[Version 0.1 << work in progress needing your critical feedback. Also available as a PDF if that suits you better.]
Précis
Categorising media as Paid, Owned and Earned isn’t particularly useful. In fact, it simply appears to reinforce increasingly irrelevant functional silos.
The Influence View of Content aims to establish something more useful. It’s a perspective that seeks to help influence professionals think about how influence goes around and comes around in line with the Influence Scorecard framework.
Definition: Influence – you have been influenced when you think something you wouldn’t otherwise have thought or do something you wouldn’t otherwise have done.
Definition: The Influence Scorecard – serves as both the methodology for defining influence strategy and the tool for executing it.
Paid Owned Earned
With the proliferation of what used to be known as “new media”, it was natural to attempt some sort of descriptive taxonomy:
- Paid – Pay others to have your message on their media.
- Owned – This media is (actually or effectively) mine. I can publish what I like.
- Earned – Media relations, stakeholder conversations and user-generated content.
History
This taxonomy evolved from a traditional regard for media. From what I can tell, Nokia was an early pioneer of this taxonomy, albeit expressing it as Owned, Bought and Earned.
A Forrester blog post by Sean Corcoran summed up the situation at the end of 2009 and Forrester published research defining each of the three media types and providing interactive marketers with prescriptive advice on how to best apply them.
Edelman’s Dave Fleet proposed extending Corcoran’s model with a fourth category, becoming Paid, Owned, Earned and Social Media. This doesn’t work for me simply because it’s increasingly difficult to find any media without a social component.
McKinsey proposed two other categories: Paid, Owned, Earned, Sold and Hijacked. I couldn’t see the basis for Sold as it’s just Paid viewed from the other side of the contract. And hijacked is earned – you earned it, just not in the way you’d envisaged!
Most recently, Brian Solis has attempted an extension: Paid, Owned, Earned, Promoted and Shared. However (and perhaps I’m just anal when it comes to my expectations of a rational taxonomy) I consider Promoted to be a form of Paid, and Shared a hybrid of Owned and Earned.
Relevance
I can’t be the only one wondering however if there’s any value in this taxonomy. When did you last hear of a marketing and PR strategy that was lent significant value by this taxonomy? Compared to approaches prior to the taxonomy’s existence? Infrequently, or perhaps not once?
Whilst I appreciate McLuhan’s “the medium is the message”, the content of course is also the message, and I believe it’s appropriate to move away from this limited taxonomy of media and try to develop a more useful Influence View of Content.
The Influence View of Content
This is a work in progress and its validity will rest on the level of interest, application and collaboration it stimulates; ie, the influence it has.
Definition: Content – published information. For the purposes here, I consider a social sharing action to be (re)publishing in so much as the act raises the content to others’ attention.
In forming the Influence View of Content I consider two questions:
Q1. What might influence the creation of content?
Q2. Is the intent to exert influence central to the creation of every single piece of content?
Let's address each now.
Q1. What might influence the creation of content?
Candidate primary (supertype) influences:
- Emotion – I want to express my feelings
- Pursuit of organisational objective – eg, I think creating the content could have commercial benefit to my for-profit organisation
- Professional interest – related to what I do for a living (but not necessarily in direct pursuit of an organisational objective)
- Personal interest – but not necessarily emotional
- Self-identity – content to reinforce how I’d like others to see me
- Status information – eg, the flight is boarding at Gate 42
- Public information – eg, anti-smoking health advice leaflet
- Education – the content serves an educative purpose
- Artistic – artistic expression
- Boredom – content for self-stimulation
- Machined – content that is automatically discovered, presented and published by machines for humans (ie, making sense of ‘big data’ for us).
Rational?
These influences are not mutually exclusive. Emotion could be a subtype of personal interest for example, but then not every emotional impetus could be described in terms of being of personal or professional interest. And George Orwell would have it that “all art is propaganda” of course.
Ultimately, each supertype influence must stand alone in at least one context of content creation.
A BIT ABOUT EMOTION AND PERSONAL HAPPINESS
Aristotle argued that it was in our interest, given our deeply social nature, to participate in civic life in order to fulfil ourselves.
Jefferson followed this through when he wrote the American constitution and interpreted it as the ‘pursuit of happiness’. Is this pursuit a subtype of Emotion or Personal Interest?
A BIT ABOUT SELF-IDENTITY
Elizabeth Shove and Alan Warde note that social theorists maintain “people define themselves through the messages they transmit to others through the goods and practices that they possess and display. They manipulate and manage appearances and thereby create and sustain a ‘self-identity’.”
But does influence on others have to be exerted to accomplish the purpose of creating a self-identity, or is it sufficient for the content creator to simply believe others have been influenced accordingly? Does self-identity simply require self-influence?
A BIT ABOUT BOREDOM
Shove et al note some social-psychological accounts of consumption explain that people seek new products and new pleasures because they need stimulation. Playing new games, trying out new items, exploring new material objects, and learning new tastes are ways of averting boredom, as is creating content in the process. The facilities of the many apps and widgets people try are testament to this need.
A BIT ABOUT MACHINED MEDIA
Machined media is related to the definition of the Semantic Web, when the Web becomes a universal medium for the exchange of data, information and knowledge. While some initial human direction is needed, the intelligent agent undertaking the discovery and content creation is then essentially autonomous. The degree of autonomy will indicate whether machined media is a supertype influence, or servant subtype.
Other candidates
I have identified the following but consider them to be subtypes of the supertype influences above:
- Payment – eg, payment in pursuit of organisational objectives
- Collaboration – to work together; but why?
- Association – eg, brand association; but why?
- For a “cause” – eg, environmentalism; personal or professional interest?
- News worthiness – too generic to be useful imho.
Q2. Is the intent to exert influence central to the creation of every single piece of content?
Or in other words, when might you create content that seeks no influence? And in such circumstances, what then is the purpose of its creation?
If we take it that whenever content is intended for others it must be seeking to affect the other – to influence them to think or feel or do something – then perhaps the only time content is created without influence in mind is when the content is created for one’s personal needs or desires alone?
Importantly for our application here, the instances of content creation not seeking influence appear few.
ART
George Orwell’s assertion aside, perhaps some art is simply personally satisfying; content created simply for no other reason than it can be created.
IDEAS IN PROGRESS
One might argue that content in private draft format – as embryonic ideas, as works in progress – is not designed to influence others. But then this is just one step removed in terms of influence; it’s building up to it.
In conclusion.
The Influence View of Content has been in my head as a work in progress, and following conversations with those thanked below it is now a work in progress seeking influence, created for reasons of personal interest and the pursuit of organisational objectives. I hope it might prove useful before we might ever call it finished.
The ease and effectiveness with which we manage and learn from influence flows is integral to the ways all stakeholders interact with organizations to broker mutually valuable, beneficial relationships.
As most content exerts influence, every influence professional must seek to understand what influenced the creation of relevant content, and might then influence it in future.
Thanks.
David Phillips, Jay O’Connor, Gabbi Cahane, Andrew Bruce Smith, Mark Pinsent.
Brian Solis says:
Hello Philip, you're quote "I consider Promoted to be a form of Paid, and Shared a hybrid of Owned and Earned" is essentially correct, but not necessarily conclusive. It boxes in the potential and the different methodology/philsophy required for promoted and shared. Media is often paid and owned. It's rarely earned. Even less, is it social, shared or promoted. I implore you to read the post that explains the new model to see exactly what's necessary to actually bring these 2 new channels to life. You'll see the approach for P.O.E.M. is suddenly dated and no longer scalable for any form of media in the face of connected consumerism. Cheers my friend!
14 November 2011 — 9:11 pm
Philip says:
Hi Brian, thanks for stopping by :-)
Re.: "It boxes in the potential and the different methodology/philsophy required for promoted and shared" and I couldn't agree more. In response it seems that you've taken to extend P.O.E. whereas I've opted for something else altogether.
Saying that, I wonder if you're not reaching much the same conclusion when you write – "You'll see the approach for P.O.E.M. is suddenly dated and no longer scalable for any form of media in the face of connected consumerism."
Are you really sure adding Shared and Promoted solves the problem you've identified? Does it allow us to approach the business of influence afresh, unhindered by the siloed thinking of past practice?
15 November 2011 — 7:36 pm
Simon Sanders says:
Nice article, Philip. Another reet riveting read! More and more, when I think about influence I think about art and true artists, and often the influence that, say, politicians, artists, prophets or musicians have or have had. There are differences between these categories of influencers of course: not least their intentions at the time of creating 'content'.
Some other associated thoughts...
1) I think you should refer to *identity* and not *self-identity* when you talk about "content to reinforce how I’d like others to see me". Self-identity would surely be how one sees oneself.
2) Again, without being picky, I wonder if there is some overlap and therefore differentiation between influence and impact. Many marketers (the average marketing manager I am told stays in their role for 18 months) and PR types (working on a campaign basis) are looking for impact and not necessarily influence. Discuss!
3) Let's combine both the above points and return to influence in the context of the music industry and musicians. As discussed with @lakey and surfaced by him here http://bit.ly/1nfluenc3 a band like Velvet Underground are one of the most influential of all time, yet unlike, say the Beatles or Rolling Stones, never really sold any records. Bob Dylan, Kraftwerk, MC5, New York Dolls / Sex Pistols, Pixies are further examples of hugely influential artists with relatively low sales In the grand scheme of things and even someone like David Bowie has hardly been a massive unit-shifter, but is one of the first names you cite as being influential.
With many of the above, I wouldn't think that their music was created with the intention of influencing others - in fact, I would think this is rarely the case, although self-esteem and self-actualisation (see Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs http://bit.ly/Masl0w would have been high on the list (as well, perhaps the more superficial external rewards).
4) Summing up, influence - the potential or actual ability to affect someone else's thoughts or behaviour - doesn't always happen immediately, nor is it always intended, nor does it always take the form the influencer might have wanted, nor is it always overtly noticeable in the actions of the influenced.
15 November 2011 — 6:41 pm
Philip says:
Hi Simon, thanks for your provocations and we should explore further over a nice pint o' mild. If only Brian was in London more often too :-)
I like your point about influential versus impact. Perhaps I can say how I see it.
When I talk about influence I always mean the following:
> You have been influenced when you think something you wouldn't otherwise have thought or do something you wouldn't otherwise have done.
> An influence professional is focused as much on being influenced by others as influencing others.
> Your influence objectives (and therefore the measures of your success) are always linked to your business objectives.
This last one is the most important in relation to your key point above. If the primary objective of the Velvet Underground was to affect the creative output of other artists then their influence strategy was, by your account, defined and executed successfully.
If however the group's primary objective was to be the most commercially successful act, then the corresponding influence strategy did not fully achieve the objective.
Your regard for the Velvet Underground as influential is within your context of influence. ie, did others think or behave differently based on the band's output? We do not know the band's context (to my knowledge).
15 November 2011 — 7:49 pm
Tim Marklein says:
Another valuable and thought-provoking post, Philip. As I mentioned when we met Wednesday in London, I have used and seen the value of Paid/Earned/Owned/Shared as a way to actually bridge silos rather than reinforce them. Granted it may create new silos over time, but to me it's a more modern and useful way to think about communications and influence planning than the traditional silos of Advertising, PR, Direct Mail, Web/Interactive, Design/Marcom, etc.
In practice, for example, thinking about Paid only within the functional discipline of Advertising is off target. Several of the disciplines play in the realm of Paid Media, and if you were to create a Paid Media plan, it would require those disciplines to collaborate and partner to apply those disciplines across the right Paid Media channels and content. In contrast, an Advertising plan could be created standalone by the client's Advertising director and his/her Advertising agency -- and ignore the important interplay across Paid channels and content. Similar collaborations across different disciplines are required to develop an Owned Media plan and Earned Media plan (though the latter may be more single-discipline biased than the others).
Until recently, I had also been showcasing Shared as a peer to Paid, Earned and Owned. I found it instructive to help distinguish channels like Facebook and Twitter, and remind organizations that they do not actually "own" their Facebook page or Twitter page -- in reality, Facebook and Twitter own the pages, and the organizations are simply feeding content and leasing the space. Clearly different from an organization web site or blog, where the organization owns the content, the property, the analytics and the management of it.
Recently, though, I've encountered two problems with Shared as a peer concept: 1) It often gets confused with "sharing" as an action and then bleeds into the fuzzy definition of Social; and 2) From a measurement and management perspective, separating out Shared actually adds confusion. Much easier to think about "channels" that have different type of "content" withing them. For example, Facebook is actually a channel that has a blend of Owned Content (organization's Facebook page), Earned Content (what people say about the brand) and Paid Content (ads and other sponsored placements).
To that end, I believe Paid, Earned and Owned are actually valuable for bridging traditional silos -- and helping people better integrate their thinking across traditional and emerging media. It's possible that the appendage "Media" may be more problematic than P/E/O itself -- perhaps "Content" is the more useful descriptor, but I can live with either one in a practical sense for planning purposes. Beyond that, I would argue that other peer concepts to P/E/O may be appealing though not particularly necessary or useful. At least not at this stage.
19 November 2011 — 10:13 pm
Philip says:
Thanks Tim, delighted to hear your thoughts on the usefulness of Paid, Owned, Earned, ....
You won't be surprised if I come back on two comments in your very first paragraph.
You support Paid Owned Earned "as a way to actually bridge silos rather than reinforce them", and admit that "it may create new silos over time".
This raises the following questions:
1. Is this taxonomy the only way to bridge silos? Wouldn't a perspective that's related to your stakeholders' motivations be a more relevant bridge?
2. Why champion any approach that risks replacing one set of silos with another set?
20 November 2011 — 8:55 pm