advance, so ‘consumers’ look to co­create news content.
to each other for guidance before purchase, this area offers much learning for brand
and pay more attention to people online, who marketers in that it shows how encouraging
they’ll never properly meet, than to the market­ the members of the audience to do what
ing of brands they have used for a lifetime or they want to do with each other is where
the opinion of a trained expert. the real value lies. american film­maker Lance
not that this is entirely new, but in many Weiler claims that more than 70% of the
ways, this new connective technology is value of entertainment content is to be found
enab ling the audience – like the ‘sisters’ of the in the services and conversations co­created
song – to ‘do it for themselves’, more than around the core of the content itself. it’s what
ever before. While this can lead to sudden the audience members do, say and create
and violent swings of popular opinion, it is as (socialise) around the product you make that
natural as breathing. at the same time, these creates the real value for everyone. Your
connected individuals expect to participate – product and your marketing are primarily of
perhaps not in the active, noisy way of those value only in so far as they create an excuse
adult Lego fans, who are helping the firm’s for the audience to ‘socialise’ around.
management to lead the business away from
bankruptcy; and probably not quite like those
c
.............................................................................
OncLuSiOnS
early twitter users, who shaped that social
media platform by informally inventing the
next time you find yourself thinking about
grammar of ‘tweeting’ and ‘re­tweeting’, and
your audience, please remember this: they’re
who have also served to distribute and market
very different from what we’ve been told –
the service to their friends.
less considered and deliberative and certainly
no, data and experience suggest that only
much more influenced by each other than
a minority in any given population at
even they’d like to admit. more importantly,
any given time are prepared or equipped for
they’re not really an audience in the way
this high level of involvement. Yet, almost eve­
that received wisdom suggests – passive and
ryone resists being treated as a simple, passive
dependent on what you offer. they’re not
recipient of content (branded or
‘listening’ and, to be honest, they’re not yours.
otherwise) and products and services. most
if they’re an audience at all, it’s first and
want to participate in some way, to do so with
foremost for themselves. and therein lies the
each other.
opportunity for marketers.
talent shows such as American Idol and X-
.............................................................................
Factor are tV formats that, by design, encour­
more on audience
age the broader audience to get involved with
engagement at
the programme by interacting with each other. www.warc.com
ADMAP FebruAry 2010
DE 0210_10-11 earls.indd 3 1/22/2010 14:23:08
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