What Would You Do If You Were Google?
And Would It Do You Any Good?
“What Would Google Do?” is a book from Jeff Jarvis about how to successfully use the internet and the new media for one’s own good.
Well, I actually don’t. But somehow on your way through the book you may come to the conclusion to adopt some of the approaches for your marketing. Good for you, as a lot of the advice really is that good. Not so good though, if you picked out the things that won’t work for you.
Now how to recognize them is a different story. Let’s start with the most basic issue. The book tells you that with the development of the new media that all rules have become undone and that new rules are in their place. (Jarvis 3) When indeed they haven’t.
We better take a look at one small example here. It’s quick to tell, but not so small in impact. Call it the Dove example. Around 2005 Dove decided to use “real” women to market their products as opposed to the photoshopped beauties of competitive brands. The ad campaign was incredibly successful and instigated world-wide discussion as to the why of it. Huge discussions were there that the old saying of the cosmetics’ industry of “beauty sells” had become inexistent. But going down to the very core of the campaign, the company used beauty to sell. A different kind of beauty, an innate one, but still beauty.
The essential rules in marketing haven’t become undone by the advent of modern media. The only thing that has changed, as demonstrated by the Dove example, is the way the rules are applied. If that’s done in accordance with the modern setting, then fine.
But as you suspect, that’s not the end of the story. It’s not just a case of that. Sometimes a modern application simply doesn’t work for your brand. Why’s that? The key reason is that then things were implemented without respect for the brand essence. That sounds so simple, so I suppose you sit there frowning.
Let’s deal with the frown then. But never forget the brand you want to market. All your activities in the web need to be consistent with its essence. Once you have reached that point in cross-checking this before going ahead, then you can proceed:
Be open to new developments. Use Google, but use it wisely!
Become Googliscious!
Some of the positives in the book will be mentioned in the next blog post
