A Chat with Firefox Community Marketer Rob Davis

By day, Rob Davis works for Minnesota public relations firm Haberman & Associates. By night, he's dreaming up ways to evangelize Internet users to download and try the Firefox Web browser. Recently, Davis and his buddies kicked off a community fundraising effort to help the Mozilla Foundation purchase a full-page ad in the New York Times. The campaign attracted more than 10,000 contributors, raising a quarter of a million dollars in just 10 days - more than five times the amount required to cover the ad space! (The remainder of the funds will be used to support the Foundation.) The fundraising effort has received significant media coverage and has been hailed as the future of marketing. In fact, some journalists are even taken a page from the Mozilla playbook and are now using the Web to solicit press-worthy Firefox user stories. As the browser zeros in on its official November 9 launch, I caught up with Davis for a Bloggerside Chat to learn more about the New York Times campaign and its goals. If you have questions that are not covered here, Rob welcomes you to email him directly.

Q: Where did the idea for the New York Times ad originate?

Davis: I had remembered reading about a fundraiser done by a political advocacy group last spring - they had wanted to take out a single, full-page ad and ended up raising over $500,000. Knowing that many technologists are as passionate about their software as others are about their politics I thought the idea would resonate. Having the contributor's names in the ad was done to make it a memorable souvenir for all of Firefox's developer volunteers worldwide.

Q: Why advertise in the Times and not the Journal, online or even on blogs?

Davis: The original idea was actually to take the ad out in the Wall Street Journal because of their strong corporate executive readership, however the cost was prohibitive. USA Today and the Washington Post were also evaluated. The Times offered this campaign the best demographics and value for the money.

A full-page newspaper advertisement is bold and exciting. When a large company wants to quickly convey a message, the full-page newspaper ad is a tactic of choice. I felt that there were sufficient Firefox advocates to act like a big company.

Q: Frequency is a big factor in many advertising campaigns. How does Mozilla feel it can be successful with just a single ad?

Davis: Great question - it's exactly why the Mozilla Foundation will likely never undertake an advertising campaign. Also, just to clarify, I do not speak for the Foundation. My role is simply as a manager for this advocacy campaign.

While some have considered this effort an advertising campaign, I consider it a fundraiser - something more akin to a charity ball. In this case it cost less than $50,000 to raise $250,000 for the Mozilla Foundation.

Q: You work for a PR firm - Minneapolis-based Haberman & Associates. Was the firm hired to work on this project? If not, how do you balance work and volunteering?

Davis: Yes, but not until September and only to cover expenses. I started volunteering with Bart, Blake and the Spread Firefox team in July after an I.E. virus (DSO exploit) caused me to reformat my hard drive. I had been working freelance with Haberman & Associates over the summer and then joined them full-time on September 1. In July and August I was probably volunteering 15 hours per week to this project. As the campaign planning heated up in September it became clear that I would need time during the day to complete all the work on schedule. I wasn't willing or able to take two months of vacation, so I recommended that the Foundation spend a small portion of the donations to cover my expenses. Haberman & Associates contributed a large chunk of my billable time to this project as well. Needless to say, the vast majority of my evening hours have also been volunteered to the project.

The short answer about how I balance work and volunteering hours is: I work hard to ensure that I don't burn out -- running is my thing.

Q: Have you been surprised by the response you have received? What's been most surprising/informative about this experience?

Davis: Absolutely, we exceeded our 10 day goal in 17 hours - that was surprising. The campaign included over 81 countries worldwide - that was surprising. The most informative outcome of this campaign however, has been the overwhelming gratitude expressed that the contributors have expressed to Mozilla's developer community. There are a lot of people out there who had a similar experience with an I.E. virus and are so pleased to have a safe  alternative.

Q: What do you feel this portends for the future of marketing? Will we see more open source marketing or PR campaigns? What kinds of products might see similar results and what kinds of products won't?

Davis: The success of this campaign has created an interesting model for similar consumer-driven advocacy campaigns. After much debate we're calling this process "community marketing" rather than open source.

Marketing people have known for years that a small percentage of their customers are strong advocates, however they have not taken sufficient steps to equip these advocates as a marketing force. Supporting or endorsing a grassroots campaign may simply expose most companies to too much liability. This kind of community marketing tactic will likely grow with small, nimble companies for the immediate future.

Q: What's next, another ad?

Davis: The ad won't actually run until late-November (11/16-12/5) so we'll get that done first and then continue working with the broader Spread Firefox community to evaluate new ideas.

Q: What lessons can you offer marketers interested in replicating this?

Davis: In software, the open source model is not one of creating something from scratch, but of taking a set of code and improving it in a way to better suit your need. In marketing, ideas should be tweaked, bent and molded in new ways and to new uses. The best thing marketers can do is get outside of their traditional networks and find new ideas.

Comments

[johnmoore (from Brand Autopsy)]

Since the Firefox community supporters control the budget for the NY Times ad, will they have creative approval? Did they help write the creative brief? Exactly how will the Firefox community supporters be involved in tweaking, bending, molding, and approving the creative?

It is only fair to give those who control the budget the power to control the creative direction and creative approval.

I’m not sold on the one-time placement of a newspaper ad to stoke excitement about Firefox. It is far too conventional a tactic for such an unconventional product. I agree with Ben over at the Church of the Customer that raising “money to host a smokin' Firefox convention” would be a better use of the Firefox community marketing spend.

[Rob Davis]

Yes, the Spread Firefox community controls the creative content of the ad. Naturally we have to secure approval from Mozilla for appropriate use of their trademarks.

This campaign is the first time consumers of a product have ever organized collectively -- around the globe -- to execute such a visible marketing tactic.

Several marketing people have been quick to note that a single full-page ad is not an effective tactic. They assume the goal of the ad is to persuade new users to try Firefox. That assumption is a mistake. The goal of the ad is for Firefox members worldwide to publicly celebrate the launch of Firefox 1.0.

I would also advise caution with the use of "open source marketing." Has anyone defined it? Sure it sounds sexy, but does it actually mean anything? It smells like innovative business transformation language.

After much internal debate, the term we decided to use for the Spread Firefox campaign is "community marketing." Community marketing is the distributed execution of numerous marketing or advocacy initiatives focused on a collective goal and emphasizing a common set of messages.

[johnmoore (from Brand Autopsy)]

To Rob's point above ... many times marketers, me included, only think about the impact mass advertising can have on external customers when many times, mass advertising can motivate/inspire internal customers (employees) far more than any company memo can.

Does anyone remember Viewers for Quality Television? Starting in 1984, this grassroots organization was very active in campaigning to revive ‘brilliant but cancelled’ TV shows. I believe at some point in the 90s they did collect finds from supporters to place a few print ads in support of programs like EZ Streets, Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman, and Party of Five. So … I am not sure this Spread Firefox community campaign is the ‘first time consumers of a product have ever organized collectively -- around the globe -- to execute such a visible marketing tactic.’

(And no … I am not a card-carrying member of VQT. I am, however, a recovering TV-holic and a bad TV triva whiz. Anyone up for watching my archive of “On The Move” episodes?)