The move from push to pull

The next point Richard Adam's pointed out was the shift from push to pull marketing.
Although not completely ignored 'push' marketing is a traditional strategy used to push to brand or service in front of the consumer such as email, or banner ads. As consumers we probably don't want to see the advertisement, or simply we haven't asked for it, it's not particularly what we are looking for, therefore it is ignored.

The internet is very much a 'Pull' medium, you only click on what you want, so it does rely on elements of the push idea. You can't simply make the consumer find it for themselves, you have to put it out there, but it depends on exactly how you push it out their, in order to pull your consumer in.

The concept of the pull technique works on creating a way of allowing the consumers come to you. Again it relates to to idea of O'Reilly's point on the 'architecture of participation'. Many examples of pull marketing allow users to talk about their brand to others, getting them to promote your service or product.
Or online communities where users can talk with each other, and invite others. Once a community of users is set up, hardly any advertising is needed. Simply word of mouth from existing users generate new customers. No forceful advertisement is needed. You don't need to create and place banner ads everywhere, but instead you offer a service which is needed, so they go looking for it.

Has anyone ever seen a advertisement for Facebook? YouTube? probably not as they work on the same principle, existing users invite others to join Facebook (Word of mouth), and if we want to watch a video then we normally go to YouTube. We know its there if we want it.
It doesn't come to us, instead we go to them, IF we want to.

One interesting aspect about the pull technique is the power of the people, we almost become marketers for the service or product. Word of mouth is very powerful. I think the product or service has a higher credibility level if its suggested to us by the people we know.
More than often we would open and email if its from a friend, rather than a brand.
Getting the consumer to advertise and promote a brand is an extremely cheap and effective way to create brand awareness surrounding a product or service.

So in order to pull your customers in, you must find a subtle way to push the brand upon them.

Viral advertising has always had this element. Like i mentioned in the previous post, the brand itself doesn't wave their brands in front of our faces, they don't get us to buy anything, they simply work by pulling us in as we enjoy the experience we just had with the brand. Either were cracking up, or we could of co-created something with the brand, either way we want to sometimes go further and check out the brand as we had such an enjoyable experience and a relationship is formed. A relationship of trust. We not forced to go look at the brand, we do it by our own accord. We wonder what is this brand all about then? what do they do?.