Collaboration Costs.

Since technology has made it easier than ever for people to talk about your product/service, it’s important for marketers to consider how best to facilitate this. Not so much in terms of organised incentives or seeding schemes, but in terms of the mechanics of shareability. This was emphasized to me when Angus highlighted this Barclaycard competition derived from their TV advertisement.

Not knowing what it was, I enjoyed it – until the final shot revealed that, as so often online, I’d not been watching remarkable amateurs but professionals with a budget. The idea is good one, but is it something that people would try to imitate and thereby spread?

There’s a trade-off between impact and achievability, between shareability and the participation that leads to shareability. You want to make the impact notable enough to pique people's interest, but not so overwhelming that nobody feels able to match it. If you set the standard too high, will people be dissuaded, challenged or choose to satirise? I'll be intrigued to see what sort of entries they get.