This month, we’ll be looking at CROWD CLOUT, a trend and business opportunity waiting to happen. CROWD CLOUT is all about co-buying, about consumers revealing their purchasing intentions to make the most of their budget, if not to gang up on…YOU!
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The power of groups, the clout that crowds can exercise to get what they want, is nothing new. Whatisnew, however, is the dizzying ease with which likeminded, action-ready citizens and consumers can now go online and connect, group and ultimately exert influence on a global scale. Call it group power, call it CROWD CLOUT:
CROWD CLOUT: “Online grouping of citizens/consumers for a specific cause, be it political, civic or commercial, aimed at everything from bringing down politicians to forcing suppliers to fork over discounts.”
Now, even though politically and civically minded CROWD CLOUT concepts likeMoveOn.organd Hummer-hatingFUH2.comare fascinating, in this briefing we'll focus exclusively on the most commercial aspects of this trend. One word: co-buying. If that feels like a blast from the past, extensively discussed and unsuccessfully tried back in 1996, you’re right. It’s about consumers’ purchasing intentions, and (sometimes) the grouping of those intentions. Semi-dormantLetsbuyit.comand no-longer-amongst-usMercata.comcome to mind.
* Note: Yes, we actually managed to find the last remaining ‘crowd’ moniker out there, joining a crowded space that now encompasses everything fromCROWD SOURCINGtoCROWD STORMtoTHE WISDOM OF CROWDStoCROWD SPIRIT, covering important trends like co-creation, co-shopping and co-funding.
Before we look at full-fledged CROWD CLOUT, let’s start with one of its prerequisites, and a huge business opportunity waiting to happen in its own right: getting consumers to reveal their intentions.
Accurately dubbed theIntention Economyby Doc Searls last year (though the ideahasfrequently surfaced over the last 10 years: just check out John Hagel’smusingson the topic), it all comes down to letting consumers make their buying intentions known, inviting one or multiple suppliers to bid for their business.To quote Searls:"The Intention Economy is built around truly open markets, not a collection of silos. In The Intention Economy, customers don't have to fly from silo to silo, like a bees from flower to flower, collecting deal info (and unavoidable hype) like so much pollen. In The Intention Economy, the buyer notifies the market of the intent to buy, and sellers compete for the buyer's purchase. Simple as that. [...]In The Intention Economy, a car rental customer should be able to say to the car rental market, "I'll be skiing in Park City from March 20-25. I want to rent a 4-wheel drive SUV. I belong to Avis Wizard, Budget FastBreak and Hertz 1 Club. I don't want to pay up front for gas or get any insurance. What can any of you companies do for me?" — and have the sellers compete for the buyer's business."
Now, even though there IS a growing number of intermediaries helping individual consumers to get a quote or offer based on their intentions, this space remains wide open. In fact, most of these ‘information brokers’ focus on only one product/category (think mortgages, cruises, plane tickets), making it a hassle to find the appropriate site for each individual intention. Many of them also work (too) closely with a limited set of suppliers, so the bidding process becomes somewhat scripted, with less than spectacular discounts as a result.
So while there’scruisecompete.comfor getting a quote from cruise travel agents, andPriceline, which lets customers name their own price and then matches it with the (pre-set) minimum prices that airlines, hotels and rental car companies have provided Priceline with, this space remains wide open for intention-brokers who can handle a variety of intentions per customer, and genuinely operate on behalf of those customers.
For true inspiration, take a cue from these ‘intention 2.0’ firms that are shaking up the traditionally not-so-transparent world of real estate in Finland, the UK, The Netherlands and the US:
Finnish real estate siteIgglolets potential buyers 'pre-order' houses that aren't on the market. Igglo has photographed every building in Helsinki and several other Finnish cities, and combines these photographs with satellite images and maps. Every property is listed, not just those that are currently on the market. (Their tagline is: "Your house is already on Igglo.") Potential buyers can earmark a building, street or neighborhood they're interested in, and post offers online. This lets potential sellers find out how desirable their property is, even if they weren't actively considering selling. Buyers also receive an alert when a property in their earmarked building or area comes up for sale. If demand and supply meet, Igglo handles the transaction for a lower fee than is charged by regular real estate agents (less than 2%). Lower fees are made possible by the fact the Igglo agents don't get involved until buyers and sellers have found each other. Consumers like it: the site attracts more than 50,000 visitors a week, and the company is now working on European expansion; a recent EUR12.5 million (USD 15.7 million) first venture round led by Benchmark Capital Europe will certainly help.
However, as good ideas spread faster than ever, it will now find similar 'reverse real-estate' start-ups on its path: from BritishBlockhunterand DutchElkhuistekoop.nlto US-basedBuyerHunt.
On the side of intentions and consumersellers, there’s US basedZillow, which lets home owners take the initiative, by allowing them to set aMake Me Moveprice without actually putting their house on the market. Once owners set a price ("that magical number you just can't refuse"), potential buyers can contact them anonymously via email. It's then up to the owner to decide whether they really want to sell. Here too, intentions are key: if homeowners are thinking about selling in the near future, the service helps to start gathering interest. Or they may have long term plans to sell, but could be motivated to do so sooner if the right offer comes along.
What match making start-up will go all out and combine Igglo and Zillow-like intention-services to create a beyond-transparent real estate super site?
And what other 'not for sale yet' objects of desire are ripe for this kind of pro-active bidding war? That old timer parked around the block? Attractive yet somewhat anonymous members of the opposite/same sex? Small businesses? If you can somehow obtain an extensive database, preferably with pretty pictures, throwing in some geospace functionalities making it easy to locate an object, you may have found yourself the Next Big Intention 2.0 Thing.
There's more, though: how about listing an intention to go see an artist or band if he, she or they would only come to a certain country or city? EnterEventful, which not only enables users to find and post local events anywhere in the world, but also lets themdemandevents and performances in their town and spread the word to make them happen. At last count, there were more than 126,000 demanded events on Eventful. Should help persuade well known artists to now and then change their regular touring schedule, and should definitely create a long tail-style bonanza for niche audiences, and thus niche artists, niche events and niche performances.
Eventful.com gets us to true, commercially fueled CROWD CLOUT: aggregated intentions to either persuade suppliers to pay attention, or to force them to sell at a discounted price when a group orders in bulk.
But first: what went wrong for some of the high-profile brands (especially aforementioned letsbuyit.com and mercata.com) who tried to get CROWD CLOUT off the ground in the early web days?
How about:
Not enough people online in 1997 to reach the mass needed to move quickly to satisfy urgent needs. Consumers' intentions have different time spans: how long are you willing to wait for a possible discount on that flat screen TV or new car? Needless to say, a lack of mass also made it difficult to realize significant discounts.Subsequently, colossal offline marketing expenditures were needed to get exposure, killing any kind of fiscally prudent start these types of new initiatives need. Don't forget, we're talking late nineties, when getting the word out about a new o
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