The best marketing I ever saw. We all have moments of enlightenment… | by Thack | Oct, 2023

We all have those moments when we’re like, no, this is never going to be bettered.

I had one of those today.

I don’t know whether it just hit right because of my exceptionally good mood. But I think even if I’d seen it when I was pissed, I’d still have come out of the experience thinking it was the best marketing I ever saw.

Let’s build it up. Then break it down.

Sprout Social had an article about 7 great influencer campaigns. Not the best of starts — I happen to be triggered by anything with ‘influencer’ in it.

But strong views, loosely held, is my MO. So I figured I should give it a shot, especially since it had been favoured by TLDR Marketing — my fave newsletter of its kind.

The other 6 on this list were shite, in my opinion. But when you’re panning for gold, you gotta delve in the debris to surface those shiny nuggets.

I struck out on the seventh.

Hadn’t heard of Flock, a freight company. Never would have. I ship nothing but digital goodness, and I don’t fit in containers (UNTIL I’M DEAD, HA HA!).

But there’s a cool looking guy called Steve who apparently does what I did, back in the day. He’s an investigative reporter, so obviously Steve and I as ballers very much deserve to be considered influencers in a not-disparaging way.

Steve’s been hired by Flock to answer the age-old question: what exactly is a fuckload?

We’re about to find out. A gold nugget, indeed, this very much is.

Flock nails this because it doesn’t shy from being edgy. Brands need to be more human. Every one of them. They need to flock to Flock to find out how it’s done.

We now know a fuckload is 40 feet or more of stuff.

The lessons we need to take from this influencer campaign are:

1. Understanding value. Value doesn’t necessarily mean ‘how do I use this VHS player’. Value can be ‘tell me a joke I can share’. Social equity is what your customers want, when they’re in the social space. This video is so funny that it increases your customer’s social equity.
2. Being unconventional. Now AI’s on the scene, everything predictable has been taken. So you have to think a bit more. How can you max out that value proposition using unorthodox approaches? Steve wasn’t the natural pick for Flock and its fuckload. But he worked magnificently. Experiment small, win big.
3. JFDI. Too many of us fuss and fret about whether something’s gonna work. WELL YOU CAN’T POSSIBLY KNOW UNLESS YOU DO IT, CAN YOU? My rule of thumb is this — if I like it, and I feel like it moves me in some way, then just get it out there. It can’t hurt (unless it’s some kind of Jackass stunt) and you’ll get some kind of reaction. Remember that any feedback, just like Henry Ford said about publicity, is helpful in some way.

This is talismanic. I’m thinking about reconsidering my stance of influencer marketing. Well done, Flock.