Covers the rationale behind the project and some lessons from the first year of operation; presented at the Blogs and Social Media Forum, London, 2007.

1. Community Building For Passionates
Some Lessons from a Web 2.0
Community Marketing Project
Lee Bryant, June 2007, www.headshift.com

2. Passion + need --> use cases
• Tap into human need
• Amplify passion
• Start with real use cases

3. The Idea
• Don’t market passionates, let them tell you what they want
• Experiment in Social Networking
• Create the ‘best petrolhead community website’
• Content focussed: the (user’s) car is the star
• Allow members to share their passion, pictures and video

4. What does the site do ? BLOGS

5. What does the site do ? COMMENT & DISCUSSION

6. What does the site do ? GROUPS

7. Who was Behind the Build?
Castrol PCO HQ Headshift
Swindon, UK London, UK
Castrol Project Manager
Istanbul, Turkey
BP Tech Marketing
New Jersey, USA
Important PCO
Castrol Marketing
Sydney, Aust
Important PCO
New Jersey, USA
Cape Town, SA

8. Working Together
The Motoraddicts project wiki
allowed an international team to:
• Participate in discussions
and research
• Collaborate and develop
ideas and documents
• Comment on designs
and early concepts
• Monitor development issues
as they are raised
• Involve a wide and diverse
group in decision making
• Overcome time differences

9. The Road to Launch - 1. Market Research
Comprehensive market
research was undertaken
with target group including :
• Ethnographic Research
• Mood boards
• Interviews
• Concept tests

10. The Road to Launch - 2. Develop Concepts
• Defined technical features
• Created an independent site identity that worked
• Built v1 (Beta)
• Tested by conventional usability labs in both US/UK

11. The Road to Launch - 3. Beta Test
• Early champions (mix of Castrol
employees and external PCO
Passionates) started an ‘Insiders’ blog
to discuss concepts and ideas
• Group shown Beta Version for feedback
• Provided access to Beta Version for 2
months in order to populate with
relevant content

12. First Iterations - Version 1.1
Shaping for the Audience:
• Community Over Branding
• Content over Look and Feel

13. First Iterations - Version 1.2
• Increase Visual Representation of
Conversational Activity
• Improve External Feeds / Integration

14. Motoraddicts Today - Version 1.3
• Design Dramatisation
• Time for Video
• Hosting Groups from the
Real World : Car Clubs
• Introduce Brand
Ambassadors to the
Passionates

15. Motoraddicts Today and Tomorrow
Continue with constant monitoring and
ruthless pruning - if it is not loved, it goes
• Foster Engagement
• Increase Richness and Reach
• Motoraddicts as a Platform
• Tailrank and ‘Digg-like’ features
• Other public social features (e.g. wiki)
• Embracing Innovation: The World of Widgets

16. Key Issues: Moderation
• Much debate on legal and brand issues
• What do you do when the community’s values
are not in line with your brand values?
• We have gone for a very un-branded approach
• Light touch moderation driven by community
members, supported by a ‘daily sweep’ by
contracted moderation company as a safety net

17. Key Issues: Content
• Constant balancing act between aspirational
‘editorial’ content and user content
• Editorial partners (Haymarket) are very close to
the ‘scene’ - encouraged to behave as content
ambassadors and set topics and tone
• Challenge of keeping content on topic and avoid
super users dominating at the expense of others

18. Key Issues: Group Culture

19. Key Issues: Dealing with Passionate Super Users
Number of photos > = 1 EXC Mr X (2000)
Mr X
• Member X dominated site - over
50% of user content
• Balancing benefits of regular
contribution with community
domination
• Introduced ‘Carotica’ to site
which has become widespread
• Has now left the community

20. Key Issues: Sensitive user issues
• Member Y insisted profile include video of the 9/11
terrorist attack in Manhattan and also the US Flag
• Advised that we would prefer him to contribute
content that reflected aims of site - cars
• Balance between moderation cost and ensuring integrity
and relevance of user community

21. Key Issues: Design Challenges
• Balance between a finished and
unfinished design
• Finished enough to attract users
• Sufficiently unpolished to encourage
amateur content contribution
• Lessons learnt from Myspace et al

22. Key Issues: from Virtual to Real World and back again
Motoraddicts has landed in the real world...
• Motoraddicts stalls at key events - member
sign up, speak to expert contributors
• Branding on sponsored cars
• Recruitment of brand ambassadors - Funk
Master Flex, Top Drivers
And is widening its virtual world net...
• Soon to appear in a video game near you

23. Key Issues: Performance
• Achieved targets set for 2006;
on course for 2007
• BUT ... site has not reached critical mass
yet, so we need to accelerate its tipping
point to achieve real success
• Success is not just about numbers, but
also lessons learned and experience of
this new way of working

24. Learnings
• Social networking with passionates is more
desirable than marketing to passionates
• Social tools can help grow a project outwards in
concentric circles from its initial core group
• Community is hard to build and easy to break
• Balancing active and passive user groups is tricky
• There is still a role for editorial and facilitation
• Rapid iteration is better than perfect concepts
• If it doubt, let the users decide

25. Thanks For Listening!
For more information, please contact us here:
lee@headshift.com
http://www.headshift.com
Many thanks to the following Flickr photos made
available under a Creative Commons license:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/katphotos/518524823/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/the-jedi/490259826/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jvk/141843359/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/burningpaper/45614192/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/raeallen/82013539/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nico/749582/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/grosminet/281852516/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lwr/199510603/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jazza5629/492980965/
Regardless of the CC license, if any photographer objects to the inclusion of their
material then we shall happily remove it