I promised to provide a business case for cliques in my previous post. And, here it is. In 2003, Toyota launched its visibly successful youth brand Scion with a clique approach to marketing. Toyota's leadership wanted to create a cult brand. They wanted the brand to be polarizing - for drivers to either love them or hate them. Scion looked to cliques to achieve this goal - although we didn't call them "cliques" at the time. Instead of focusing on # of impressions or overall reach, Scion spent the bulk of its marketing dollars engaging and activating communities organized around passions (read: cliques). Scion's process -- talk to communities about their brand and its attributes of creativity and self-expression; more importantly, Scion targeted communities passionate about those same attributes. With these shared values, Scion created credible connections and channels to facilitate a process for community members to market to each other. And it worked. Click here to read a Business Week article on the Scion launch.
So, with this example illustrating the power of activating cliques, can we bring it back to a more tangible example ... you, as a consumer. Can we all agree that purchasing decisions have become a social activity - meaning, we frequently seek input and advice from others, maybe even acceptance, before we decide on which product or service to buy? You've exhibited this behavior recently, right? Think about your last few purchases. Didn't you ask people you know for their opinion or advice? Cliques are your primary social circles (family, friends, peers, online connections). And, we trust and rely upon members of our social circle. This trust leads to credibility when members of our clique endorse specific brands, products or services.
Marketing used to be about advertising. But no matter how much money we put into advertising, survey after survey tell us that customers arrive at our doorstep via referrals. Members of our cliques influence us more than slick ad copy. This is a fundamental shift in the marketplace -- marketing used to be about advertising, now marketing is about interacting with your clique.
Cliques are word-of-mouth marketing on steroids. Word-of-mouth marketing is all the rage. Marketers try to make their messages viral so people will pass the word on. This is difficult. It's difficult because there is a variable missing from the equation. People aren't influenced by what others say or do. But, they are influenced by what members of their cliques say or do. Remember, birds of a feather.
Cliques, the book, helps marketers understand how to connect organically with their customers' passions. The book provides frameworks for marketers to identify and engage cliques of interest. A clique approach is like community organizing for brand owners. Examples and case studies will provide readers with indispensable tools to build connections with their audience.
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