Crossmedia, Social Networks, Branding and finding new marketing and interaction tools
Hi. It has been a while since I last posted on my blog. Things happened in my private life (my house was declared unlivable due to construction works in the center of Amsterdam). I have been writing a bit and published it at www.crossmedialab.nl. Go check it out. A propos, I’ll post my stuff on this blog and on www.keeswinkel.com again. Hope to hear from you soon.
Kees
Harry van Vliet, Erik Hekman and I have started a summer writing project with the work title ‘The value of social media’. Eventually, this writing will become a cahier, say, a booklet. We work in a wiki. We write in Dutch. The text will be translated in English once we are done.
One of the topics I discuss is business models. In core of business is trade: You have something to sell, I want it, we trade it (when for money, we call this transaction, when for something, barter). You may also refer to this system as needs relationship. Today we also observe a new form of needs relationship, that of Consumer-to-business (C2B). One of the most common definitions of C2B is that this is an e-commerce business model in which consumers offer products and/or services to companies that pay for it. CB is therefore a 180˚ shift of the traditional (B2C) business models. We also call this the inverted business model. Inverted business models emerge under the influence of two main developments:
1- The rise of the current web (web2.0) with keywords such as interaction, participation, transparency and community building has an impact on two-way communication and value web creation (in contrast to the traditional value chain),
2- The downfall of costs of technology. Individuals now have access to technology and applications that used to be restricted to companies due to the costs.
Due to these developments, people are empowered to create their own digital environment. Consequently, (some) people will use that empowerment to also create a certain commercial environment.
Another way to look at C2B can be found in research, conducted by Chen, Leen and Chuang*: “Compared to the three frequently mentioned models: B2B, B2C, and C2C, which are now very popular, the progress of the other one (i.e., C2B) is far left behind; it is seldom seen on the Internet. A possible reason for this situation is the high transaction cost. It takes effort to unify a group of buyers’ common needs and preferences and to interact between the buyer’s party and the potential venders in order to complete a transaction. Moreover, it is not clear how to do it; there is little research into this problem”.
The authors further state that C2B is mainly a matter of collective buying processes, e.g. participating in organized leisure travel; in this case, the consumer will modify his personal whishes because of the lower price that has been negotiated collectively with the offerer.
In his thesis, Alexander Osterwalder states**: “A business model is a conceptual tool that contains a set of elements and their relationships and allows expressing a company’s logic of earning money. It is a description of the value a company offers to one or several segments of customers and the architecture of 
the firm and its network of partners for creating, marketing and delivering this value and relationship capital, in order to generate profitable and sustainable revenue streams”.
Strangely enough, it is hard to find definition of C2B that are not company-centered but more consumer-centered. Currently I am conducting a literature study of, what I would like to call, ‘real’ C2B: consumers proposing to businesses, specifically in social media. We’ll see what the values are
* An agent-based model for consumer-to-business electronic commerce, National Sun Yat-Sen University, Taiwan, October 2006.
** The business model ontology, a proposistion in a design science approach, University of Lausanne, 2004.
Niniane Veldhoen and Matthijs Rotte have finished their research on mentalities. That is, they have delivered their paper before the deadline (Friday, 13 June 2008, 17.00). In believe that 6 months of research have led to a list of mentalities which is a very useful tool for further research. Niniane and Matthijs are among the first to graduate in the readership.
Nininane and Matthijs’s theme is ‘A matter of mentality’ and I am proud to say that the two have done a remarkable job. All that is left for them at this moment is undergo their ‘defense session’, as we call it at the faculty. On July 4th, they will have to defend their writings. An ‘assessor’ will ask them difficult questions after they have presented their case.
I have agreed with Niniane and Matthijs that I will not publish the list – and include an analysis and give some remarks – until they have done their defense (it could influence the assessor as my judgment over the work high that I am very happy).
One thing I can publish here is Nininane and Matthijs’s improvement of the IMAB model. There has been discussion about it with Harry van Vliet questioning whether the current model is depicting a linear system. The outcome of this discussion is that the parts of the system are valid but most certainly not linear; The individual parts – Identity, Mentality, Attitude and Behavior influence each other.
I wish Niniane and Matthijs good luck on the 4th of July and hope to do a lot more work with them.
Henny de Vos and Timber Haaker, two senior researcher of the Dutch Telematica Instituut will publish a book at Springer this month June, 2008, about a new and quite innovative business modeling approach called STOF. STOF stand for Service, Technology, Organization and Finance and offers a comprehensive way of modeling 
your business. Henny and Timber were so kind to treat the research group with a workshop on the topic. I’m happy to say that not just research fellows attended class but also a number of our faculty colleagues (sorry to say that no students showed up). During our session, we’ve had the change to sneak preview the book and, to be honest, I can’t wait till it is published as I believe that the material is very relevant, also in terms of value creation in cross media. I believe that the STOF approach is very well suited for the things I’m working on: “What is the influence of cross media on the relationship between ‘consumers’ and ‘organizations’?”
As Niniane Veldhoen and Matthijs Rotte are approaching their deadline for their dissertation (their work on ‘mentality and share of voice’ is on schedule), we came across the question of earning logics in cross media. I took upon the task of finding out. That is not a simple job. Of course, we have Anderson and Rappa. But is that enough? Is there a comprehensive list of earning logics, not business models? The STOF approach may help me clear the job the next couple of days and I have set upon the task of focusing on the ‘F’, the Financial domain as earning logics are normally situated in it. I say normally because I question if all earning logics deal with finance.
The Henley Centre taught us about six years ago at the Mobile Marketing Association gathering that money is not the only scarcity people have to their availability when exchanging products and services. Time, energy and space are as relevant as money is. But time, energy and space cannot be expressed in hard cash. This made me think about earning logics from a different perspective. What is the offerer of products and services doesn’t focus on getting money as a barter but instead the consumer’s time or energy or space? But for the sake of simplicity, I will start by trying to compose a list of earning logics that deal with money as means of transaction.
We often confuse business modeling with earning logics. STOF shows us that earnings (financial domain) is just one of four domains. So now my question: Can you help me with ideas, articles, whatever to cook up that list of earning logics? I’d be obliged and pretty soon, I will publish the list on this blog. Hope to hear from you.
Scanning my way through the march issue of Wired magazine, I came across an article called ‘Free. Why $0,00 is the future of business’ by Chris Anderson, editor in chief and esteemed author of ‘The Long Tail’. Somewhere in 2009, Chris will publish his next book ‘Free’ and already I can’t wait for it to read it. Chris has a remarkable talent for unveiling and connotating latent and lingering economical issues. I recommend reading the article for those who study cross media as I believe that earning logics and cross media walk side by side.
So, what’s the crux of Chris’ new observations? Well, roughly Anderson distinguishes a taxonomy of the ‘freeconomy’ with six entities; freemium, advertising, cross-subsidies, zero marginal costs, labor exchange and gift economy. This line up is easily explained.
Freemium is one of the most common earning logics online. Anderson refers to the 1% rule in which one percent of the users of a site or service, pay for the other 99%. Just think of all the premium offers like 
FlickR or, in the Netherlands, Hyves. You may want to pay for extra services but basically, the service is free of charge. Anderson states that this logics look pretty much like the tool of sampling but at the same time there is a difference. This is that the freemium is about a digital full service and sampling (perfume, candy bars) are miniature products. We can use FlickR forever.
Advertising is nothing new. However, today we distinguish different logics in advertising. Not anymore does the advertiser need to pay for a space in a medium. Now advertisers pay per action (pay per page view, pay per click, pay per transaction; affiliate marketing). And further on in time, paid inclusion in search results, paid listing, pay per lead, pay per post (product placement) and pay per connection. These tools try to infiltrate in social media and social networks.
Cross-subsidies is an old marketing trick. You give away something for free but only if you buy something else. Think of getting a free ticket to a movie if you buy a big bag of popcorn. Ryanair, another example Anderson mentions, offers flights from London to Barcelona for $20. The costs are $70. How do they do it? The answer is simple; Ryanair charges for everything else (catering, credit card handling fee, priority boarding, advertising exposure per flight hour and subsidies from more expensive flights. Smart thinking. People obviously believe that they only pay those $20 and spoof of the other $50.
Zero marginal costs is the earning logics that deals with stuff like P2P. The music industry will never have control of its output anymore, no matter what legal regulations it pushes on consumers. Music, like any other type of digital content can be distributed for neglectable costs. This type of industry will just have to find new earning logics. A couple of years ago, I met John Perry Barlow, one of the then internet gurus and former songwriter of The Grateful Dead. He told a story about illegal recordings of the cult band. Kids would record the concerts. Of course, the quality was awful. The record label wanted nothing of the sort and intensified security at the gates of the concert halls. The outcome was that the concerts were running empty. Then the band decided that recording was allowed. The results were spectacular. More people came to the concerts and more records were sold. I guess Grateful Dead were one of the first bands to recognize that their earning logics were based on something else than the dictatorship of the labels.
Labor exchange is about value creation of services. You, as a user, create value to the owners of a certain site (Anderson talks about bots and porn but also about Google’s free directory service 411. The value created is either (or) improving the service itself or creating information that can be useful somewhere else. So, if you are into free porn, be sure to know that your data are used (maybe to spam you with doubtful Viagra offers).
Gift economy is Anderson’s sixth entity in his taxonomy. Anderson talks about altruism and that is correct. There has always been altruism, regardless of what level of capitalism we have currently. Sharing was the magic word that we believed in when WWW (and even before) was first unveiled. And still we cannot comprehend the value creation of this tool, let alone measure it. Perhaps our research group should dig into this (taking Erik Hekman’s efforts to determine parameters for value creation into consideration, I guess we are already doing it).
Professor Michael Rappa at MIT has listed business models on the web. His comprehensive list shows similarity with Anderson’s taxonomy. His list consists of
· Brokerage
· Advertising
· Infomediary
· Merchant
· Manufacturer (direct)
· Affiliate
· Community
· Subscription
· Utility
I strongly recommend the reader to have a look and start converging the ideas of Anderson and Rappa. Of course Anderson talks about free – gratis – services and products a consumer can obtain through digital media. Some of Anderson’s earning logics are consumer driven (empowerment, permissive marketing; pull) and Rappa’s conclusions are more producer driven. Let’s see if we can observe even more earning logics currently not unveiled yet.
May 4 is a very important day, specifically at 20.00. This day we commemorate all those who died or suffered the unbelievable ordeals of wars and other human crime since world war 2. I live in Amsterdam and today my wife and I went to Dam square. We hurried to be there in time. At eight o’clock the whole country respects two minutes silences. The queen, her prince of Orange, his wife and many officials were at the Dam, along with veterans (old and young), boy and girl scouts, assisting the old men and women who fought for our freedom and, I don’t know, perhaps three thousand ordinary people (I really don’t know how many people fit Dam square, but it’s a lot). Dam square was full as it had never been before.
Then there was the announcement. The officials appeared on stage to place the floral wreaths. First the queen. Then two minutes of silence. WHAT A SILENCE. All those people completely quiet. The silence of identity? I am glad to believe so because I feel so.
From my professional point of view, I experienced a cross media event I have never experienced before because I was right in the middle of it and I was into it (touched). We stood in front of a hugh screen that showed us all that was going on at the foot of the national monument, a mere thirty meters away but unreachable because of the crowd in fornt of us. Tears, wreaths, decorations. True emotions, some sentiment. Honesty. Impressiveness. Silence, that intense silence. I couldn’t help thinking about my own dad who had been professionally engaged in at least 20 wars after worldwar 2 (he came out of it as a 13 year old kid and served his life as an officer, he used call himself a peace officer. And so he was.). Other thoughts. My mother and her family, liberated by the Scottish (my aunt married my now uncle John from Perth right after the war). Current warfare. Dutch kids fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Fucking wars; nobody has ever given me any good reason to kill others. WHY?.
Professional again: big screens, life bobo appearances, real emotions and a crowd that was quite, collaboratively. Very quite. I would say that we experienced our identity at Dam square. We were all one, regardless of our color of skin, color of eyes, religion or any other outside characteristics that make us all unique, but better, make us an identifiable group of people who shares common values an culture.
What an experience. Cross media in its fullest and content that I experienced as real. Tomorrow is May 5. We will celebrate our victory over tyranny and our freedom.
Guess I am touched by momentary feelings. Guess I want wars to stop. Guess we can help by studying what people drive and how they communicate.
Again I was walking the dog and came up with an interesting thought. I was contemplating on my thesis – Harry and I are working on it, as it will be my ultimate research goal for the next couple of years. The current title is “What is the influence of cross media on the relationship between consumer and company? And/or, how does the relationship between consumer and company change under influence of cross media?” Somewhere along the thinking path, I came across 180˚. For me this seems quite obvious. The questions above imply a certain C2B; consumer to business approach.
C2B Is probably a new thought. I got the idea from Harry who gave me “Brand to community” and in our talks, it became clear that there is a tendency of consumers shifting their paradigms to receiving them to giving propositions to brands, companies, organizations. We all know the old B2C marketing and we even understand that there is a C2C; consumers to consumers, telling the world about their favorite brands. But consumers telling brands what they want – giving propositions to brands – that’s new.
I set upon the task of worming myself into these thoughts and came up with the work title 180˚. I can identify certain weak signals that consumers want to tell the brands what they expect of them. It’s not so new. The automotive industry enables individual buyers to adjust their car to their own standards. Nike and K-Swiss offer people to personalize their sneakers. And, as far as I am concerned, this trend is just the beginning of what I now call 180˚. Everything will change.
In my book Vision, Mission, Compassion, I talked about the rotation dynamics in society. And now I see that those words, given by Hans Dijkstra, are becoming reality. The rotation dynamics, or better Dynamics of Rotation is: explained as follows: Normally, the dynamics of rotation in the triad of the Mission is clockwise, from Master plan to Requirements to Concept, unless we reverse directions, i.e. move from Concept to Requirements. This dynamics – moving reversely – is hardly ever practised in organisations currently. Organisations and the people who operate within them commonly remain in the vicious circle of rules and regulations. This results in over-regulation, both in our organisations as it does in society; rule after rule (Requirements) is apparently needed to structure our living together (in broader terms, our Doing (Concept) until people are fed up by over-regulation and will, mostly collaborately, protest en act: reverse the dynamics. This dynamics of reversal will not move to Requirements but to Kernel, the start of the next phase, that of Participation. We make a very relevant reverse move; from Concept to Kernel. Kernel is the first foundation of the compassion statement. This reverse in dynamics is in fact the move we make from the Planning phase (Master plan, Requirements, Concept) to the Participation phase (Kernel, Targets, Identity). Thus, this reverse dynamics is a true milestone in the processes of Communicative Strategy.
If you have not read the book, this may sound abracadabra. No sweat. What it means is that people are constantly fed with new rules, ideas, thoughts, you name it. What happens is that we don’t see the benefit anymore. There is no added value in new things around us, whether they are rules or new things. We seem to accept new things as a given fact. But instead, we react to all these changes in a way nobody seems to be able to anticipate on; we act differently. We do so by turning things around. 180˚ in a constant pace, just like we fill a bucket with drops of water time after time, until it flows over; the tipping point.
I believe that one of the most important factors of this collaborative behavior comes from being given the opportunity to be informed and actually do something with the information given through modern media; we know so much more than before there were cross media. This idea implies that cross media (the new ones, I must insist) actually change our behavior. Let’s find out.
Every year there is an intercultural festival called Crossing Cultures. It offered by two faculties, Economy & Society – our neighbors – and our ‘s, Communication and Journalism. Our research group was asked to conduct a workshop and I took the task upon me, along with my graduates Niniane Veldhoen and Matthijs Rotte. They are researching mentalities and are progressing significantly. Although we only had six participants – women only – the feedback was good and we have learned a lot. Our aim was to test our research tools that we will use when we go public and ask approximately 300 people (as a first batch) to participate in our research.
After having introduced the topic ‘Go Mental’, we went to work. First of all, the participants had to rank a list of 25 statements that touch mentalities. Niniane and Matthijs put the results in an Excel sheet. Quite an amazing outcome. The mental attitude of the female colleagues ranked high in the desire to be independent and low on wanting to be rich.
The second exercise focused on the participants’ individual mapping of their mentality(ies) by means of six contradictory statements on a gliding scale. Although the participants enjoyed the exercise, we 
understood that the contents of the tool needs refinement. No problem. I am happy we have tested it.
The third little exercise went as follows. We used the same gliding scale and statements but now showed three times three brands. The workshoppers now had to determine the ‘mentalities’ of those brands.
If As I said, the feedback right after the workshop was very well. People really liked the topic and were interested in our research. May 22, all students working with the research group will present their work to the regular members of the group. After this meeting, I will post extensively about our mentality project. Meanwhile, I’ll keep you posted with bits of info.
I would really like to thank Niniane and Matthijs for their good work and commitment.
Questing ‘Tap-in’ strategies, I stumbled upon this article about brandtopias. Although it was published in 2002, I believe it has quite some relevance to my research. Currently, I am trying to define my research question. As my lector, Harry van Vliet, put it: “you’ve got slides two till eighty pretty much in your head, now where’s slide one?” Well, it all boils down to my working title: King client. I’ll be writing about it later. Here’s the article which I found on Harvard Business School’s Working Knowledge.
“Customers value some of the most powerful brands in the world primarily for their “cultural value”: They provide imaginative resources that people use to build their identities” say Harvard Business School’s professor Douglas Holt.
These are what Holt terms identity brands—and their market power cannot be attributed to the usual suspects of success: superior business models or cutting edge technology.
Holt is interested in what makes identity brands resonate. In his research, he focuses on the best-performing identity brands—the top 5 percent that have been extraordinarily successful with customers over long periods of time.
What’s the secret of long-running megabrands such as Mountain Dew, Nike, and Budweiser? The magical sweet spot when a brand delivers imaginative stories that are perfectly attuned to society’s desires.
His new research, which he discussed with HBS faculty at a marketing seminar on May 8, is part of a forthcoming book that focuses on identity brands that deliver extraordinary customer value over time.
The most powerful brands are those that are able to transverse disruptive cultural shifts.
— Douglas Holt
“I’m interested in a question that I don’t think we ever really ask or address well, which is, ‘How does customer value work over time?’ How is cultural value created; how is it maintained; how is it destroyed?’”
With the strategic importance of brands climbing, understanding how certain brands achieve so much power in the marketplace is at the center of much discussion. The advice most often provided to managers is to weave the brand into the most potent popular culture trends. Recently, consultants and ad agencies began emphasizing the reverse: recommending that managers seek out the essential “DNA” of the brand. Many brands pursue these two models and do fine, says Holt.
I believe in social media. I can see the virtues, the connectivity, the creation of your own content and share it with others. To share. If we share, we can learn from each other, we can relate. That’s all true. Yet, I now have experienced the downside of it all. People can be true monsters.
The Dutch Hyves, similar to MySpace, offers all who want to create a profile. Any profile. Recently, I was pointed to a Hyves page that focuses on trying to harm my son. The page is done by three youngsters who hate him. Can you believe it? I am shocked. Normally I never talk about my personal life but as this phenomenon has now entered the intimacy of my family’s living room, I strongly believe that the broad discussion on mental aggression in social media must be intensified.
Hyves has a protocol on this issue, one that may well be stronger than local legislation but with over five million members in the Netherlands (with a total population slightly over 16 million), the company has a hard time living up to its promises of their quest to eliminate this kind of trash.
