Expectations change how the same experience feels.
More quotesNew campaign idea: customers film a dance, invent our content, tag three friends and surrender their email address for a one-in-8,000 chance of winning a tote bag. The marketing team, naturally, is too busy to join in.
I have a crude test for participatory campaigns: would anyone in the room perform this little circus for another brand? Not “can we imagine the persona doing it?” Personas are remarkably obedient when trapped in slides. I mean would an actual colleague, on an actual Tuesday evening, interrupt dinner to create unpaid advertising for a dishwasher tablet?
Occasionally the answer is yes. People contribute when the act is funny, useful, expressive, prestigious or part of a community that existed before the content calendar. They share a brilliant tool. They post a genuinely flattering result. They answer one interesting question. But “join the conversation” usually means “please provide free reach for the conversation we scheduled”. The same delusion infects webinar forms with eight fields, brand communities consisting of three interns and a giveaway, and referral schemes whose reward would not cover the social awkwardness of mentioning them. The business counts the value it receives and forgets the effort it requests.
Participation earns its keep only when the burden feels like a favour to the customer, not a shift at the agency. Make the thing worth sharing. Let usefulness produce conversation. And if your own team would scroll past it, stop pretending the public is desperate to clock in.