A piece in the Harvard Business Review includes an interesting case study on how the State of Florida leveraged social media to seek influential, non-smoking (and wanting to quit) teenage ‘customers’ to brainstorm ways to reduce the number of teenage smokers.
Written by Bill Lee, president Lee Consulting Group, the feature impresses the importance of “peer influenced-based, community-orientated marketing”. While comments on the piece suggest otherwise, Lee is unequivocal in his message that traditional marketing (in FMCG) is dead and ‘community marketing’ is the way forward.
While pharma has its industry-specific considerations and ethical challenges within its use of social media the feature is an insightful reflection of how important the role of advocates and influencers has (and will) become.
“Get your customer advocates involved in the solution you provide. Perhaps the most spectacular example of this comes from the non-profit world. Some years ago, with the number of teen smokers nation-wide rising to alarming levels, the State of Florida thought anew about its decades-long effort to reduce the problem. What could be more difficult than convincing teen smokers to quit — a problem that Malcolm Gladwell had said couldn’t be solved. Using the techniques for building a community of peer influence, Florida solved it. They sought influential teen “customers” such as student leaders, athletes, and “cool kids,” who weren’t smoking or who wanted to quit — and instead of pushing a message at them, they asked for the students’ help and input.
“The new marketing helps its advocates and influencers create social capital: it helps them build their affiliation networks, increase their reputation and gives them access to new knowledge — all of which your customer influencers crave.”