Has SEM arrived? Well, search engine marketing, absolutely.

What I’m referring to here is what Accenture - in the elegant codex of consultant speak - is calling Social Ecosystem Marketing. Basically, applying Gladwellian effect principals to advocates and peer groups, and amplifying your message to the most active and influential segment authorities. A blend of eCRM and oCRM (organic).

While I enthusiastically agree with moving from a mass, single segment approach to marketing in advocacy layers, especially for consumer package and household technology goods, what concerned me was a recent article in Adweek attempting – poorly – to demonstrate the power of this methodology (oh, and the impressively convoluted designation: Social Ecosystem Marketing – these people slay me).

The article cites a program Sprint and Unilever coauthored to target moms and, seemingly, their extended network of peers. Users were asked to log in and write shorts scripts about their days, with the crowd pleasing-est to be recorded by a cast that includes Leah Remini.

However, the piece cites as success 3,000 entries and 50,000 votes. So this is what constitutes the validation of Social Ecosystem Marketing? The story goes on to report that the program, “by definition” hit extroverted mothers who would invariably talk about Suave (the brand in play) to their girlfriends. But, in no way does the piece dig deeper into how the marketers know that the participants were extroverts, or if they extended the message at all to their net promoter sphere. Less an ecosystem, more like a bowl full of guppies.

Hilariously, the article goes on to tout the program as a way to gather consumer insights and ethnographic data through what users submitted. A new research paradigm: from declared behavior, to observed behavior, to self selected fictional  manners. Excellent.

Finally, about the name (if it sounds sorta like social science, it must be social science - but let’s play along): Two things an ecosystem relies on for sustainability are biodiversity – the more diverse a population, the more the system can absorb negative or high impact events; and stochastic phenomenon (basically, chance happenings). We hope that our marketing efforts don’t rely on chance, and marketing to Moms more likely means you’re hitting a far less diverse pocket of population than more (have you ever been to the local Outback Steaks during margarita night?).

Maybe I’m nitpicking. But if I think about the cost of just hiring Leah Remini for this program, forgetting everything else, don’t you think it would have been more cost effective to send 1 bottle of Suave to 5,000 local PTA presidents along with a packet of coupons for peer distribution?

Sampling…great. What’s elegant about that?