The Power of WTF
Yes. That means what you think it means.
Or, if you want to be a little more PC, "What the heck?" But no matter how you express it, it’s a very powerful phrase. Especially in an environment of change. It says, "Loosen up. Maybe you can’t plan that far out. Maybe you can’t plan that at all. But what the heck, let’s take a chance. Let’s experiment. And let’s see what happens."
And with the amount of change going on in marketing today, it’s a phrase you can’t afford to dismiss. In fact, I could make a case that it’s not only a valid methodology, but maybe the only methodology that really makes any sense in our current environment.
Let’s consider a couple of examples:
First, let’s go out there a bit. Let’s say we’re a major auto company, and we’re planning a Second Life presence. Being a multibillion dollar company, we’re used to 6-month planning phases for websites, so we decide to treat this the same way. Get the internal team together, bring in some consultants, interview some metaverse development companies and ask them what kind of projects they’ve done for big auto companies. Then you start planning, with minute detail about the strategy, type of build, event planning, tech development, PR aspects, and a dozen other big-picture things.
And let’s say you started planning in October, when there was only one other car company in SL and the PR value was huge. And, oh, by the way, Second Life didn’t have a login API at the time, so you couldn’t do a custom entry experience, and it wasn’t open-source, so you couldn’t consider a custom client, and it didn’t have voice, so you couldn’t plan that in, and, oh crap, in the time you spent planning, seven other manufacturers came in, so now the PR value is nil. All of your planning is now hopelessly off-target. You can now jump in with a horribly dated experience, or you can re-plan and re-deploy . . . at which time the rules would have changed again.
Or you could have jumped in, done something to learn the ropes (or even use native talent, like the Pontiac Motorati islands), and been ahead of the seven other manufacturers in Second Life.
"Oho, but you’re talking extreme cases here!" the savvy marketer will say. "Second Life is changing so fast, it doesn’t really count."
Okay, fair enough. So let’s look at something that’s a bit more mainstream:
We were asked to look at an online advertising plan recently and comment on its effectiveness. When our planner saw the spreadsheet, he broke out in gales of laughter. The (very large) agency that had deployed the plan counted the campaign as a success, even though the end result was driving a handful of visitors to a non-commerce website at a cost of about $9 per visit. His comment, "If that’s a success, I wouldn’t like to see a failure."
Now, here’s the thing. The campaign was impeccably researched, hit the right demographic, targeted the right sites, used the right media. There’s no fault with the methodology (except that the campaign was, apparently, never optimized over the course of its 1.5-month deployment).
The fault was in the strategy. For a fun consumer brand that doesn’t sell online, the strategy should have been to get as many people to the site as possible without damaging the brand, because the site has deep content to promote engagement. We would have tested a giveaway program, a contest, and a close-coupled outreach program on broad-reach networks such as BlogAds for the same $230K investment. We would have monitored the campaign and diverted spend to creative and venues that were working best on a weekly basis. And I could almost guarantee response that was 100X greater than the impeccably-researched conventional media campaign.
What it comes down to is this: in an environment of change, trial and error is not only a valid methodology, it’s a smart methodology. Trying a lot of different things, seeing what works and what doesn’t, and doing more of what works may be the absolute best way to get excellent results, today and in the future.
Let me say this again: try a lot of different things. Do more of what works and less of what doesn’t. Repeat.
It may sound simple and a little juvenile, but it’ll keep you from planning a social media strategy for a marketing ecosystem that won’t exist by the time your planning is over. It’ll keep you from being locked into the same old media, watching results slowly diminish for a given spend. And it can do it for a relatively small investment. That’s the real power of WTF.
"Wait a minute!" you may be saying. "What about my brand? How do I keep this scattershot approach from damaging my brand?"
Well, first you might want to go and read this, and then take a look at this. People are going to make their own decisions about your brand, using the lens of their own regard. And, hey, participation in some of these leading-edge marketing opportunities could actually reflect positively on your brand, and encourage your audience to embrace you even further.
But that doesn’t mean that giveaway programs, user-generated media, and Second Life are right for every company. It’s a question of sitting down, discussing goals and strategies, and seeing how that fits with your brand.
And that doesn’t take 6 months.
