More understanding of why consumers participate in social media with brands in this study by MEC:

http://www.mec-demo.co.uk/assets/Uploads/Reports/Resources/MEC-MediaLab-Sensor-Your-brand-in-their-hands-Nov08.pdf

@Joakim – Bribery may be a harsh term, but one that I think is accurate nonetheless. But you’re probably right… it’s no different to what companies have been doing for decades.

@Stephen – Yes… social media or otherwise there generally needs to be a solid value proposition for the customer. And Wrigley’s clearly don’t seem to have one.

@Taylor – It’s really not that different from existing marketing tactics. But the difference is that with social media there’s an opportunity to do something different as it’s not a broadcast medium.

@Brett – You must be confused. Using the word quality in reference to this blog are the words of a crazy man.

@Albert – The Fiesta movement is also appealing for the early adopters. It’s actually not due to be released in the US until 2010, so there’s certainly an element of being the first to experience the vehicle. And there’s the whole 15 mins of fame in being attached to a very high profile campaign.

The concept of being manipulated for someone’s goals, generating $ or PR buzz has less of an appeal the further it is detatched from my core needs. A whale /nature lover gets their reward by being part of a cause, a designer probably sees no personal attatchment to creating new gum flavors, nor a connection to any greater good.

Interesting on the Ford campaign because I think that appeals to a sense of personal recognition (little bribe there) but more to a sense of a bigger movement related to the general social community and a perceived old school company embracing a new way of relating to customers. I suspect that all of the Fiesta Movement Agents already have cars. The bribe then as probably modest cash value, but the major attraction was being part of something very different in the US car marketing experience.

There’s one thread that seems to correlate with the words online marketing and success and it’s relevance.

For a short term direct response style execution an incentive is extremely relevant. For the long term relationship activity (like your blog) quality seems to be most relevant to foster user response ; )

The “organic” wrigleys campaign appears to provided limited reward – after looking over the rules, regulations and restrictions, I was wondering why you’d want to put time and effort into this project to increase the sales of a gum product when you could put similar effort/energy into your own fame as a remixer. Or spend a few hours on the Xbox for greater glory and self aggrandisement.

There’s a lot of time cost to be sunk into doing that project well for no apparent reward – particularly since the business as usual “all rights” attribution in the fine print means even if you put together something amazing, the (potential) reward probably won’t be yours for the taking either.

Basically, no compelling offer to participate, and no participation says they’ve misjudged their offer to the market.