Marketing as Service Goes Global

I was amused to see an article on iMediaConnection UK called “The New Paradigm: Marketing as Service.” The author, Stuart Maister of UK-based Broadview, notes:

At the recent iMedia Agency Summit in the U.K., I heard two ideas that I think are now among the most powerful in marketing. One, attributed to Simon Andrews of media planners Mindshare was the concept of ‘Branded Utility’. This means providing a service or content to our target market without asking anything directly in return as a way of positioning the brand in the minds of the audience.

The second was the famous quote from Axel Chaldecott at the agency JWT: ‘We’ve got to stop INTERRUPTING what people are interested in and BE what people are interested in!’ …

In summary, what they say is this: if we really understand our target market — I mean really understand our target market — then we should know what is useful and interesting to them. If that is the case, then digital channels allow us to develop content and services to serve these needs in a way which clearly positions our brand as a provider of real service and differentiates it from others who do not.

This was the second time in a 24-hour period that I had heard the words “branded utility” as a euphemism for Marketing as Service. So I did a little homework and found an interesting article in Contagious Magazine called, “The brave new world of branded utility.” Here are some highlights:

So how about brands giving something back? Being useful? Having something interesting to say? How about creating a topic of conversation? Planning guru John Grant recently reminded me of a Stan Rapp quote – ‘Ask not what your customers can do for you, ask what you can do for your customers’.

Welcome to the brave new world of Branded Utility, where brands look to provide a useful service or a helpful application; to give people something they actually need – without demanding an immediate return. Web 2.0 means that it’s never been easier or cheaper to develop applications. A key element is gadgets and widgets – the new, new thing on the web, as people build applications that can be added to your homepage on Google or Microsoft Live or your MySpace page. Widgets are little desktop gizmos that range from a time and date clock to a mini Amazon recommendations page. Useful services, at your fingertips – and catching on fast. Yahoo! is said to be investing heavily in the expansion of their Widget Gallery.

Not all branded utility occurs online. Ideas like Nike Run London (where 35,000 Londoners pay to run 10km in an event organized by Nike) and Innocent’s Fruitstock (a family-friendly music festival in London’s Regent’s Park that is completely paid for by cult smoothie brand Innocent) fit the label – but they’re inherently limited in scale by their physical nature. Tesco’s Computers for Schools scheme gets closer – vouchers given away for free with groceries to be pooled and redeemed against PC hardware.

The good news for this blogger is that it should be a bit easier for me to bring you more and more good examples of Marketing as Service. Call it what you want, the idea is sure to catch on soon.