Marketing to Yourself

You know how irritating it is to be on the receiving end of all those marketing messages? E-mails, television ads, banner ads, print ads, etc. etc.

Well, you may have no one to blame but yourself. The LA Times has an interesting story titled "Advertising's new reality: Consumers now market to themselves," which notes that successful advertising firms have found new and improved ways to get you, yes You, to do their advertising for them.

From Cadillac owners taking pictures of themselves with their cars to the consumer-developed Doritos advertising campaign, we are all taking our favorite brands and promoting them to our friends, neighbors and perfect strangers.

One really interesting example is the "willitblend" site, where consumers are encouraged to provide their own videos of interesting things being blended -- from baseballs to light bulbs to "real" things, like smoothies. Of course, the site makes it clear that no one should really try to blend a baseball by themselves at home -- that's just something that happens in the BlendTec lab. When you click on the site, you're presented with options for things you can try at home and things you really shouldn't try at home.

Yeah right -- how much do you want to bet that the "do not try this at home" link is clicked far more often than the "try this at home" link?

At any rate, the key point here is that savvy advertisers and their clients understand that consumers want to engage in brand development and promotion. Maybe they want to be involved for the wrong reasons (self-promotion for example), but they want to be involved. So let's let them!