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Rich and Judy

This week, Neoco attended a WOMUK Expresso Briefing about why marketing should now be aimed at finding and engaging the “adfluentials”. The starting point of the discussion was a consideration of effective marketing in an environment where the brand-consumer relationship is increasingly complex. For one thing people are discerning between products and services with reference to new sources of authority. Online, peer reviews are becoming more important than any direct marketing. Even in traditional media people are listening to TV personalities for non-expert guidance. Publishers need to understand the Richard and Judy effect as much as fashion lines need to understand what Gok Wan will do to their industry. In terms of digital, however, these new sources of credibility are even more important for two reasons; firstly advocates and detractors a-like can get their voices heard easily, without regulation; and secondly they can be more easily engage with by brands, creating a real two way conversation.

To effectively get a message out there marketers need to identify and work with the people that have the greatest potential to influence others but who also are passionate about the brand or at least the sector.
These are the “adfluentials” and they already want to be found. Engaging with adfluentials in the first instance should ensure a more natural, relevant word of mouth reach. This allows brands to reach
their target audience in an organic way. From these ideas the issue that arises for me, someone starting out in marketing, is how active agencies need to be to achieve this. Surely working with influential brand advocates is about listen – taking a more passive role to empower consumers. And at the end of the day isn’t
this just a case of handing over more power to the consumers. Great if you have a cool brand, or a really solid product, but potentially a way to come across as pandering or directionless or even a way to open up
to more criticism. If this model becomes the predominant way of approaching marketing campaigns, agencies will have to consider brand strength and whether a product will genuinely stand up to scrutiny
before working with it.

Maybe we are generally moving towards a more honest approach to what the customer can add to the discussion. What is more, empowering people that want to have a dialogue with your brand doesn’t have to mean tipping the balance away from internally driven vision. Listening, after all, really means listening to the right people – finding ways to align brand vision and consumer needs. Involving highly targeted people
in the first stage of a campaign has certainly proved successful for Neoco’s clients, and even across brands that don’t have an immediate ‘coolness’ grab. It also seems that this approach is a great way to dissipate negative word of mouth.