Not Marketing to the Masses

You can no longer market to the anonymous masses. They’re not anonymous and they’re not masses. You can only market to people who are willing participants. Three years from now, this advice will be so common as to be boring. Today, it’s almost certainly the opposite of what you’re doing. – Seth Godin

That is a quote from a couple of years ago by a marketing writer. It seems this is becoming more and more adopted in the marketing world. Last week Ford Motor Company, on the heels of a nice quarterly profit, announced that they would spend 25% of their 2010 marketing budget on digital media. Its competitors will spend about 9%.

“If you are trying to communicate, as we are, that you have been reinventing the company , you can’t just say it. You have to get the people to say it to each other.” said Ford’s CMO.

In racing we have been catching up. It is pretty easy to get scratches via RSS, not too tough to get a paddock update via twitter, one can clip a coupon or two via Facebook.  Two years ago this was considered heresy by this business; so that is a good thing.

What is the long-term strategy? Are normative goals being set? Is this measured? Do we have a twitter or Facebook plan to reach across to other potential fans? Are we drafting budgets for 2010 like Ford is? I am not sure, but I would surmise the answer is no.

To take a look at a common concept in social media (human story telling with a good possibility of going viral) check this single Ford online video of a series.  “Speeding While Blind”  is something that works, and why in racing we must go the extra mile.