Morgan Spurlock gives a pretty interesting TED talk on some of his experiences trying to get companies to fund his new movie, “The Greatest Movie Ever Sold” 100% with product placement. But the kicker is the movie is about product placement and they don’t have any say how the movie will end up portraying them.
http://www.ted.com/talks/morgan_spurlock_the_greatest_ted_talk_ever_sold.html
Aside from the points Morgan brings up at the end about companies allowing their employees to take more risks, I think there are a couple of interesting observations that can be made from the interactions he shows.
First, companies are still deathly afraid to give up the control of their brand image. On the surface this makes sense, it’s scary to think you don’t or can’t influence the way your company is portrayed to your customers. This is Marketing 101 for these people. However, the reality of the situation is that nobody has real control of their own brand now. Between 24 hour news networks and the social power of the internet, one slip up and your brand image is now in control of the masses. This isn’t going to change any time soon so I think the best way for companies to combat this is simply to provide a quality product and listen to their customers. If this is done the marketing takes care of itself.
Part of the reason this is so important is because the Internet has lowered the cost of reaching customers as well as reducing the switching costs for these customers to try a new product. It’s also made it easy for people to comment on the quality of these products. These reviews make many consumers more comfortable with purchasing products that have less familir brand names. With the mulititude of quality products that are generally on the market today and how easy it is for people to find them, I think the brand name is going to become less influential in purchasing decisions. Look at how Visio was able to capture a big portion for the flat panel TV market against companies like Sony and Panasonic that have been in business for a long time.
So that’s the scary part of it, there is a flip side. The beauty of the new world is if you provide this quality product and listen to your customers, they will do a lot of your marketing for you. This is true in a large number of industries, anything from cars to cloths to professional services. This marketing can end up in the form of positive product reviews or if you are very good you’ll have a rabid community of fans (see Apple). Once you are able to build this community, not only will they recommend your products but they will also defend you when things don’t go so well(assuming this is an anomaly).
I know this may sound a little simplistic, but it’s the reality of the new world we live in and the companies that embrace this will be the ones that thrive in the future.
The other point he brings up, which is mostly related to the previous but worth mentioning anyway is transparency. Part of the film will be to show how the whole process of procut placement works. Let the viewers see how certain products end up in the television and movies that they watch. This again comes illustrates the hunger for control, but people are going to have to realize that in the near future (if we aren’t already there), there will be very minimal secrets. Everyone has a camera on their phone if not a camcorder. Documents and conversations will be fair game. Look at wikileaks and what information it was able to provide in a short period of time. If you think that sort of thing is going away, you are crazy.
The downside is obviously company secrets being leaked can hurt a company’s value. The potential positive side-effect would be that others can innovate off of previously private information. I won’t get into the debate on if this is overall a good thing or bad thing because strong arguments could be made for each side. Again, this is simply going to be a reality that people will have to deal with so you may as well embrace it and figure out the best way to build value in this type of environment before it is too late.
