What is Open-Source Marketing?

What is open-source marketing? That was my question when I found this manifesto at ChangeThis. Aptly titled, yet vague, I was expecting the manifesto to discuss which marketing techniques can help fuel the development and distribution of open-source projects such as Firefox, the Mozilla browser that has taken over almost 30% of IE's market share, and managed to build a cult of followers for its grass-roots marketing campaign.

Alas, I was wrong. Open-source marketing, as described by author James Cherkoff, is kind of like viral-marketing, and encompasses most of the promotional side of marketing.

What is it really though? As I see it, its the change we're seeing from marketing (promotion mostly) taking a "broadcast" message, and instead igniting a fire in its users. It's saying that we can no longer exert even a minimal amount of control of our message and our consumers, but instead can woo them using the values of the Open-Source movement. It's saying that instead of pushing our message on people, marketeers should build upon peoples own interests in the products/ ideas/ messages that we want to push.

One of my own examples of what Cherkoff is getting at is: Collegehumor.com, a "college co-ed" site that practically sells itself to its customer base of college-age men and women who are trying to avoid the everyday boredom of classes, and feed their habits of procrastination. College-humor does little to advertise in the mainstream web hangouts of this crowd, but instead relies on people sharing the site with their friends, and through posts on other various sub-culture sites, bent on the same purpose.

Overall I find Open-Source Marketing, as described by Cherkoff to be a valid argument on where marketing is heading (and where some campaigns are at now). Although not all his examples are right on point, there are some very relative, and recent ones that bring the idea to crystaline clarity.

Blogging is communication, and why Amazon.com should read mine.

I wanted to say quickly how much I love the communication of blogging. As a FastCompany reader I have started to leave comments on their blog. Today I was happy to find a response to my comment posted just minutes after I had posted it myself. The interaction of the web is phenomenal for sharing information and I think having my ideas validated and responded to makes my day.

Below is what I said at FCNow, let me know your thoughts here, or at the FCNow blog.

Has anyone noticed that Amazon has changed its free shipping policy? Although its still a benchmark feature of their shopping experience, they recently (I dont know when) changed the option so that now, even if the item is in stock and ready to ship, they say they will wait 3 days before shipping the item (in addition to its "availability" time) using "free super-saver ground shipping". This is a departure from this option's original value, when Amazon would ship the item when it said it was available (24-36-72 Hours). Its a frustrating change for the customer, and one Amazon hopes will prompt customers to opt for the higher priced shipping options. I for one think its a mistake by Amazon, as 2 weeks ago it took 11 days for me to receive 2 in-stock items from their store.

Barnes and Noble however is reaching in to capture the market of customers who noticed. At Barnes and Noble.com they are guarantee-ing that orders which include free shipping will be delivered within 3 days of leaving B&N. When it comes to getting free shipping on books and media, now whose the leader? An excellent power-play by Barnes & Noble, a not so brilliant strategic move by Amazon.

A perfect example of bad news writing.

US News Article | Reuters.com

I'm sorry, but how do some people get paid to write news articles for Reuters? Reuters (I think the worlds largest news organization) is pretty much letting anyone write for their organization these days. In this article about Gillette's new men's razor the author has succeeded in contributing nothing substantiative, yet released the article anyway.

His title grabs the attention of the reader about a possible new product from Gillette, the makers of the Mach3 and the M3Power series of razors, but his article discloses nothing about the product. The single substantive point of the article is to announce that a new wet razor product is in the works from Gillette, as announced by the company's senior vice-president for strategy and business development. The article goes on to not discuss a release date, to not discuss the name of the product, and to not discuss the new advancements Gillette has acheived. It does however serve as a quintessential example of bad journalism.

Why do I feel so strongly about this? It's because anyone could have told you there was a new product in the works, and they would have been right. They are Gillette. At any moment in time throughout the company's history they have always been developing the next great shaving system for either men or women. It's the company's sole reason for existence. The only thing this writer has acheived is to offer the Gillette company (one of my favorite companies by the way) another piece of absolutely free and useless media [while getting paid to do it].

My only conclusion is that the author should be taking kick-backs from Gillette for writing about them and offering such great publicity. Gillette is quite possibly the second greatest marketing company (product innovator) in the history of the world. It is the company's job to make new wet shaving products, it is the author's job to be a journalist. In this case only one has succeeded in doing their job.

Whats your opinion? Do you agree or disagree with my view?

Gillette "Hair Raising Scheme" Called Into Question Again.

War over Gillette's hair-raising claims

The FairFaxDigital (Sydney Australia Publication) reported last week that the Gillette Company has once again had trouble with a product introduction due to a judge's injunction. Gillette has been barred from using any statements that "micro-pulses raise the hair of the beard off a man's face" in order to cut more closely.

For those of you who don't remember, I covered this issue 1 Month ago when the exact same thing happened to Gillette in its German launch of its advertising campaign. At that time I questioned whether it was a fluke of luck for the attacking Energizer Holdings Company (owner of competitor; Schick), as they attempted to dismantle Gillette's advertising campaign and had randomly gotten lucky. Now it appears that we may see a trend growing, as Energizer has successfully stopped Gillette from using the "micro-pulses" tag-line in any of its Australian advertising.

This could turn out to be very interesting as we see if Energizer is willing to persue the same lawsuit in the U.S.... Gillette's largest and most profitable market for the M3Power razor. For more information, follow this link to the FairFax article.