I won’t discuss numbers here – however you slice them there are going to be 2 sides. I’ll focus on the concept and for the sake of lessons learned what future outfits need to do to avoid the mistakes that Blyk has committed.
As the blogosphere is a-chatter with Blyk this Blyk that it’s worth noting that I’ve long struggled with this model despite the apparent industry acclaim.
What Blyk should have done was make it very clear at the off whether they were a brand that youth could care about or an advertising platform a la Metro newspaper. Where they failed was ploughing a furrow between the two and thus sending out mixed messages about their intentions.
As a youth brand they needed to have created a presence on campuses by focusing on building a legacy; their own events and supporting the heroes of the community (writers, bloggers, musicians, grafiti artists, DJs etc).
As an ad platform they needed to have dropped the pretensions of being anything but.
Unfortunately, Blyk’s plight is akin to the emperor’s new clothes; they are surrounded by a coterie of advisors and bloggers who hang on their every move, pinning the apparent hopes of “youth marketing” on this false champion. “False” because we’re often too lazy to bother looking outside of our own industry for the answers. Just like Springfield’s Monorail, we expect mobile to solve all our problems and smoothe over the cracks.
It’s no surprise that if you task a creative agency with the challenge of addressing the issue of “how do we connect with youth?” they’ll tell you the answer lies in advertising campaigns. As the zen saying goes “if the only tool in your kit is a hammer, everything looks like a nail”.
Blyk should have studied the market leaders rather than listen to those sniffing the MVNO glue. Red Bull, Jones Soda, Toyota Scion, Nike, Threadless, Boost Mobile and Loftwork are all examples of brands that refuse to lie down and take the agency medicine committing themselves to the creation of sustainable currency in the universe of their consumers rather than relying on a 50 year old business model based on interruption that is quite frankly, broken.
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Blyk’s writing on the wall? http://bit.ly/cCKhN
Blyk – where it is going wrong http://bit.ly/cCKhN
Graham – permission based models cannot be interruption by definition. Requested information is different. Added to this, the understanding of what Blyk is by young people is directly proportional to Blyk’s net advocacy score.
It is interesting how the people who get Blyk the most are the citizens, and the advertisers. It appears the most confusion comes from commentators who either try and justify bias or attempt to repeatedly kick something until (they hope) it dies. Which of course it wont (because engagement marketing is what citizens and advertisers want). Which of course angers commentators even moreso – especially if they have been blind-sided on their perch of youth marketing expertise.
What Blyk has done is prove, on one hand, that engagement marketing is more effective than any other type of old-school (as you say) 50 yr old business models – and on the other hand, that advertisers are eager to be involved but require large audiences (hence the scale-version of Blyk including other operators).
It’s a real shame that you continue to miss the point of what Blyk has done, but as the saying goes, I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.
Blyk, where it’s going wrong: http://bit.ly/cCKhN
Blyk, where it’s going wrong: http://bit.ly/cCKhN
“Ad-funded mobile service provider Blyk is pulling the plug on its U.K. operation in order to focus on providing mobile advertising-related services for network operators, it emerged this week.”
http://www.totaltele.com/view.aspx?C=0&ID=447673
[...] over their model aside, The Youth Conspiracy post reminds us that you can’t just talk the talk as a youth brand and [...]