Two Approaches: Shotgun vs Laser

Companies approach social in one of two ways: The first way, companies experiment with little order or goals, the second way, companies have clear goals and intend to invest in a deeper relationship.

1) Shotgun: Toyota’s Yaris Campaign Spreads Chances
While experimentation is always important, companies must do so in the context of a goal, whether it’s to test and learn, or just to prove to management it can be done. Take for example Toyota’s latest campaign, which is much akin to interactive marketing or advertising (not social engagement), where they’ve funded eight agencies to spend $15,000 only on their social marketing campaigns. The goal is to see who can make it work and stick, then they’ll spend more money with the firm that achieves ‘viral’ growth. This shotgun approach has caught the criticism of Laurel Papworth, she’s right at vegas, this is called spreading your bets on the roulette table.

2) Laser: Ford’s Fiesta Movement Amplifies a Smaller Target
On the other hand, take for example the competitive car, the Ford Fiesta, which also plays the young hip efficient car for today’s youth. Ford’s approach was more focused, they put most of their eggs into reaching only 100 drivers that were social savvy influencers to get them to spread the word. This “Fiesta Movement” (NYT) was targeted at social influencers, empowered them although it’s unknown what the final impacts of the expensive loaner car program is.

Web Strategy Matrix: Social Marketing Approaches, Shotgun vs Laser

Shotgun Laser
Description Hiring multiple agencies to conduct social campaigns Building a deeper relationship with a core group of influencers
Similar to Interactive Advertising, “Fishing” Influencer Relations, ‘Friending”
Benefits Efficient way to get started, identify hot spots to pursue. Deeper relationships with core influencers who may spread word of mouth, and become brand evangelists.
Risks Brand burnout on community, risk of appearing disingenuous Spending more resources on a smaller few reduces chances of spread.
Costs Inexpensive. In this case, it was 15k X 8 agenices, for a total of 120k. Costly. Relationship marketing estimated 50-100k in agency costs. Loaning 100 economy cars at 15k each around 1.5 million.
Takeaway Ideal for the company that doesn’t understand social marketing and is willing to test on their own customers. Ideal for company that’s ready to invest time, people and money on relationships.


Brands Should First Start With Understanding Customers
So which way is better? First, let’s start with the most important factor, people. While padding the top line for revenues in a slumping economy continues to be important, it’s important to note that burning out your relationships with your community can cause long-term drain. Rather than test eight campaigns on a community causing ‘brand overload’, first do the research to find out the social behaviors (we call this SocialGraphics), identify who they trust online, and where they are located at online before doing anything. By first starting with data, you can reduce eight campaigns to two, or maybe one, and avoid burning out your brand –and community.

So what does this means to Toyota and Ford?  Toyota’s social efforts come across as young, they’re not sure what they’re doing so they’re hoping to see which (interactive+advertising) agency will figure it out for them.  On the other hand, Ford comes across as slightly more mature as having true influencer relationships (Similar to PR Influence Relations) and spend the time to build these real-world relationships.

Update: Thanks to Barbara for the “Fishing vs Friending” analogy.  Apparently the CEO of Ford read this post, welcome, an honor.

43 Replies to “Two Approaches: Shotgun vs Laser”

  1. An articulate summary Jeremiah with an intelligent comparison between young and old and maturity. I think it’s worth noting that the general consumer may remain oblivious- if the short term non strategic engagement is ‘fun’ they may not care. A little bit like TV ads – ‘Do you like TV ads’ has a different response than ‘what’s your fave TV ad’. In other words, Toyota campaign participants may enjoy a campaign without signing up for long term engagement 🙂
    Which is pretty well what you said 🙂 thanks for the link!
    Laurel @silkcharm

  2. I wonder, though, if the laser approach can be a touch patriarchical. When a company decides it knows best who the ideal customer is, those who don’t fit the “mold” can get miffed at a perceived exclusion.

  3. Shotgun or Laser, regardless, both are wholly ineffective. Shotgun is too general and misses too much, what appeals to everybody, appeals to none. Laser is too narrow-cast, morphing and cementing into elitist entitlement groups, never breaking beyond, with the so-called “relationships” lasting as long as the freebie perks are always incoming.

    And trying to group role-cast classify, only gets you so far, and traditional demographics, have become more blended, people playing many differing roles.

    So what then is the answer? That’s where case-by-case “strategy” comes in, it’s not a science, and not even an art, mere intuition, blind-luck batting-average of .300 is flying high. And you can’t even go by cliché-of-the-century “know your customer”, as you have to know customers you don’t yet have, just “knowing your customer” will Dead-Sea salt you in. The answer is that there is no answer.

  4. Yes Yaris was a shotgun approach with a bunch of stunts, but at least Toyota paid them all for the pitch… or was it a pitch?

  5. This is a great comparison Jeremiah (crowd-sourcing vs. single sourcing) but it may lead one to believe that Toyota isn’t too smart when it comes to social media. In my mind, Toyota’s social work for the Prius was state-of-the-art. And they didn’t even have to give away cars. They targeted Posters who brought in the Pasters and the rest is history. Peace!

  7. Thanks Jeremy. Good point, the cars have diminished value as they are now used, usually about 30% less of the value of the car, in addition to the lease value, but yes, I get your point.

    BTW: I hope you blog your overall experience, I'd love to read.

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