From Strong Language » Irish Marketing Journal – Strong Language:
Marketing professionals are akin to a group of frontier miners looking for the next lucky strike. Housewives, the Pink Dollar, Generation X and Metrosexuals have all been the latest Klondike at one time or another. Now it’s the turn of the Geek.
It is easy to see why there is a strong desire to storm the bastions of Geekdom. Its citizens tend to be young, savvy, earn a good crust, and, vitally, are curious enough to buy ground-breaking new gizmos.
The geek was the person with the brick masquerading as a mobile phone; the one happy to splash the cash on a HD-ready TV years before there was anything to show on it.
The geek’s cupboards are littered with devices that never quite made it; the Betamax recorder, the minidisc, the Cross Convergence Pen. The geek doesn’t wait around to see how the market will react to these new products and doesn’t really care about the high price to be paid for getting in ahead of mass production. Obsolescence is collateral damage.
Rather than staring alone into their Gameboys circa 1989 while the rest of the lads were out kicking a ball around, Richard Delevan of McConnellsintegrated argues that technology had the effect of transforming geeks into attractive people to hang out with.
“These were the people who really knew what was going on and what the future held. These were the people who were ahead of the pack and everyone else wanted to be in the know,” he says.
Delevan also argues that with the ubiquity of the Internet, this has now transcended into a wider role as key influencers – to such an extent that they must become core to any marketing campaign.
“Geeks are nodes of influence in a social network and become the main attraction because of their knowledge of the latest software, for example,” he says. “These are the guys you absolutely need to have onside.”
An influential geek can now decide the success or failure of a product. Companies can throw vast amounts of marketing money at a launch but if Geekdom gives a product the thumbs down it could be game over.
American Dick Carlson, a self-confessed e-learning geek says: “Social media now lets you build a following online where you can share (and sell) the stuff that’s in your head. Through social media, you can connect directly with your audience – no agents, publishers, editors or gatekeepers – and gain immediate feedback. With low start-up costs, you can affordably create your own little knowledge factory online.”
The rise of geek chic
In the 1970s, The Fonz dismissed them as squares on Happy Days and how we laughed. Ten years on the geeks fought back when movies such as Hackers and War Games showed tech-savvy loners unafraid to battle the status quo.
Simultaneously, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were developing Microsoft and Apple while George Lucas and Steven Spielberg were playing around with science fiction sagas, special effects and animation.
Geeks were starting to make good money playing to their strengths – computer programming in the wee small hours, attention to detail and facilitating fledgling communication online. They may have lived on Pot Noodle and quadruple espressos but boy could they take a business into a whole brave new world! Now, countless millions of geeks earn a living from jobs that didn’t exist a few years ago.
So, how to reach the geek?
Like other groups in society, geeks tend to congregate around certain interests. TV series such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Battlestar Galactica and, of course, the geekiest of them all, Star Trek, all attract a cult following.
But it would be a huge mistake to pigeonhole the geek or, even worse, to patronise. It would be equally wrong to assume that because someone is willing to pay a lot of money to own a new device makes them an easy marketing touch.
Kathy Sierra, a founder of the community website javaranch.com, argues that geeks are not anti-marketing but they do hate being insulted – just like most people, really.
“Geeks hate being treated as though they’re too stupid to recognise when you’re lying, so don’t bullshit. But if you go out of your way to make something sexy, there’s no reason you should be afraid to flaunt it. It’s not hype if it’s true.”
So, in other words, marketing to geeks is not rocket science. You have to appeal to their interests but under the anorak they are just human beings like the rest of us.
The truth is out there.
Margaret E. Ward is managing director of Clear Ink and a self-confessed communications geek.
This post first appeared on Margaret E. Ward’s blog
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