Market Research Society

Annual Conference, 2009

www.mrs.org.uk

You've Got a Friend: Measuring the Value of Brand Friending on Social Networks
Joseph Webb and Bob Burgoyne TNS THE SOCIAL WEB: PAST, PRESENT & FUTURE Social networks effectively act as personal web pages which may be linked to and viewed by friends, contacts or even the whole internet population. They allow people to undertake a range of activities including the exchange of messages, the uploading and accessing of photos, videos and music and the publicising of upcoming events and activities. In fact, the success of a distributed computer network as a communication tool and a platform of community stretches back even further than the internet itself with the creation of ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network), taking place in 1968. The directors of the program, J.C.R. Licklider and R. Taylor, predicted the popularity of on-line interactive communities [as] communities not of common location, but of common interest1 something which has driven the success of MySpace, with its focus on music, and YouTube2 with the tagline 'Broadcast Yourself', in particular. Many social networks are leading players in the online world; both Facebook and MySpace are in the top 10 most popular websites in the world today whilst many other sites with social characteristics such as YouTube and Yahoo also feature. A TNS USA study in 2007 found that once social network use was adopted, it became the preferred choice for spending '15 minutes of free time':

The social web is being further extended as initiatives such as Google et al's 'Open Social' program aim to link separate social networks together as well as with other forms of website allowing individuals to have a single online profile on any website they visit meaning all forms of website can build communities or networks of these individuals should they wish to do so. MONETISATION Despite this legacy and continued popularity, evident today in both the size of their respective user bases and in the number of site visits that social networks achieve, they have arguably failed to monetise to full effect. The predominant web business model is based on an exchange of goods, services or social capital in return for attention, not money. Google, for example, has become the largest player in the online world by offering essential navigation free at point of need, the cost of which is more than offset by giving advertisers targeted access to huge numbers of individuals who are, by definition, already looking for something. With membership free and open to all, social networks are similarly reliant on advertising as the major revenue stream. This bloodstream of attention, however, is guaranteed for social networks as facilitators of communication between peers, not with brands. Social networks are not search engines, they are not used by people searching for products (and hence open to relevant advertising), but by people communicating with others. They are therefore not as fertile an environment for pay-per-click banner ads but may be for other, subtler forms of advertising. As playful, social and interactive arenas they offer new opportunities to brands3 and indeed the medium itself can play a large part in the message4. In an attempt to benefit from this, some brands have set up their own profiles or instigated communities in an attempt to interact and engage with users. This process (known as 'friending') is aimed at claiming some of this attentionbased currency and monetising it by allowing users to engage deeply with a brand and/or spread its messages through the network via 'word of mouse' at little cost to the brand themselves. Due to the customisable nature of the medium, friending campaigns can take many forms but can be loosely classified based on three approaches.
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The first and most subtle targets users' own profiles as advertising real estate. Many brands have been able to piggyback on users'

profiles by offering opportunities to customise using the brands logos; Lynx has done this particularly successfully and has over 8,000 users displaying Lynx 'skins' as the backdrop to their own profiles on Bebo. On Facebook, users can become fans of brands, which enables them to give their own personal seal of approval to any brand that deserves it and then display this seal on their profiles in order to gain from association with the chosen brand. Coca Cola has benefited from this more than any other, with a current total of around 2.7 million individuals stating they are fans of the brand.
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The second, and more interactive, involves brands setting up their own profiles or representational avatars. These have been used particularly successfully by bands and pop stars to attract and engage with their fans (Kanye West has over 784,000 friends on MySpace) but seem to have been used less successfully by brands overall. The third technique involves the brand acting as channel owner rather than content provider. Communities and groups have been set up by some brands, providing their brand advocates or 'friends' with arenas to meet and discuss. In other cases these communities have been set up by the advocates themselves and merely listened to by brands; it has passed into marketing folklore that Cadbury's re-introduced its Wispa chocolate bar in response to the overwhelming support and demand for it manifested in a Facebook fan group. Brands with less of a natural base of advocates have offered branded experiences, games or other incentives in return for an individual spending some time (either advertently or otherwise) in the presence of some key messages. The website for the whiskey 'Jim Beam' offers desktop wallpapers, videos of its latest adverts and even an electronic beam bag throwing game, all of which may be reasons to spend time with the brand.

Despite such efforts, however, many advertisers still see online friending campaigns, as a new and therefore essentially experimental medium in comparison to more traditional methods. The uncertainty surrounding the new medium can be illustrated by a comparison with traditional channels. For TV and other traditional media channels, research provides carefully monitored exposure ratings (TVRs for example) in order to give an accurate picture of the number of potential viewings an advertisement is likely to receive at any given time. It is these ratings that are used as the industry currency; ads are paid for on a potential per viewing basis. The objective for advertisers is to make an ad that has a positive effect in terms of brand awareness, image and desire to buy on each targeted individual. They then pay for it to be seen by as many target individuals as the budget allows in order to maximise the success of the campaign (Fig. 1).

Figure 1: Television Advertising In contrast, advertisers have three objectives to meet with a friending campaign. The first, as discussed, is to have a friending request, invite or 'hook' worthy of an individual's attention in order to ensure they agree or opt-in to the campaign. The second is the same with traditional media, to positively influence each individual about the brand who views it or takes part in the friending exercise. The third is arguably the most important, brands must empower and encourage individuals to pass on the invite or show-off the message to other users as they can spread the word in no other way. The perfect positive correlation that exists in the world of TVRs between spending and potential viewings is therefore far from perfect online. Increased spending online does not necessarily guarantee increased ad exposure. As successful advertising on social networks is more reliant on the appeal of the friending campaign than on the size of the chequebook there have been as many advertising failures online as there have been successes. Coca Cola, it has been mentioned, may have millions of Facebook 'fans' but Andrex, however, has just 13. The triangle in Fig. 2 shows a possible (positive) relationship between spending and exposure as the latter increases at an exponential rate to the former. The brand profile or campaign may be positively influencing each participant with regard to the brand as well as encouraging them to spread the word throughout the network at the touch of a button. In many cases, however, this relationship has been reversed, as per Figure 3, with large budgets doing little to encourage users to pass messages on and thereby failing to improve exposure. Furthermore, because of the interactive, co-created nature of most friending campaigns, brands cannot prevent participants posting negative comments about the brand (as they do on Coke's profile on Facebook), or even setting up alternative anti-brand profiles in the same environment (e.g. the killer coke Facebook group). In such a manner can a brand's efforts to leverage social media motivate others to hi-jack or counteract these efforts (for example, environmentalists' successful hi-jack of Chevrolet's competition to create ads for their SUVs).

Figure 2: Successful Social Network Advertising

Figure 3: Unsuccessful Social Network Advertising It is this great disparity between successful and unsuccessful friending campaigns that demands our attention. Research must provide the metrics, insight and information necessary to succeed in this new arena, just as it does with the old. Far from acting as a guide in this new landscape, research may even have created a barrier, providing such well developed and well benchmarked results for traditional forms of campaign that the idea of employing new campaign techniques without these metrics is deeply unattractive to advertisers. Whilst we may provide a strong industry currency with which to meter a brand's spend on traditional media channels, such as through BARB or the NRS for example, there is no official equivalent for friending campaigns and it is perhaps this lack of control that has prevented many brands from experimenting so far. As Peter Chernin, Fox Entertainment Group's Chief Executive Officer, has explained: It's still difficult to quantify the economic value of a friend in the social media space, particularly with advertisers who have long histories with which they value their spends on TV and on radio5 A look at the changing nature of the media landscape, suggests that it may be all the more important that this information is provided in future and, as an industry, it is up to us to do so. THE CHANGING MEDIA LANDSCAPE Consumers today have more choice in terms of how, when and where they consume content than they ever did before, and increasingly this is spanning more media channels than just the web. Hundreds of television channels, on-demand access to content and the ability to record, pause and then fast forward 'live' television mean advertisers have found it far harder to reach the mass audiences of yesteryear. Even within channels, there is an ever-growing range of activities vying for consumers' attention. As the online arena in general, and social networks in particular, fit into several classifications media channel, marketplace, a tool of communication and so forth the line between traditional models of media consumption and other activities has blurred even further. Shall I read the news or send a message to a friend? Watch an episode of a favoured series or browse some shops? All can now be done online from the same armchair. Whereas 30 years ago, brands could capture a substantial portion of this 'armchair time' through the only available commercial TV station of the time, the same approach would not yield the same results today. The video games industry for example, has been expanding rapidly in recent years and offers yet another way people can spend their armchair time in a more active fashion than passively viewing TV. Advertisers have had to work harder for the same level of reach, to the extent that 'in-game' advertising is now an industry in its own right. (Bartlett, Griffiths Badiani, 2008)

Even when consumers are watching TV, just as they always have done, they may increasingly now be surfing the net simultaneously or switching-off, switching-over or forwarding through ad breaks now that technological advances have made it so easy to do so (we also know that even when actually watching TV ads, viewers can opt out by adopting mental strategies to avoid consciously seeing them (Gordon & Ryan 1983, Bond and Brace 1997)). It is now possible, preferable (for most individuals) and therefore probable that consumers are spending less time in front of the traditional ad channels, and paying less attention when they do. But while this fragmentation of the media environment and increasing consumer control over what they view is only now slowly occurring in the context of television, in the online sphere, this has always been the case. The reduced distribution costs of the online medium mean that tastes may be catered for on an individual level with an almost endless choice of websites and pages within sites. This 'long-tail'6 of choice, coupled with the power to search for exactly what is of interest, means audiences online are fragmented to a much greater degree than offline. It could therefore be argued that television is now slowly migrating to the paradigm which has always existed online (and indeed is itself moving online). This revolution will force advertisers to re-think their traditional strategies, and indeed old methodologies of measuring audiences will become obsolete. It is in this context that advertisers will turn to concepts which originally only applied to the web, and conceptualise the whole media space in a similar way. As ad consumption on all media channels becomes increasingly opt-in, it is likely that advertisers' hesitancy about friending campaigns will reduce and indeed, insights in this arena may well come to have application in the traditional (albeit modified) media also. THE CHALLENGE OF OPT-IN One way to think about the shift in the media landscape is provided by Seth Godin, who describes advertising that requires an individual to opt-out as interruption marketing7, based on interrupting consumers as they go about their daily lives. This is the traditional advertising of interruptive ad breaks on TV. In contrast, Permission Marketing8 (requiring that consumers opt-in) is, by design, far more effective. By requesting this opt-in, for example, brands can ensure the relevancy of their messages. As only those for whom it is relevant will opt in they are far more likely to be able to cut through the clutter. With so much background noise, Godin continues, it is far more preferable to focus on engaging with those who find your product, brand and messages relevant than it is to have these same messages fall on deaf ears, regardless of the number of deaf ears it is possible to reach.9 The aim of Permission Marketing is to build a relationship between brands and consumers in order to sell, not a single product on a single occasion, but a range of products throughout the duration of this relationship, with the opt-in, or even a movement towards this opt-in seen as valuable in itself. With this focus on incremental steps rather than a giant leap, dialogue is vital in providing the information necessary to better target each of their consumers on an increasingly personal, relevant and engaging basis. Just as dialogue improves the relationship, the improved relationship allows for more dialogue and this self-perpetuating nature hints at huge potential. The work of Fournier similarly points towards meaningful relationships between consumers and brands as valuable entities in themselves.10 As technology has made it easier for consumers to opt-out of traditional, interruptive advertising, it has also made it easier for brands to offer opportunities to opt-in to Permission-based techniques. The concept of smart mobs11; civilians using new technologies to connect, broadcast and mobilise at speeds that were never before possible can be used to describe people's involvement in friending campaigns with as much validity as it is used by Rheingold to describe them being directed against governments. Email, viral marketing and word of mouth are all free so if an engaging brand profile has been set up on a social network, others can be left to tell the story and to direct their peers onto the web page at no incremental cost. It is the same story for frequency as it is with reach, it is far easier to maintain an omnipresent brand profile on a social network than it is to be continually present on any other channel. Consumers can spend far more time with a brand online than the 15 seconds a TV commercial may last. Not only can they spend more time, they can also interact, take part and contribute, engaging far more with a brand than would normally be possible on other media channels. This is not to say that a social network suits every purpose an advertiser may have, but the nature of friending campaigns ensures they conform to the principles of Permission Marketing; if a brand wishes to engage with consumers in order to build a relationship, friending may be a good place to start. Brands have to offer consumers an opportunity and good reason to opt-in to advertising to build these relationships, the interactive nature of social networks allows them to do so. VALUE IN RETURN FOR VALUE: WHAT WEB CAPITAL LOOKS LIKE If the aim is to offer consumers a reason to opt-in then the problem revolves around what this offer should be. Many viral emails today contain money-off coupons and vouchers from brands keen to offer financial capital in order to raise awareness. However, as another online marketing guru, Chris Anderson, states, money is not the only scarcity in the world. Chief among the others are your time and respect12. Marketers must increasingly acknowledge that that time is a form of capital13 and if brands wish to be given a slice of a consumer's time, they must offer something in return. It is here that two-way channels, such as social networks, have an advantage. Time capital, which Anderson labels as the attention economy14, is based on the notion that if you can offer something worth an individual's time, be it an online game, tool or service, they may in turn consume your advertising and it is far easier to do this online than off. Nike+ is a web-based community for runners which gives them a tool that allows them to map and display their routes online, to plan ahead or show the distance travelled and the time taken. For many athletes this of great use, meeting the requirement of being as worthy of their time and attention as any other activity and provides ample reason for many to keep returning to the site which is designed to embody the brand itself. Another form of capital, and often the most valuable online, is social capital which can be closely linked to Anderson's reputation economy; if your brand is well thought off and enables other individuals to be similarly well thought off through association, your messages will be consumed and passed on with relish by individuals eager to benefit from this state of affairs. You can be a runner, but being a Nike + runner is a further way of meeting the identity and emotional needs that the Nike brand provides, it may even be something to tell your friends about. The branded profiles on Bebo and brand fandom on Facebook are further examples of this. Similarly, Turkle's description of the concept of mastery15 [of online social spheres], used to describe and explain online community addiction in the 1990s, is still relevant today in explaining the role of social capital on the web. Completing the routes around London taken by other runners and beating their times may be more than enough reason to return to the website in order to tell everyone about it and enjoy the respect of your peers in a community of common interest.

By offering the ability to manicure and project a public persona social networks have enabled individuals to broadcast idealised images of the self. Brands that offer some way of enhancing either part of this process, the manicure (in the case of wallpapers) or the projection (by offering communities and arenas an individual can broadcast to), have been lavished with both interest and attention in return. These offerings essentially amount to an interactive experience that the user goes through, rather than passively consuming a TV ad, consumers may be taking part in an online community, befriending brands in social networks and advocating that their friends do likewise or entering competitions to co-create a brand's advert or promote an event. Providing user experiences may take an investment in sunk costs and time but a successful friending campaign would build engagement and beyond that a relationship with each individual consumer. Developing this relationship may allow organisations to find out more about their users on an individual basis, strengthening this relationship where possible. As a result of this strong relationship an individual may become a brand advocate, willingly passing on the brand's messages, and the opportunity for others to go through the same experience or become friends with the brand. Those who take up this opportunity may follow the same process but with minor incremental costs; as Anderson states: The Web is all about scale, finding ways to attract the most users for centralized resources, spreading those costs over larger and larger audiences as the technology gets more and more capable. It's not about the cost of the equipment in the racks at the data center; it's about what that equipment can do So spending in effectively building a relationship with one individual allows a brand to do likewise with 10, 100 or 1,000. If 80% of a brand's profit comes from 20% of its customer base with whom it has a strong relationship, then strengthening and maintaining that relationship is clearly a priority. If doing so breeds word of mouth (or mouse) and allows the same experience to be replicated, then a successful friending campaign could potentially yield an excellent return on the initial investment. MEASURING THE VALUE OF BRAND FRIENDING From a research perspective, however, all this is irrelevant if are unable to measure what this return amounts to. If technology is throwing up both challenges and opportunities to advertisers, it is the role of research to ensure they are meeting the challenges and taking advantage of the opportunities. To help better understand this new arena and the new brand-consumer relationships that inhabit it, TNS carried out some original research on the subject. Brands have to gain an opt-in from users, positively affect them and get them to pass the message on. Our research objectives were set to reflect this: 1. To understand what potential effect the plethora of information now available online in general, and on social networks specifically, has on a consumer's feelings towards a brand in order to understand the role of friending within it To uncover how best to leverage on the massive communications network that is the internet in order to persuade individuals to optin to, and empower them to pass on brand messages and experiences

2.

With the purpose being one of discovery, the approach needed to be explorative and participant led. Many studies have shown that an individual's online behaviours and attitudes may be somewhat different from their personality in the real world16 and, as it is the online persona that is the more relevant in assessing brand & consumer relations on social networks it was also important to explore this online persona in the research. Technology and new media habits may have set this challenge, but also offer a solution. Consumers are empowered by the opportunities of many-to-many communication, hence their ability to spread messages so easily and quickly, but so too is research. It is possible to utilise these same technologies to better connect and better understand consumers and TNS does this through an online social network platform known as Incubator . With this platform a group of 10 participants was assembled online, each was able to create a user profile, just as they would do in a standard social network, but their purpose was to respond to tasks and questions set by the moderator. Each participant was a 'digital native', an individual who had grown up with such technology and was an expert user of it. It was not necessary to meet any other criteria to qualify for recruitment. They were then set open tasks in order to allow them to lead the study rather than follow. The study was longitudinal and ran for a week so that exposure to brand information or experiences could be seen in real time, interaction by interaction. The data collection was focussed on three main tasks set to each respondent and a closing questionnaire, with further probing possible as and when required. The tasks were: 1. Day 1, Task 1: Think of a brand you like and that is well known, tell us all you know of that brand and how you feel towards it. Please write down as much as you can. Day 1, Task 2: With 24 hours at your disposal, do all you can to expose yourself to that brand as much as possible. Get to know them, get close to them, and find out as much as possible about it. When you have finished, report back on your findings; explaining all that you did, what you learnt about the brand, what experiences you went through and how they made you feel.

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Tasks 1 and 2 were aimed at yielding comparative data between participants' feelings before and after their 24 hour immersion, what they say afterwards compared to what they say prior and how one participant feels compared to another. The secondary aim was to uncover how each individual chose to immerse themselves; would they focus on personal connections or seek out hard facts? Traditional or new media channels? Task 2 would also give them the firepower they needed to complete Task 3. 3. Day 2 7, Task 3: With all the information you now hold, launch your own word of mouth campaign over the next 6 days. Your aims are to positively influence individual feelings towards the brand and to spread your message as far and wide as possible. Feed back

in as much detail, and as vividly as possible; what you did, how you did it, who did you speak to? What worked? What didn't? What lessons did you learn and what would you do differently next time? The major aim of the third task was to 'learn from the experts' in this arena as to how they would plan and execute a successful word of mouth campaign. How would they spread messages themselves and how would they get others to copy them. Ordinarily this might not be such a conscious, thought through process, but it was still hoped it would highlight some interesting insights into how brand advocates may well go about spreading a brands message and how successful different methods could be. The closing questionnaire covered what they enjoyed about the experience and what they did not and what would make them actively do this again or in other words, how can brands create and mobilise advocates. At the end of each task, participants were asked to rate how close they felt to the brand. Building on Fournier's brand consumer relationship metaphor17 and using a combination of projective techniques and direct questioning, they were asked to place the brand on the diagram.

Figure 4: Emotional Proximity It should be noted at this point that, whilst the tasks were left to participants to solve, thus leaving the response up to them, the questions were set in an artificial environment. The scenarios are therefore forced, rather than natural and open to some degree of research bias as a result of this. In addition, each participant chose a brand they liked to encourage their participation , not one selected at random. This too must be taken into account when analysing results. EFFECT OF INFORMATION In the first task the participants selected the following brands Blackberry (male, 20), Coca Cola (male, 24), Google (female, 24), Apple (female, 23), Sony (male, 23), Innocent Smoothies (female, 21), Nike (male, 23), Adidas (female, 24), Sony Ericsson (female, 19), Super Dry (male, 20). The final participant mentioned was the only one to choose a less well known brand and, having struggled with the second task, subsequently dropped out. The participant selecting Sony Ericsson also made an excused exit following average levels of involvement in the first two tasks. University course workloads were cited but it may also have been due, at least in part, to the demanding nature of Task 3. Of the remaining eight participants, four had chosen technology brands (Apple, Blackberry, Google and Sony), two chose drinks (Coca Cola and Innocent) and two chose sports (Adidas and Nike). Reasons for selection were variations on two themes; the first related to good personal experience with the brand whilst the second (often used as further justification) was focussed on positive public perceptions of the brand. Task 1 had requested that they select a well known brand, but had not stipulated that the brand must be one of good repute. This amendment of the original selection criteria stresses the importance of others opinions on an individual's thoughts and feelings towards the brand and this was to become a continual theme of the study.

Figure 5: Emotional Proximity Sony Participant Task 2 saw a split in our group of participants between the more and less active (and therefore heavy and light contributors) and this split

continued for the rest of the week. Despite being asked to write down as much as they could during the first task, each participant was able to contribute significantly more during the second; the average word count for Task 2 was 426 compared to an average of 193 during Task 1. The most frequently used sources of information were web searches (five respondents mentioned Google by name) and exploration of the brand's official web page. Several participants were struck by the sheer wealth of information and admitted not knowing where to start. Beyond the official, friends and acquaintances were also quizzed for their views. As a member of a running club, one participant (female, 24) was able to quiz fellow runners regarding her brand, Adidas, whilst another (male, 23) searched YouTube for videos related to Sony. Both of these lines of inquiry led to positive responses, in contrast, a third participant (female, 19) used Facebook to garner the opinions of friends. The mix of positive and negative comments received back led her to the conclusion that Sony Ericsson is a bit like marmite, you either love it or you hate it!!! Of all participants involved, she was one of the few to report more negative feelings as a result of her experiences: Overall, the less official and more interactive routes were claimed to be the most persuasive in forming or changing opinions; it was cool to know that all of [Sony's] visual effects were in fact real and not done using CGI. In contrast the homepages and official brand information roused little interest from the majority of participants, the notable exception being that of Innocent Smoothies. The Innocent brand advocate felt their homepage to be a genuine and honest display of the brands character, making it unique in comparison to the brand homepages described by other advocates. It motivated her to write the following eulogy: I have found it really interesting to find out information on their history, their awards, their social responsibility, their kind of quirky ideas, and I stumbled across some information on their careers and benefits I would love to work for a company like that Whilst the study did take place online, it is still notable that not a single participant reported using any form of traditional media to learn about or get closer to their brands. This preference for the trusted, personal and genuine over the official, mass focussed hyperbole was also to become a key theme of this study. Those who had not spoken with others about their brand during Task 2 were charged with doing so during Task 3, leading to more evidence of the large role these individual to individual interactions play in shaping and forming brand consumer relationships. Several participants classified themselves as strong advocates at an early stage of fieldwork, but found this relationship to be further solidified and cemented during the process of uncovering the views of others. The Blackberry advocate discussed the uses of 'Blackberry Messenger' software that sits on the mobile device and allows online-forum style conversations between two users for free. When justifying his choice of Blackberry as his brand he spoke of this service as superbthe best thing about it is that it is free wherever you are in the world. In Task 3 when he was charged with starting a Word of Mouth campaign for Blackberry, his initial starting point was to share knowledge of this piece of software through live demonstrations for others. He reported back on his actions and their results: I have decided that when advertising blackberry I would find a way of showing people what blackberry messenger is and what it can do. Luckily, to my good fortune, my brother is in South Africa on business. So I had a great example to show my colleagues just speaking to my brother half way across the world and got responses in seconds. They were, to say the least, fascinated. They did not believe such a service can come free!

Figure 6: Emotional Proximity Blackberry Participant Importantly, having his own opinions confirmed and gaining kudos or social capital from introducing others to this interesting and exciting facet of mobile technology appeared to further his own relationship with the brand, resulting in a large shift in where he placed the brand in proximity to himself between Tasks 1 and 3: Other participants also reported pleasure in seeing their opinions confirmed in 2008 [Apple] was named the most admired company in the US by Fortune Magazine. This made me pleased that other people also look up to the brand. In order to provide a focus on what the brand could do to improve the relationship, participants were questioned in the closing questionnaire about what it would take for them to become 'friends' with a brand profile on a social network or what may necessitate an opt-in. Results were mixed and reflected the personalities of participants that were apparent throughout the exercise. The Blackberry advocate mentioned above, for example, held true to his focus on the meeting of specific needs and superior products, citing good service customer support lifelong products as reasons to befriend a brand. Relevancy was another request from participants whilst exclusivity was also put forward by the Apple advocate I'd want some kind of special privilegessomething like O2 do for their customers to go to concerts at the O2 centre, or Orange do for Orange Wednesdays.

The advocate of Adidas, who frequently exhibited one of the strongest ties of the whole group with her brand, went so far as to claim I don't think the brand would need to do a lot [to be added as a 'friend] just one more friend amongst all the others I already have suggesting that the brand had already met the requirements of friendship, without outlining any tangible benefit to herself. In contrast the Nike advocate, although recognising social capital as a reason for others to be associated with the brand to look good or cool, claimed the functional benefits to be of more worth to himself. The Nike+ community previously discussed was described as a useful tool and he expected similarly functional gains in return for his friendship such as free samples. Revealing these range of motivations, and differing levels of reciprocation, required of brands by users they wish to befriend illustrates the need for brands to provide a range of reasons, or a mix of capital, in order to appeal to the range of personalities found on social networks. In addition, the type of capital that might be relevant is likely to vary by category, though passing on of humour (jokes) may be applicable to most categories and offers its own social capital too. WORD OF MOUTH Just as receiving justification from others for the status of their brand consumer relationship seemed to emphasise and strengthen this bond with our advocates, many also found the process of launching their own word of mouth campaign about their chosen brand as enjoyable, further strengthening the link. All of the most frequent contributors mentioned enjoying some aspect of Task 3. These participants were better disposed towards the communication element of the project, yet this attribute did not necessarily correlate with being better disposed towards their chosen brands. Participants who were both strong communicators and strong advocates were more likely to find the process of spreading word of mouth as having a positive effect on their feelings towards the brand. By allowing the brand advocates to take on responsibility for a word of mouth campaign, it may be that the work they put in leads them to a greater sense of ownership of that brand as something that is theirs and feeling closer to the brand is a natural consequence of this process.18 Other comparatively strong advocates also enjoyed the task: It was great to get a response for doing something, and it was cool to have responsibility (Innocent) I enjoyed the fact I had my own little project (Google) I enjoyed thinking about ways to reach people. I also liked engaging people in conversation (Apple) But this was by no means true of all participants. Many strong advocates, including the Blackberry advocate, confessed to disliking the task: I didn't like being thrown into having to make an advertising campaign and it was very difficult to think of things on the spot (Blackberry) Its embarrassing (Coca Cola) I felt a bit silly, almost like a sales person (Sony) This may indicate two types of advocates. Those liking the task are the more likely to offer unsought recommendation or advice whilst those not liking the task might be advocates only or mostly when advice is sought by others. Interestingly, an experiment by East et al (2004) suggested that sought advice was the more effective. Unsurprisingly it was the first set of advocates that put more effort in to their campaigns and achieved more as a result suggesting that having a strong relationship with a brand is not enough to breed positive or spontaneous word of mouth. Brands need individuals to meet the requirements of being both well disposed to the brand and well disposed towards talking about brands with others in order to become successfully mobilised, as advocates, in the cause of their brand. Just having a strong relationship with a brand may not be enough to breed positive or spontaneous word of mouth. Both strong and weak advocates, natural and less natural communicators, however, found commonality in that each asked the question 'what's in it for me?' when considering whether to forward messages on or otherwise. Each participant indicated that they seriously considered the effect of passing on messages on others in terms of what this might mean for them. Returning to our notion of social capital, this appeared to be the primary motivation for forwarding messages or content to others. Just as the kudos received by the Blackberry advocate, for passing on engaging information to others, strengthened his relationship with Blackberry, so too did it provide a strong reason for entering into discussions with them That was the most productive topic that I could use when teaching about the brand If there was something worth telling your friends, you would tell them. In other cases this was far from the truth, the Apple advocate, when asked to start a viral campaign based on an Apple ad on YouTube, told her friends that I was taking part in a competition and had to get as many people as possible to watch it, so I hoped that they would do so to help me out. Not seeing the video as good enough to be sent on without justification, this advocate specifically requested that others do her a service (as opposed to her doing a service for them) and so used the idea of a competition as an excuse.

Figure 7: Emotional Proximity Adidas participant For some advocates their relationship with and admiration for the brand qualified as being enough to tell others about it. The Adidas advocate had one of the most positive relationships with her chosen brand at the commencement of the study, yet still found the process of finding out more, and spreading the word to others, to develop these feelings further I really enjoyed telling everyone about the brand as I am a big fan of Adidas. This was also evident from the movement of where she placed the brand in proximity to herself throughout the week: This was also the case for the Innocent advocate, as part of her word of mouth campaign she managed to persuade her university IT advisory service to include a poster about Innocent on their online student bulletin board:

Figure 8: Innocent poster Her key message was focussed entirely on her love of the brand. In contrast, others required more from the message or content sent on, than the brand itself. The Sony advocate had quite different experiences from the different types of information he sent on, and this appears to have directly affected his inclination to do so. Whilst he had confessed to feeling a bit silly, almost like a sales person he also felt that a lot of people reacted positively to [Sony's] creative advertising as it was really out of the ordinary and fun. In contrast, other stories on the same brand were rated as less effective for the task telling people about the history and the fact that Sony were a green brand were probably least effective [of his efforts], I guess that's not the real selling point about Sony. Participants' reason to share seemed largely to be based on the reaction they expected to receive from the recipient and this therefore differed depending on who that recipient was. This was not necessarily the case when contacting strangers, especially if those strangers were deemed as more receptive to the brand. Many of the advocates chose to specifically target relevant groups or networks of people, and several turned to the social network Facebook as the primary means of contacting these people. The Facebook 'groups' function allows any user to start their own group, on any subject, and invite other people to join. Both this application and the 'Fan' application previously

described were utilised by participants. All of the brands in the study had their own groups already and both these and their fan pages were seen as fertile ground for a word of mouth campaign about that brand. The Blackberry advocate posted messages regarding Blackberry Messenger to all the related groups on Facebook. This tactic of targeting the most relevant recipients of potential messages was also suggested in the closing questionnaire as a better method of getting messages passed on I think it was best to recruit 'ambassadors' who took on different networks of friends so that the message could spread 'organically' analysed the Apple advocate. Not all participants found this method successful, however. The Google advocate discovered a group founded by a Manchester resident who promised to get a Google logo in the form of a tattoo should 20,000 people join the group in support of him doing so, supposing that these people may have had an interest in Google (and not just stupidity) she started her own discussion on Interesting facts about Google within the group, hoping to mobilise support. Her hopes were short lived as the original group owner (soon to be tattooed as the group has reached its limit) took issue with others encroaching on his limelight and her posts were deleted. Facebook was also used in a range of other ways, as the Adidas advocate describes people use Facebook in different ways and I used all those ways to communicate [with them]. Such techniques included the sending of private messages, the publishing of public messages on user's profiles, group postings as discussed and use of Facebook chat, an application telling each user when their contacts are online and enabling them to initiate a chatroom-style conversation with them. Specific groups as discussed, were lauded due to their ability to contact large numbers of those who more likely to be well disposed towards the brand in question. Personal messages, in contrast, were often described as ineffectual and spam-like. This dependency on Facebook was one of many common features in the way respondents went about their tasks. They were able to view each others comments and approaches and this ability to influence those posting subsequently seems to have led to something of a 'followthe-leader' effect. The Sony advocate posted YouTube links in various places, such as in the groups and on the profiles mentioned above, and when asked for recommendations on what would make a good viral campaign, several participants agreed that this was a good idea and yet offered no further suggestions of their own. Similarly during Task 2, one participant set up their own survey amongst friends regarding the brand and many followed suit, setting up surveys and writing questionnaires, irrespective of their limited use to the task in hand. Whilst the Innocent advocate took a more creative approach by utilising the resources of her University, the apparent lack of imagination amongst the majority suggests brands must provide easy and obvious means for users to forward their messages, or risk having them not do so. In such a scenario it is possible to imagine a direct correlation between the number of clicks of the mouse a social network user has to make in order to forward on a message, and the number of users choosing not to bother. CONCLUSIONS It is axiomatic that advertisers have to be where consumers are, and with many consumers spending time on social networks brands need to uncover what it is that will make them opt-in to their messages or friending campaigns. Given that participants were following tasks set by a moderator, this study can not be wholly conclusive on what it is that makes an individual choose to opt-in to advertising, but, based on what the participants chosen actions were, and the impact of these actions, some indication can be given. Our participants described a strong preference for messages or experiences that were genuine and trustworthy, unique and exclusive, useful and interesting or exciting and new. Such requirements were found to be met far better through conversations and interactions with other individuals and through unofficial means than from official and traditional brand broadcasts. A movement towards opt-in advertising may be on the horizon but this study highlights the redundancy of traditional media channels for such methods. In contrast, many of the interactions described had a great effect on the user brand relationship. The opinions of our participants peer group in particular appeared vital to the strength of their relationship with a brand friend. Expected peer reactions were also factored in when deciding whether or not to pass on messages from that brand to other friends. Online conversations were felt to be important in opinion forming for both the recipient and sender of the original message. This importance led to hesitancy and the assessment mentioned previously. The complexities of this process suggest such conversations are a rarity, and may therefore go some way towards explaining the discrepancy mentioned previously between successful and unsuccessful friending campaigns. Should the initiator expect to receive some vital social capital from recipients, in return for sending the messages to others, then a campaign might be sent far and wide. Those that offer few reasons to send, in contrast, are left stranded. A strong relationship with a brand appears to offer added value to that brand by not only increasing the likelihood that future messages will be opted-in to, but also by ensuring messages resonate more effectively with the user. In some relationships, a brand 'friend' may already meet the criteria necessary in order to be worth listening to and worth talking about, leaving the message with less to do. In such an instance, successful online word of mouth would not only spread messages far, but also strengthen previously held opinions and positive relations with their brand. As noted previously, however, as part of the tasks involved participants were asked to choose a brand they liked, one they therefore already had a good relationship with. Whilst this study suggests the process cements and improves relationships that are already strong, it is not known what effect the process has in instances where a weak, poor or no relationship previously exists. Some advocates appeared grateful for the social capital they receive from their peers in return for forwarding on messages or experiences and so repaid their brand in-kind. It should be noted that this social capital is received for a range of activities (not those purely related to image) such as forwarding some form of voucher or game, video, experience or knowledge. To monetise this space effectively, brands may need to supply a range of capital in order to positively affect as many recipients as possible, or supply only that which is most relevant and applicable, should this be known. In either instance, to motivate users to pass messages on this must be easily convertible by that user into further social capital from those who receive the message from them, in order to give them good reason to do so. This requirement of a 'good reason' underlines both the challenge and the potential of friending campaigns. It had been previously suggested that some brands had gained from helping users manicure and project an online persona but the research reveals this to apply at a much more basic level than had previously been imagined. Users ask not just 'What does this message say?' but 'What does this message say about me?' before deciding whether to pass on brand messages to their peers. The answer to this question is influenced by the current status of the relationship each user has with the brand (including the effect on this relationship the message or campaign has had) as well as the social capital on offer as a by-product of passing on this message. Providing a good answer to this question is therefore vital to the success of a friending campaign. The aims of a campaign in terms of both positively affecting brand advocates and persuading them to pass on the message are fundamentally interlinked as the justifiable ground for sending a brand's message to a peer is generally justifiable ground to strengthen the relationship with that brand. It is brands that succeed in empowering their advocates to spread messages that will ultimately succeed in the space. This paper describes the landscape and goes someway to uncover the rules of this arena and the motivations behind successful friending

and word of mouse. Friending campaigns are reliant on more variables than has been the case with more traditional forms of advertising. Whilst this may make measurement more difficult, it does not negate the possibility of doing so successfully. The study recommends a focus on the crucial enabling and empowerment processes as the first step towards the provision of key metrics in this new arena. Further study however, is clearly required. SUGGESTED FURTHER RESEARCH The premise of this paper is that while brands are aware of the immense potential of co-created online friending campaigns, research has yet to step up to the challenge of providing credible guidance in this area. The Incubator study described above gives some initial thoughts on this topic, but clearly brands will have a need to assess the efficacy of particular campaigns both pre-launch and in a live environment. Measuring reach or awareness may not be particularly hard whether by simply counting the number of fans a brand page has on a social networking site, or measuring the number of unique visitors via Google analytics. It is the depth of the effects on each individual of the campaign and subsequent interactions that are less amenable to technical measurement. One approach would be to repeat the study described above with participants such as brand users, or communicators19 (Mavens; Gladwell) carrying out tasks revolving around a single campaign. Such a study would allow for the same longitudinal assessment and probing of participants in real time but with the focus and agenda set more firmly inline with the specific campaign objectives. The study would also be disadvantaged by the same set of circumstances mentioned above; issues regarding validity due to the 'laboratory' environment and of course the problem of providing a truly representative view from a small base. Should a campaign need to be analysed from a quantitative perspective, we envisage two broad approaches. The most obvious would be to do a pre and post test of the friending campaign itself. This could be done relatively cheaply by incorporating the test within an existing brand tracker, to measure the effects of the campaign among a general population. This would only work effectively for large campaigns however, and there may be problems teasing out the impact of the campaign itself from that of other effects. Alternatively, doing the study specifically amongst those who have been exposed to the friending campaign and comparing to the general population could be more fruitful, although open to criticism regarding whether such a comparison is valid. Quantitative assessment within a single study may also be possible, by taking a cross-sectional approach and splitting out sample to create a more relevant test cell (right).

Figure 9: Cross sectional approach cells Comparing campaign participants with non-participants would not be a relevant approach because it would not be comparing like with like. Those who are already more engaged with the brand are more likely to befriend it, any differences in brand perceptions the research reveals are already there. Assuming the first questions covered key brand image and disposition measures then later questions identifying comparison cells C3 and C5 would be a more relevant approach. Question 2 would have to mirror, as closely as possible, the hook which was actually seen by the participants in cell C1. If the environment in which C1 made their choice was a front page of a branded community, attractively arrayed with appealing bells and whistles, then these same bells and whistles must be shown to C2. As with the qualitative pre-testing however, some allowance must be made for bias due to the fact that respondents at C2 are not in a natural but laboratory environment. C5 claim they will participate but may not follow up on this claim. It may be further argued that there could be other differences between groups C3 and C5 which would mean that variation in their brand perceptions would not purely be down to the friending campaign. Group C2 may be unaware because they are less interested generally in brands, advertising or spend less time online (for example). These differences could therefore explain some of the variation in brand perceptions. Should these factors be identified, however, it may be possible to counteract by questioning attitudes and habits around these factors to both groups before weighting all data based on responses. SAMPLE ISSUES As noted above, the key issue with any quantitative methodology will be getting a large enough sample of people who have been exposed to the friending campaign itself. Rather than attempting to measure the ripples of a campaign's effect on the broad ocean of a wide sample of internet users, identifying a small pond of respondents who have definitely participated in the campaign would be a far more cost effective approach. There are a number of potential solutions to this problem. Firstly, for profile type campaigns, it may be possible to carry out a study in collaboration with a social network itself. The network would clearly have an interest in proving the value of friending and as such, it could (assuming privacy arrangements allow) provide a sample of network users who have been exposed to a particular campaign. Pop-ups might provide an alternative at point of use, but questions of representivity would be an issue (someone who clicks on a pop-up might be more likely to be more pre-disposed to a brand than average). A more productive approach might be to either tag members of an online panel with a particular cookie which would identify when they have participated in the campaign of interest (Bloomfield), or to install a monitoring system on panellists PCs to track their online behaviour overall20, and again split out those who have participated from those who have not. KEY AREAS FOR INVESTIGATION

Whatever research methodology is used, the understanding we have developed in this paper can be used to inform the areas of focus in the questionnaire, and can also suggest further areas for exploration. In terms of diagnostics, making a simple split between the impact a campaign has had on a participant, and the effect it has on the propensity to tell others about the campaign, is attractive but not necessarily as clear a distinction as it might seem. As we saw earlier in the Incubator results, the actual process of telling others about a brand in itself seemed to increase affinity with that brand. A fuller quantitative study on this effect would go some way towards demonstrating the value of friending campaigns in itself. In fact, splitting out participants who did spread word of mouth about a particular campaign from those who merely participated might add a further layer of understanding to some of the above approaches (although again with the provisos around the fact that perhaps those who were already more engaged with a brand having a higher propensity to spread word of mouth). With regard investigating which ingredients were most important in terms of generating 'word of mouse', the Incubator results suggest that in most cases, the level and nature of social capital generated in the process is key. It could be the respect garnered for telling others about a fun, a funny, a valuable or a useful experience. This perceived value would of course vary between campaigns, and likely between participants for any given campaign. Finally, the level of targeting exhibited by participants in their word of mouth would also vary. Some people might spam all their friends with a link to a particularly amusing site, while others might only send links to friends who share the same sense of humour. It might therefore be useful to: 1. 2. 3. identify what is the main perceived social pay off for any given campaign in order to build on and leverage that identify the key motivating factors for given respondents in order to profile these groups and potentially tailor campaigns to them find out whether a campaign is likely to produce targeted or untargeted word of mouth, and to identify participants who would generate each

A further aspect of diffusion identified in the Incubator is the perceived ease of getting others to participate in the campaign (the number of clicks involved, for example). So, as well as a literal measurement of clicks necessary to share, questioning respondents about barriers to sharing (including embarrassment issues) would inform an estimation of the probable success of a campaign (in the case of a pre-test) or a guide for improvement in the case of a live campaign. FINAL REMARKS In this paper we hope to have drawn attention to the research challenges created by the changing media landscape, and suggested some preliminary ideas about how research can help brands optimise their strategies in one area of this landscape brand friending campaigns. Clearly there is still a lot to be done, but as partners who have helped create industry wide metrics in the traditional media sectors and guided brand strategies in these areas, it is time to rise to the challenge of helping brands navigate and thrive in the brave new world of personalised media. ENDNOTES 1. 2. 3. Rheingold, H (2000) The Virtual Community, MIT Press, pp.24 As ranked by 'Alexa Internet' one of the most commonly used forms of web traffic measurement by web users (www.Alexa.com) This notion involves interpreting the internet as a form of cultural artefact as assessed in Hine, Christine M. (2000), Virtual Ethnography, Sage Publications McLuhan, M (1964) Understanding Media, Routledge, London As quoted on The Washington Post online at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/07/AR2008050703337.html Anderson, Chris (2006). The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More. New York: Hyperion Godin, Seth (1999). Permission marketing: turning strangers into friends, and friends into customers. New York: Simon & Schuster As above As above Fournier, S (1998), Consumers and Their Brands: Developing Relationship Theory in Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 24, March 1998 Rheingold, H (2003) Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution, Basic Books Chris Anderson, Free etc Wage Labour and Capital, Karl Marx, 1847 Chris Anderson

4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

11. 12. 13. 14.

15. 16. 17. The formative piece being Sherry Turkle's 'Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet' published in 1995 Fournier, S (1998), Consumers and Their Brands: Developing Relationship Theory in Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 24, March 1998 For more on this process see John Locke's concept of Labour Mixture TNS has a methodology for identifying influential, communicative, early adopters Future Shapers who may be ideal for this type of pre-test TNS uses iServer technology in collaboration with eyeSquare to do this

18. 19.

20.

REFERENCES Anderson, Chris (2006). The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More. New York: Hyperion Anderson, Chris (2009) Free (publicised on the popular economics podcast Econtalk) Bartlett, E, Griffiths, G & Badiani, V, (2008), Digital Advertising in 2142 Measuring the Effectiveness of Advertising to the PlayStation Generation, Proceedings of Research Conference Bloomfield, J (2009), Things I know and don't know about digital marketing Research, February 2009, pp2829 Bond, G. & Brace, I. (1997), Segmenting by attitudes to TV advertising eye opener or blind alley?, Journal of the Market Research Society, vol 39, no 3, pp 481508 East R. et al. (2004) The Grapevine in the Ballpark: The Relative Value of Sought and Unsought Recommendations. The European Academy of Marketing. Murcia Fournier, S (1998), Consumers and Their Brands: Developing Relationship Theory in Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 24, March 1998 Bloomfield, J (2009), Things I know and don't know about digital marketing Research, February 2009, pp2829 Godin, Seth (1999). Permission marketing: turning strangers into friends, and friends into customers. New York: Simon & Schuster. Gordon, W. & Ryan, C. (1983), How do consumers feel advertising works? Proceedings of the Market Research Society Conference, pp.465 478 Hine, Christine M. (2000), Virtual Ethnography, Sage Publications Locke, J (1689) Two Treatises of Government Marx, K (1847), Wage-Labour and Capital. McLuhan, M (1964) Understanding Media, Routledge, London Rheingold, H (2000) The Virtual Community, MIT Press Rheingold, H (2003) Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution, Basic Books Turkle, S (1995), Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet

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