The Octopus returneths from the deep!
Two weeks ago, I started Project Octopus. It was a simple experiment, designed to measure conversations around a black octopus necklace that I bought on Ebay. I wanted to see whether I could create a social object - an object that people would talk about, and in turn generate further conversations.
Today, I completed the Project. In hindsight, I failed miserably at one thing - metrics. I didn’t set any targets or goals, but given the nature of the experiment, hitting the numbers wasn’t important. What WAS important was whether it was possible.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the answer: it is possible.
Results Summary
- In 14 days, 10 unique conversations occurred
- From those 10 conversations, a secondary conversation about the necklace and the project occurred without my presence
- 40% of conversations were with people who weren’t personal friends
- 90% of conversations were in public, social areas
- 70% of commenters were in my own age bracket
I was surprised at the percentage of conversations that occurred with people who I didn’t personally know. I was expecting only personal friends would comment, but the necklace seemed to cut through inhibitions and elicit reactions from people who I wouldn’t expect to comment. Of the three randoms, one was a bank teller, and two were random university students. The work mate was a boss a few levels above me.
Conclusion: Given enough incentive, people will ignore their own inhibitions and start talking.
This played out as I expected. Given the nature of the item, the usage of Lego over the years, and the areas in which I happen to hang around in, I expected the predominant age bracket to be my own. The octopus is from a mid-to-late 90s “underwater” set of Lego, which is a very specific time frame to expect people to recognise the object for what it is. Beyond recognition, the shape and colour also attracted attention, as well as the clothing I wore. Three people commented on the day when I wore a “plunging neckline” shirt that highlighted the item.
Conclusion: Inconclusive. I didn’t go out of my way to escape my own comfort zone, ie. my own age demographic.
Again, as expected, the more social areas of my life were the places where more comments were made. My work was at a university, so realistically there were four conversations at university, making it the most popular place.
Conclusion: Areas where random conversations and non-intimate interactions normally occur (eg. university, work, parties with a lot of people) are breeding grounds for observational commentary.
Overall Conclusions
I was incredibly chuffed to hear that Project Octopus spawned a secondary conversation. After talking with me, a personal friend ran into one of his friends who happened to be wearing a Lego Stormtrooper necklace. This prompted another conversation about this new necklace, which in turn came back to Project Octopus. This coincidence, while unplanned, defined the project for me - even with just 10 conversations, I had a 10% conversion rate.
In conclusion, I think it’s possible to manufacture a social object, given the right conditions and an understanding of how conversations are created. Obviously this was a simple, and flawed, experiment, so further experiments under different conditions should be conducted. For what I intended, though, I’d call this simple experiment MYTH CONFIRMED.
Next project: Getting a job.
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6 comments ↓
Isn’t ’social object’ just a fancy (read that as you like) term for ‘talking piece’?
To me its just a basic sociological concept dressed up in sequins and a top hat by marketing, who then goes on to claim it is a result of its ’skill’ in manipulating people.
Perhaps I’m missing something.
A social object isn’t anything fancy. Yes, it’s a term for a “talking piece”. The point is that this talking piece has a life beyond the original conversation.
That life can be physical - eg. we talk about the most recent Underbelly episode at the coffee machine at work the day after it shows, then at dinner that night you talk about it with 4 friends, then the next day the same conversation occurs at another 4 workplaces via your friends.
Or it can be virtual - you make a comment on Twitter/blog/Facebook/MySpace/etc, your friends then take an interest in the conversation and carry it further to their friends.
Ultimately (to my understanding), it’s about the depth of the conversation - how far can something be talked about? How many degrees of separation before it loses relevance to the audience?
Again, you have just typed an entire spiel of things that are, to me (and I’m not particularly wonderful or talented, so I assume to others as well) are obvious. It doesn’t take an expert (of any field) to tell you that if a male gets around with an octopus around his neck, people will mention it.
On the topic of the secondary conversation, it occurred because you were doing this ‘project’, not because of the octopus itself. In this case your ’social object’ was not the necklace, but the project (which as far as I can see was not the intention). The question remains as to whether your friend, quizzed on his stormtrooper would have gone ‘thanks, my friend Adam has an octopus’. Awkward silence. It took the ‘project’ to make that conversation relevant. Just like I am commenting on this blog not because of the octopus, but because you turned a plastic octopus into a project.
My first and only thought when you posted the blog about the project was that it must get lonely treating everyone as the subject of an experiment (read herding too). But obviously that’s your bag baby.
My ultimate beef is with marketing holding itself out to be more clever than it is. Using its eloquence to mask the fact that in many cases it is stating the obvious, and patronising everyone else in the process. The whole notion of the marketer’s ’social object’ is a prime example.
I get the feeling that you have a much larger bee in your bonnet, but that’s perfectly fine. Everyone’s entitled to their opinion.
My project was flawed from the start - it was never intended to be a perfect research study. The concept of a social object (in terms of marketing) is relatively new to me, so I wanted to test my understanding of it and whether it’s actually got any traction. Your comments about it gaining results that aren’t related to the necklace are correct, but at the same time the results weren’t irrelevant. At a few points, the project itself became the object/talking point, rather than the necklace. And that’s fine - even though I got it wrong, I still learned from it.
If you see marketing as patronising, then that’s your call. A lot of what we do is obvious to non-marketers, and so it should be. We live in a savvy age that isn’t 1930, yet we’re still using techniques and terminology from that era. There are new directions for marketing to take that aren’t traditional methods, that embrace the intelligence of the market, and that’s where our field gets more interesting.
A project about a plastic octopus doesn’t make me particularly emotional. When you showed me the necklace I believe my reaction was ‘…ok?’. I’m just not into kitsch. The emotional part for me (my bee, to use your approach) is the psychological, manipulative context the whole thing is projected into that perhaps brings some annoyances to the surface.
You are right; the market IS a lot more savvy nowadays. ‘Success’ going forward in many cases will depend on the creativity employed by the marketeer. Consumers can’t be ‘tricked’ anymore. And they can pick an attempt a mile away. My observations and opinion as a complete non-marketeer is that consumers need to be impressed at genuine creativity, or at least amused.
Coming back to the topic at hand, marketing kicks back in an airconditioned office summising and scheming, patting itself on the back for being so clever. The rest of us sit there, look at its work and go “no shit, Sherlock”.
As an aside perhaps you should blog about your opinions from a marketing POV on the very relevant issue of selling in a financial (and to a lesser extent environmental) climate where people, out of sheer necessity, are becoming increasingly discerning and more reluctant to hand over the Amex.
hh.. amazing..
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