Current TV: Humanized By The People
Though I am a tad older than their target market, I am fascinated by the Current TV approach, so a recent article by Alessandra Stanley in the New York Times (reg. required) caught my eye. As Stanley puts it in her closing paragraphs:
"Current allows people to take editorial control – something they cannot do with Fox or MTV – and create their own programs.
For all its rough spots and blog pretensions, Current is for-profit public-access television, an attempt to add grass-roots diversity to a television universe that is ever more controlled by a few media conglomerates."
Current TV appears to be a true "by the people, for the people" brand. I have not seen the programming yet, but did check out their web site. I loved that the link to "Studio" has a "make this network yours" tagline. I also appreciate the way that anyone can create and upload their own work, and also that anyone who is so inclined can vote on what gets "greenlighted" for the air. Doesn’t that just make you want to create something yourself and get involved?
Anyway –
People have long joked about Al Gore’s meandering career, and may not have known what to expect from this network he launched, but consider all that he and his team have likely learned from the political model (from grass-roots, technology-driven organizations like Moveon.org, for example). Participatory media! Yay!
Current is walking its talk and attracting the interest and participation of a very specific demographic – today’s youth. We all want the future of our country to include more culturally and politically aware, responsible citizens, and it seems to me that this is a great way to help get there.
Certainly, this is a media network with a young, techno-savvy audience, so these amazing levels of creativity and viewer interaction are much easier to make happen. Nevertheless, there are some overall marketing to women lessons to be learned (aren’t there always?) from Current:
- Invite women’s input and show them that you are using it.
- Ask women to help you decide what to sell.
- Educate women about how they can participate even more.
- Partner with advertisers or get involved with causes that are relevant to women’s lives (not just any brand or organization that wants access to our wallets).
- Come right out and celebrate the fact that your brand is all about them and not about you.
If creating a customer advisory board has seemed to "out there" or really unmanageable for some reason, I hope Current inspires you. We ALL have the ability to connect with an email database, right?
Any way you slice it, giving power to the people results in great customer relationships and only furthers the power of that brand. Why should we marketing to women students care even more? Women, with their "it all matters" and relationship-driven brains, respond very positively to invitations to participate and co-create – especially when so few brands have ever thought to extend such invitations. Now’s your chance.
P.S. If you want to stay "current" on Current (pun impossible to avoid), you may want to check out their blog.
