Mobile, participation and behavior change.
Brands are increasingly building participation into campaigns and the questions over the value of participation, how much prominence it should be given and where it sets within a campaign are worth asking.
However there is a more interesting debate over, how we can move beyond the current perception of the role participation being passive fandom and start to see our consumers more as collaborators, salesforces, promoters and co-creators. The main challenge is getting people to engage with is in a way that doesn’t make them balk at the tasks we set in a participative campaign.
The importance of value in participatory campaigns
Campaigns can achieve meaningful participation by creating value for those whom they asking participate. Whether it’s entertaining content or something that is useful. This is not a revolutionary concept; most paid for traditional media the value transaction is implicitly accepted in that people will tolerate interruptive advertising for cheap or even free media. This dynamic is simply evolving along with the advent of new channels.
Campaigns centred on mobile will be the well positioned to exploit the current evolution of the value transaction. The benefit to the consumer for participation on mobile is potentially greater due to its ability to create relevance through location, temporal targeting and the ability to interact with your immediate surroundings.
How brands get value
Mobile is also well positioned to leverage consumer participation into tangible value for brands; by using external comms to solve business problems by changing the consumer behaviour that underpins the problem. By using technology to change consumer behaviour, it is possible to not just increase demand, but address a whole range of business problems: we can increase supply, improve distribution and increase capacity