Consumer Centric

Co-creation, social media, engagement, viral campaigns, etc. New tools for today’s marketers? Well, yes and no.  The digital side is new… the practice is not.

I’m reading the new book by Magic Johnson and Larry Bird and came across a piece of NBA trivia new to me about the 1979 draft that landed Magic at the LA Lakers.  Little did I know it involved a co-creation exercise with a viral component and a social media spin.

The result was the Bulls missed out on drafting Magic Johnson and, instead, picked up UCLA senior David Greenwood.  But they had engaged their fans in helping make the decision:  ”heads” instead of “tails” was the consensus.

Turns out the Bulls and Lakers were up for the first pick in the draft, and Magic was the expected first pick.  On June 25, 1979 the issue was resolved by a coin flip.  But the Bulls general manager, Rod Thorn, didn’t call it out on his own.  The Bulls ran a fan promotion in which the poll results showed more fans wanted Thorn to call “heads” and win the toss to pick up Magic.

As reported on a NJ Nets fan page:

“I’ll never forget that,” Rod Thorn recalled. “We had some sort of promotion with our fans, and we let them choose what we’d call. And Bill Sharman, the Lakers’ GM — he was on the line from L.A. — Bill was so gracious, he let me call it. Then I hear, ‘Tails, L.A. wins.’ I would have always called tails. It was always luckiest for me, but we did it for the fans.

“But it’s amazing and ironic how life works out, isn’t it? Had the Bulls gotten Magic, we never would have gotten Michael Jordan five years later. The Lakers won all those titles, but I’d say it worked out great for everybody.”

Fascinating concept:  engage your loyal fans to help win the prize on draft day.  So, was it good or bad for the fans given they ended up picking wrong?  Or did they?

Would it have been better to get Magic Johnson in 1979 and miss picking up Michael Jordan in 1984? Obviously, not a question you can answer… and not the point.

The real point is brands have been doing things to involve their customers for years.  Today’s tools make it so much easier, but the rules of needing to provide relevance and utility have only become more important today.

I think the Bulls’ actions show how brands have to be “all-in” to genuinely involve their customers in charting the future of their franchise.  And they have to be willing to risk that what you create together may not payoff in the short term.

Stick with it, though, and you just may find the next Michael Jordan in the process.

Who knew?  Sports, the NBA, social media, and co-creation… all 30 years ago.