As I and many other bloggers and Tweeters have found out to our embarassment and horror, the social internet is a cruel mistress. Good stuff gets noticed and passed on, dull stuff sits there. It is an absolute meritocracy, and all the sponsored tweets in the world don’t change that fact.
That’s also what makes the social net a fabulous algorithm for media planning.
Buried in an Ad Age piece about Chipotle’s much-awarded “Back to the Farm” spot is a somewhat subversive—and totally brilliant– perspective on buying traditional media in a social-media world. Chipotle’s CMO, Mark Crumpacker, had this to say about why Chipotle, never a big TV spender, took the plunge with this ad:
“It’s pretty easy to figure out whether something’s popular before you go and buy media around it,” said Mr. Crumpacker. “It wasn’t as easy before without social media … the plan is to put them out there and see how well they do.”
In other words, instead of trying to figure out how many eyeballs you can afford to expose to your ad, and copy-testing the ad itself to see if anyone will remember it, just put the sucker on YouTube. No guesswork, no waste. If it’s good enough to be shared, it’s good enough to be aired.
Belly of the Beast 