Random Acts of Marketing. Compromising Sincerity
According to Trendwatching, random acts of kindness will be a marketing force in 2011. Companies "spontaneously" reaching out to customers with surprise gifts.
It sounds good on the surface, but it is the motive I question. I love business and marketing, but shouldn't "random acts of kindness" be more subtle? Doing something good without any expectation of "quid pro quo"?
On the other hand, with all the personal information that people are posting, it certainly is not difficult for an alert marketer to reach out to potential customers at their time of greatest need.
What do you think?
Here is an excerpt from the Trendwatching:
Social networks also enable acts of kindness to spread far beyond its recipients, as they will gladly tell their friends and followers about the unexpected good news (see SOCIAL-LITES). Two fun examples to copy or improve on in 2011:
- Flower delivery service Interflora has launched a social media campaign in the UK designed to brighten up the lives of Twitter users by sending them flowers. As part of the campaign, Interflora monitors Twitter looking for users that it believes might need cheering up. Once found, the users are contacted by tweet, and sent a bouquet of flowers as a surprise.
- Dutch airline KLM’s ‘How Happiness Spreads’ Foursquare-based campaign employed a ‘Surprise Team’ to give passengers tailored, unexpected gifts at the airport. Throughout November 2010, as soon as someone checked-in at a KLM Foursquare location within its network of airports, the Surprise Team went online to find more background information about the person, decided upon a suitable gift and gave it them before they flew. For instance, one traveler tweeted he would miss a PSV Eindhoven football game while he was in New York. The Surprise Team, accordingly, gave him a Lonely Planet guide book of NYC with all the football bars highlighted in blue.
Source: www.trendwatching.com. One of the world's leading trend firms, trendwatching.com sends out its free, monthly Trend Briefings to more than 160,000 subscribers worldwid
