Where do brands fit financially in the Social Web?

I'm struggling to get my thoughts in order on this question.

Last week I got an email from a colleague in PR:

"This is a bit of a test email amongst some of the blogger folks that I know to see whether, in principle, you’d get involved in a client related project?

It would be for (I DELETED THE NAME OF THE CLIENT, BUT IT'S A LARGE TRAVEL BRAND) and we are looking at creating a series of themed travel guides co-created with bloggers.  The first is a guide to the best coffee shops around the major European cities.  On the basis that bloggers spend a LOT of time in coffee shops."

It sounded like an interesting idea and at first I was interested, but the more that I thought about it the more doubts started to creep in. 

"In return … you get a free copy of the book once it has been created: so you will know the best 100 coffee shops across the continent and have a handy guide to them"

I am a fully paid up, card-carrying member of the Web 2.0 world. I am a full-time participant in the conversation - I  create, I link,  I share,  I connect. And I don't do any of this for financial gain.  I do it because I feel that I am part of the "Gift Economy".

The illustrious Henry Jenkins at MIT writes brilliantly about the Gift Economy.  In the Gift Economy "gifts depend on altruistic motivations; they circulate through acts of generosity and reciprocity. Their exchange is governed by social norms rather than contractual relations. The circulation of gifts is socially rather than economically motivated: Unlike the sale of a commodity, the giving of a gift tends to establish a relationship between the parties involved. Furthermore when gifts circulate within a group, their commerce leaves a series of interconnected relationships in its wake, and a kind of decentralized cohesiveness emerges. The circulation of goods is not simply symbolic of the social relations between participants; it helps to constitute them... (there are) three core obligations which are shared among those who participate in a gift economy: the obligation to give, the obligation to accept, and the obligation to reciprocate."

Trouble is when brands start to get involved and make money out of the Gift Economy then the balance breaks. 

It's really a question about value and worth. How much is my contribution of a coffee shop review worth? Not much you could argue. However get 100 bloggers to create European-wide reviews of cool coffee shops and then collate and publish them as a book for a well-known travel brand, well then you could say that this content was priceless. There's a great PR story for the travel brand involved, it demonstrates how "modern" and in touch they are with Social Media creators and it saves them money as they don't have to pay any staff to find the places, travel and do the reviews themselves. 

It's about understanding the motivation behind UGC. Walkers have done an interesting job when they annoucned that they would be sharing 1% of the profits with the winner of the Do Us A Flavour contest (as well as 50,000 GBP), but monetization doesn't always have to be of a financial nature. Bugaboo Day Trips doen't pay people to create content, but then they are not charging anything to download their Day Trip Guides, so they are not making a direct profit out of these creators. With Bugaboo its more to do with community augmentation and recognition.

Hmmm.

I'm not sure what the answer is.

But at least I feel that we are starting to ask the right questions and the truth is that we're all finding our way in the new media landscape so there probably aren't any answers anyway...

Comments

[John Dodds]

Gifting is a powerful force, but if you look at some of the anthropological studies you see that gifting is not quite as altruistically-based as some 2.0 commentaters would have us believe.

Ironically, that maybe makes it all the more appropriate fo the commercial world.

[Simon]

My perception of the gift economy is that the more asymmetric the benefits, the more difficult it is to make it work.

A review for a free e-book or a charitable endeavour has rewards for the contributor similar to that of the curator (PR and altruism on both sides). When the curator looks to profit and the economic benefits aren't shared, then the relationship becomes unbalanced.

[Charles]

Why don't they do something meaningful. Let's be frank. Nobody wants to swamp their fave coffee shop.

Glad to see you're back and healthy :)

[graeme wood]

I'm slightly cynical about the idea, especially because of the industry it comes from. Crowd-sourced travel guides predate the 2.0 world: many years ago when I went travelling I met plenty of people who sent updates and tips into the publishers of Lonely Planet and Rough Guides, both to share knowledge (altruistic) and in the knowledge that if their tip was used, then their name would be printed in the next version of the guidebook (social capital). So even without reference to TripAdvisor, this is already the standard way that travel guides are created.

So canvassing specific people to contribute seems a step further than asymmetic benefits that Simon talks about. The value for the brand isn't in your content, it is in your network and your voice. So a copy of the book seems a pretty insignificant reward for borrowing your reputation as a blogger.

I don't think that the idea itself is a bad one , just the value exchange seems skewed.

[anthony]

I think you answered your own question very succinctly by the Henry Jenkins quote:

"Unlike the sale of a commodity, the giving of a gift tends to establish a relationship between the parties involved."

Say a blogging mate asked you to do a similar favour. If you decided to do it, you would know that you were earning real relationship currency with a real person, that either has value in itself, or could maybe be redeemed for a favour.

On the other hand, there is no such currency with the offer from the PR person - you are entitled to precisely nothing aside from a free book. No favours, no relationship building with either them or the client brand, no nothing.

They should go on Amazon Mechanical Turk and just pay 10USD/review... they would get some good reviews from clever students/freelance bums.

By the way, I am not slating the PR person involved, but I am just trying to articulate why it seems like a really bad deal.

Unless, of course, they actually wrote to you in Comic Sans MS, in which case, what a tool.
:)

[dboy]

Hello - nice post!

Just another side to this discussion, in terms of the values exchanged here - wouldn't there potentially be some benefit (financial) for the cafe you recommend? And so perhaps there is more intangible value created for you in that a brand you like potentially does better through your recommendation? (I know that's a bit fluffy, just suggesting there's more value exchanges going on here)

Also - it may be that the bloggers that are targeted are able to financially benefit from this, depending on what the objective of their blog is. So perhaps the value exchange might be different...?

[faris]

doddy - reciprocal altruism is a darwinist scam ;)

gift giving is a phatic channel.

the problem we face - commercial entities with commercial motivations attempting to act social to further said motivations- grammars collapse.

can't make friends and ask for money at the same time.

also - MEALS! you might like wealth of nations by yochai benkler who tears economics apart based on this insight.

ROCKONFX