You plan to spend $5MM for an Olympic athlete endorsement contract, and bloggers are bad mouthing this person. Should you pay full price?
The vast majority of you who zipped instant messages our way concluded "no," and that is the correct answer. Marketing sponsorships and endorsements are usually a tad fuzzy on the ROI or "how much should I pay" front. Ad or PR agencies will often concede that they have few assessment tools in place to determine (A) how much to pay, and (2) whether the sponsorship programs work. Now, if you believe bloggers are true "leading indicators" -- a point we keep hearing from prominent blog-influenced journalists and media writers -- the positive or negative sentiment of bloggers about a specific personality can provide invaluable guidance about "how much to pay." This is just another form of "due-diligence." So, for instance, if highly-viral bloggers suddenly "buzz" about less-than-savory behavior on an Olympic athlete who seems destined for the Wheaties box, there's a good chance the problem will get worse. If the blog buzz is accompanied with photographs or video clips -- very common these days, thanks to all the camera-phone advertising -- the problem could get really bad. While the negative buzz may not warrant the marketer bailing on the sponsorship opportunity, neatly organizing, packaging, and presenting the buzz -- this is what we do for clients here at Intelliseek -- might help you knock upwards of 25% of the "asking price."
KEY LESSON: The web can serve as a powerful "auditing tool" to assess the effectiveness or "future value" of marketing programs. Listening to consumer-generated media (CGM) from outspoken, leading-indicator consumers can help you save a lot of money on initiatives that rarely get put to the "torture test" of accountability. It always pays to listen!
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