I was introduced to this most wonderful analogy at a recent Measurement Camp gathering where John Wilshere shared it as part of a presentation. Essentially his thought was that whilst traditional advertising such as – most typically – a TV commercial, can grab our attention, they do so only briefly – in much the way a firework might. Social media, on the other hand, has the ability to engage (and more importantly activate) an audience over a longer period of time – in the way people can gather round a bonfire and, provided one has enough fuel, build and sustain a community indefinitely.
This has got me thinking, whilst I agree that social media can act as a bonfire, i’m not sure that it can’t also be the firework. Typically if social media is to act as a bonfire we, as an agency, help develop, build and work with the brand to sustain a social initiative. However, there are times when social media can be used as a vehicle to create a firework. This is for those times when we develop a strategy for a one-off project/activity (or at the very least modify an existing project/activity to make it more ‘social’), implement it, monitor and measure it and feed it back in to the next project/activity as learnings to evolve any future strategy.With this model we would either:
- Create a new activity
- Adapt an activity to make it more social media friendly
- Create a firework for an existing bonfire (that we are already tending to)
So yes, social media is a bonfire, but sometimes it can also have a role to play as a firework.
Another problem with this analogy is that people want to see fireworks. I would argue that we rarely want to see advertising. In fact, advertising tends to be annoying at best and intrusive at worst.
A better analogy might be that social media is the bonfire to advertising’s person sitting alone while the bonfire tries to sell him something.
I think it’s a great analogy, but I believe advertising still has an important role to play in igniting the bonfires
Advertising as a discipline is not something that is going to be replaced by social communication, but it’s role is going to change. Rather than encouraging passive consumption advertising can become something that motivates participation in a the bigger idea. I wrote a post some time ago titled “is advertising worth saving” where I argue this point, i’d appreciate any comments or feedback.
http://experiencecurve.com/archives/is-advertising-worth-saving
Cheers
@karllong
Karl I very much agree that advertising can help ignite a bonfire. It’s not the only way to start a bonfire but depending on the scope of a given bonfire, sometimes it needs a ‘firework’ to get it started.
The point here is very much that bonfires are a distinct activity from traditional advertising and can speak to more than just marketing functions within a business (whereas fireworks almost exclusively are the preserve of marketing and specifically advertising).
As such you’re right, I believe advertising as a discipline is not something that is going to be replaced by social communcation. However, and I imagine you’d guessed as much, bonfires are all about social communication – they require social technologies to work.
Therein lies what could possibly be the fundamental difference beween bonfires and fireworks: Bonfires NEED a social technology (or technologies) to underpin them; Fireworks do not require (but might occassionally be supported by) a social technology (or technologies).
**(Apologies for the slow reply – i’ve been in The Alps this past week enjoy the rather lovely snow Europe is currently enjoying!)
[...] DO: More research/demographics reading – This really is the future of the comms industry. If you don’t know who’s using what, when and why. You are essentially loading a shotgun every time you recommend something to a client. Sometimes doing something because you want to be first is great and the right thing for the client but as budgets get tighter and people are stretched further and further – looking for the flashy will be left to the big guns to trailblaze. Think less fireworks and more bonfire stoking. [...]
[...] DO: More research/demographics reading – This really is the future of the comms industry. If you don't know who's using what, when and why. You are essentially loading a shotgun every time you recommend something to a client. Sometimes doing something because you want to be first is great and the right thing for the client but as budgets get tighter and people are stretched further and further – looking for the flashy will be left to the big guns to trailblaze. Think less fireworks and more bonfire stoking. [...]