Creating Creating Moments

How can marketers face up to the opportunities and challenges of the networked consumer?

Up to now, the focus has been to build large followings or fanbases, often through the trivial device of competitions, stunts and the self-defeating "RT to win". It's interruptive advertising, reframed for the social age. No wonder the dialogue is moving to private channels, like WhatsApp and SnapChat.

But this misses the point. Today's networked consumers are expecting marketers to be more relevant, more personalised and more respectful. And equally, their socialised semi-public lives make it easier for the marketer to serve them.

First, consumers are providing context. On Twitter and other platforms, we express our interests, opinions and passions. Second, they are constantly connected carrying an a smart device close to 24/7, whose capabilities exceed those of the professional creators a mere generation ago. Third, they are creative. More than 5 billion photos are shared each day on social networks. More than 50m people write blogs. More than 100m of us have written a travel review on TripAdvisor alone.

For marketers, what an opportunity. The socially networked consumer provides:

• An alternative to market research. Why survey, when you can observe?
• An alternative to expensive professional production. Why exclusively produce content, when you can facilitate content and conversation from your customers?
• An alternative to buying distribution. Why not get reach through cascading word-of-mouth?

But how? The creating moment

One way is to create creating moments. Figure out what things prompt an authentic response (of delight, engagement, attention) from your customers; and respectfully provide it to them.

• It's Oreo turning a blackout into an event about their brand.
• It's John Lewis turning us to tissues and twitter each Christmas
• It's Burberry bringing the street's creators and stylish together in The Art of The Trench

Today it relies on a spark of genius with a human touch; the intuition of Don Draper with the authenticity of Richard Branson.

But each day, for each brand and every audience, there is an opportunity to create a "creating moment", your own Oreo moment, your own Art of the Trench.

Some moments may be smaller than Oreo's triumph but in the back-and-forth taking place in your network, your audience's affinities and their preferences let themselves be known.

What does it take to create creating moments?

• Observing not monitoring - You need to observe and understand your customers, the way a shop-keeper knows and understands their customers. Today's monitoring strategies ('listen out to people who mention my brand') can help during crisis, but really, who talks about their gas supplier, other than to complain?
• Context not counting - Understand your customer's context, their points of tension, their triggers, and their value. Social data lets you understand a customer's psychological traits, but also predict their spending, their likely support for your brand and their ability to influence others in your category.
  
• Processes & people not bullets & buying - Your creative execution isn't a one shot. It needs to be a process because the dialogue won't stop, after the cookie has been retweeted. The "math men" will need support from those with softer, more human skills. And in turn, you'll need processes and systems that help your brand deal with the inevitable sarcasm that any real conversation can trigger.

Why you need to do this

Your customers are now networked creators. They produce more output and distribute it further than the traditional media industry. They trust their peers more than they trust organisations. The willingly express their preferences on dozens of social platforms.

Today's consumer has refreshingly higher demands - and concomitantly higher payback when you get the dialogue right.

You can follow me on twitter (@azeem) where I occasionally might say interesting things.