What would you call open-source marketing?

President-Elect Barack Obama raised $264.5M through April 30, 2008, thrice that raised by his opponent, Senator John McCain. Studies at the FEC, The Campaign Finance Institute, The Center for Responsive Politics , George Washington University, indicate that a massive amount of this difference was through small contributions (many of which were repeat donations by the same donors) obtained through online resources. The marketing of the Obama-for-President brand embraced social networking; when Sen. McCain attempted to allow his supporters to use YouTube to swell his popularity, he was thwarted by the rigid intellectual property rules he helped establish.

Some time ago, I posted about Ford’s order to a black Mustang fan club to stop publishing a calendar of pictures of their cars. I wonder what an actuary would calculate as the net from loss of goodwill from such a suit as compared to the gains from attempting to extend their intellectual property.

As would not surprise anyone who has looked at the fabulous wooden instrument in the corner of my living room, I am a member of the Facebook group for fans of the Fender Telecaster electric guitar. One day, I might add a picture of my fifteen-year-old Tele to the group’s album.

In 1999, Star Wars fans like me were subjected to Jar Jar Binks, “Annie” Skywalker, naked C-3P0, and the rest of an unprecedentedly anticipated movie in which the menace seemed to be somewhat, well, phantom. Why was Star Wars, Episode I so eagerly anticipated? Did the fire come from the official trailers and marketing put out in various media by Lucasfilm? Or was it from a massive underground campaign of fanvideo, promulgated through such unofficial sites as theforce.net? George Lucas loosened his grip on the trade-marks and copyrights of his celluloid empire, rewarding his fans with the right to publish their labours of sycophantic love, and in turn reaping his own rewards at the box office when the good, but not great, “prequel” obliterated box office records in its opening weekend.

So what is this grassroots phenomenon?

It seems to be some kind of open-source version of marketing. Instead of tightening your grip on intellectual property (mostly trade-mark with a healthy dose of copyright and some neighbouring rights) and then hoping for royalties, the group doing the marketing attempts to engineer a type of personality cult for the brand. We’ve seen it with Nike, Levi’s, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and numerous other high-competition products that differentiate by associating cultural phenomena rather than by identifying the specific differences between the products.

What I’m talking about is tying differences (real or created) to cultural phenomena, and then grabbing hold of those phenomena and driving from that end; the product becomes a tag-along to those cultural memes. For example, Coca-Cola created their “Classic” beverage and tied it to a nostalgia meme, but nostalgia wasn’t a real difference between Coke and Pepsi. They were fighting a proxy battle in a cultural arena. The real difference between the two is a very subtle one – nuances in cola taste. Pretty small difference as compared to the “nostalgia” vs. “new generation” motifs of their advertising campaigns.

The 21st century or Web 2.0 way to do this is to create fan clubs and allow the fans to use technology and generate your marketing for you. When I tell the cyber-dwellers who see either my Facebook profile or the Facebook group for Telecaster players that I have (and play) a Tele, who really cares?

What is my benefit?

I find other people who share my interest. Is it an interest by which I define myself to some extent? Sure; I play blues on an electric guitar. That is part of my personal brand, and I like being associated with certain ideals associated with the Tele, though I bought it for its playability and sound.

Who really benefits?

Fender. The cultural associations of the Telecaster are expanded and furthered by such user-created campaigns. If I put a video of me playing on YouTube, perhaps someone will choose a Telecaster (ok – if it’s really me playing, probably not going to convince anyone). But there is no doubt that Fender brand is made more robust – it has more cultural tendrils – when they allow fans like me to post pictures of my guitar and don’t try to claim some IP right against my publishing a reproduction (through photography) of their trademarks.

Let’s go further now, since all we’ve done is shown again how Ford’s move against the Black Mustang Club was boneheaded. What if Fender released pictures of its logos and instruments and allowed fans to create custom images of dream instruments as a start. Then it goes further: People make cartoons with Fender guitars in them, animate pictures of their cars to turn into Fender instruments, etc. Fender starts tagging a Coca-Cola-esque nostalgia meme onto the Telecaster, and seeds new Facebook groups connecting Fender fandom with their new meme. They give people more marketing materials that would qualify for trade-mark protection, but instead choose to reap the rewards of popularity instead of the royalties of a few license-paying individuals and companies.

So again I ask you, what do we call this? Tell me in the comments!