Involvement Marketing on a Large Scale

This morning I was very pleasantly surprised to see an article on adage.com that show a UK cell phone company that is implementing Involvement Marketing principles in a unique way on a large scale. It’s called Giffgaff and their model is that users can earn free minutes and text messages by actively marketing the service to friends and family. This is a big step in several ways.

First, customers will be marketing the service by creating ads and then voting on which ads they want to see in a campaign. This really puts the ball in the court of the consumer. They will decide what the value added benefits and what are the important points of the service. Secondly, they will provide their own tech support, asking and answering questions among users, where they can also earn free minutes.

I think that this is a great step forward in the marketing world. I was asked recently why I proposed this since it would make my job obsolete. I disagree. Even when you have user generated content and have them vote on their favorites you still need someone to referee the interaction and implement what the customer chooses. They don’t have all the training and experience of a good marketing professional, and I am not afraid of losing my place because there will always be a need for marketing people to fill in the blanks for user generated content and develop strategies for Involvement Marketing.

So I say, good on ya Giffgaff! I hope to see more like you.