David Armano is Global Strategy Director: Key Accounts at Edelman Digital. This is his personal digital property where he shares insights, ideas and opinions on integrated marketing and digital communications.
It's been exactly a week since I returned from SXSW. I would have written something sooner, but this delayed post is a great representation of where things stand in life for me these days. Writing for "personal" purpose takes a second seat to direct business building and running which is ironic because that was kind of the vibe at SXSW Interactive and that's not a bad thing.
Don't get me wrong, there are still plenty of parties at SXSW and a lot of late nights and some blowing off steam. As always, the panels are hit and miss, but even the misses can still be good for business. I attended a session that was essentially an ad for the mobile start-up whose CEO was giving a talk. However, his start-up was solid in premise and I'd heard about it before. And it's on my radar and now I'll be looking for strategic partnership opportunities around it.
It's been my sixth year going to SXSW. Here's how I spent my time:
Client Meetings & Events Regardless of your business (platform, brand or agency side) SXSW is a great way to connect and engage with clients. In addition to dinners and One-on-ones, this year I co-hosted an intimate salon with Jeremiah Owyang in Edelman's Austin office where brands such as Samsung, PayPal, Kellogg's and others traded case studies and engaged in meaningful dialogue around the work they were doing and the challenges/opportunities they were engaging with. And we weren't the only ones hosting private client events—a quick chat with an Adweek reporter verified that it was kind of a "thing" this year.
One On Ones In order to make SXSW productive in any sense, you shouldn't go there without scheduling one-on-ones in advance. I had some great conversations with industry peers, some who were running really cool activations at SXSW, to emerging start-ups and the occasional conversation that turned into a more in depth meeting. SXSW is noisy, so finding some quiet places to talk shop is a great use of time.
Brand Activations There's a lot of brand activity going on at SXSW and it's impossible to catch it all but worth seeing what the brands are doing. Oreo's 3-D printed cookies were hard to miss and Mastercard's partnership with the Mashable house was an interesting tactic compared to American Express who paid for a more traditional sponsorship. Meanwhile PayPal (client) hosted web celebrities and celebrities alike at their blogger lounge.
Parties Yes, these still happen too. But like I said, this is my sixth year at SXSW—so parties are now part fun and a whole lot of networking, meeting and greeting and re-connecting with industry friends and colleagues. Parties are great for informal recruiting and in more simple terms—putting faces to names.
For what it's worth—this year SXSW seemed a little smaller (confirmed)—but I noticed that the trend of more senior people attending is still on the rise. During one lunch with an editor of a large publication, I looked over and saw a table full of top executives from a leading digital agency—right up to the CEO. And this wasn't an isolated case. SXSW = big business now, so if you haven't yet gone you might want to adjust your expectations and book on time because it's not getting any easier to attend.
“Real-time marketing”—just uttering the phrase evokes images of hastily photo-shopped images and ham fisted attempts to join online conversations. The stakes can be high—last week’s big winner in the responsive category during the Grammys was of course Arby’s to which the spoils of considerable earned media coverage and over 6000 new Twitter followers were awarded. Many other brands weren’t as fortunate.
But for all the hype and baggage associated with real-time marketing, it doesn’t seem to be going away. Perhaps that’s because real-time marketing is already on its way to simply evolving into a modern day extension of integrated marketing. Think about the dollars spent by advertisers on premium venues like the Superbowl—can they afford to sit out integration in not only digital spaces, but also social second screen activity? (Just watch how many people will be on mobile devices at your party).
No, they can’t.
And so, this year’s Superbowl will be a moment of truth for what brands do in the social- mobile space before, during and after the big game. Budweiser for example has already been encouraging consumers to post pictures of themselves and their four legged friends using the #Bestbuds hash tag as a compliment to their campaign. They also have @Budweiserpuppy talking to people on Twitter. In similar Fashion Chobani brought their 30-second star to life on Twitter in the form of @Chobani_bear who started doing real-time video responses on Twitter, most recently with Katy Perry. Mysteriously, the Chobani Bear Twitter account has recently been suspended—a real-time marketing mishap?
* Update, Chobani contacted me an informed me that @Chobani_bear was not a Chobani account.
Whether you are on brand or agency side, at minimum you should be watching this space and learning. Mobile will only continue to chip away consumer's attention away from the “first screen” and while many brands are still learning the ropes of responsive marketing integration, it’s a sure bet that this will become part of the modern marketing mix. On that note, there are a couple of simple ways you can watch and learn: A public Twitter list of all brands advertising on the Superbowl was published by Marketing Land, and I’ve also created a hashtag for marketers to follow examples (#RTMBowl). What brands will win? It’s anyone’s game.
It's not easy to determine which trends and movements are worth paying attention to. We live in an age where technology seems to move at pace that's impossible to keep up with. I spend a lot of my time dealing with global brands who are looking to scale and integrate social as part of their core marketing—and in some cases business strategies, and I can tell you first hand that these organizations have their work cut out for them as we are now in the trenches of operationalizing the disruptions caused by digital's latest iteration.
When my friend Jeremiah Owyang first briefed me on what he was doing around what he likes to call "The Collaborative Economy" (some call it the share economy), I was pressed to see the immediate impact on my day to day responsibilities as I work with these organizations. Gradually, I began to see the importance of the movement. I'm sure many of you reading this now use Uber to get around your area or when you travel—it's a new-ish model which relies partially on individuals and their personal vehicles which become part of the Uber system (and it's a fantastic customer experience) and of course there's the Air BnB's of the world and anything with the word "crowd" in it.
But the lights really went on for me when I watched this video of a boy born without a hand and his father who was determined to help him. The video which I highly recommend watching calls out a few specific factors which are signature attributes of the collaborative economy. Individuals who have never met in real life (makers), collaborating over the Web to create a simple but effective prosthetic which can grasp items—a father who finds them and then obtains the directions (for free) and buys a 3D printer to "print" the pieces which he then assembles.
This example hits me on two levels. As a father, I can relate to searching for and finding an unconventional solution to help his kid out. And from a business perspective, I can't help but marvel at how disruptive this is. The solution detailed above cost but a fraction of what a traditional prosthetic would have and it allows the family to "print" upgraded designs as they are made available. This is good news for dads and sons (and anyone in a similar situation) and perhaps less good news for companies who make very expensive prosthetics. This is one of the many stories that signal the emergence of the collaborative economy.
Jeremiah Owyang is announcing the official launch of his new venture "Crowd Companies" at LeWeb in Paris. I'd encourage keeping a close eye on what he's covering and following related developments like the one in this story. When you work for a large organization that's been very successful for a long time, it's natural to feel like you only have to worry about your direct competitors. But the Collaborative Economy competes in a different way, inventing entirely new models and disrupting rather than competing directly. It's worth paying attention to both as a consumer and business leader.
Today, the talk of the town amongst marketers is the potential for brands to act as publishers and media companies, going direct to their customers or consumers in the fight to earn attention. It's a lofty ambition but worth pursuing as there are three drivers changing how we spend our time and attention.
1. Mobile Increasingly, we are getting our information from the smaller screen. It's always on us—it's portable and connected to the Web. It plays video and all other sorts of media and apps have transformed how we interact with it.
2. Social Specifically newsfeeds. In addition to e-mail, we increasingly get our information in a newsfeed format (arguably e-mail was the original mobile newsfeed). Today it's Facebook, Instagram, Linked In, Twitter... the list goes on. What each one of these has in common is that it's dominated by content and sharing is only a button tap or click away.
3. Search Google continues to tweak its algorithm to favor quality content vs. redundant links and phrases which try to trick it. Because of this, it favors quality over quanity and becomes more difficult to game.
The first wave of social was dominated by engagement and how to engage at scale. The second is dominated by engaging at scale plus content distribution and integration with marketing programs. To fully realize the promise of brands as media companies—we must first understand and classify content. There are five ways I've been thinking about content:
Curated Media companies have always curated the best information available and customized this for the audiences they want to grow and keep. For brands, it's no different and is one of the most practical places to start. Take IBM's Smarter Planet Tumblr for example which curates some of the most interesting stories around intelligent technology. By doing this, the brand becomes an authority on the topic.
Co-Created The biggest mistake I often see brands make when thinking about content is to forget that even content can be a participatory experience. In contrast, take AMC's Dead Yourself app which combines the aforementioned game changers (mobile + social) and empowers fans to zombify any picture they can capture on their mobile phone. Where does the content end up? Social newsfeeds. Take that display ads.
Original Brands now have the opportunity to create original content that is own-able and can't be found anywhere else. This requires a great deal of planning as the content needs to be naturally connected to the brand. Original branded content can be useful or entertaining or both (see *Skylanders Boomcast). It can also be done in a semi journalist tone. We recently worked with Kellogg's on this type of "Brand Journalism" as part of their Olympics sponsorship. In this example the brand is part of the story but does not play the leading role.
Consumer Generated Personal publishing which arguably came before brand publishing has empowered millions of people to post an infinite amount of content into the digital realm. Consumer generated media rivals that of media created by the professionals and when tapped appropriately can authentically reinforce what a brand stands for. A recent example that I really like is what Disney is doing with their consumer generated content contest, Disney Side.
Sponsored Likely the most hotly debated form of content, sponsored content also goes by the name "native advertising" or specific to social, promoted posts. Simply put, there are three versions of sponsored—the traditional version (like display ads) or paid options from digital platforms like Facebook or Twitter and sponsored editorial working with a media company ranging from Buzzfeed to the Atlantic.
It's time to move the "brand as media" discussion into more actionable territory. As attention shifts to newsfeeds and mobile streams—the stories we tell there need to be all the more compelling.
Recently had the opportunity to share some thoughts about the "Agency of tomorrow" with the ever resourceful Chuck Kent as part of an interview on Branding Magazine. Excerpt below. Oh, and I have a new job at Edelman. More at PR Week. Happy Friday!
BM: Do you see the opportunity, the need for you to be able to – or any part of Edelman – to be able to initiate a core idea?
DA: I think that’s what’s in play. Not in this example, but in another example we – my team working with some other partners – are working on specific assignments where we’re doing just that role. And I will say that we have a few stakeholders on the client side that believe in it, they believe in, “Ideas are going to come from, well, it doesn’t really matter.”
We work in what I call a more responsive model. We’re not working in linear broadcast, we’re working in these content cycles. You might have a campaign that takes from inception to spreading out six months. We’ll work sometimes in a one month or two month cycle…. What I’ve seen in that situation is that the person who’s acting as CMO in this case believes in that model and is empowering us to do it. But yes… the preconceived notions are still there.
Right now there are conversations being had to say “Look, this other model is at play and nobody really owns it so we’re just going to give the business to people who work in that way. And all that means, just to expand on that, is that I all think that means is that pie gets dispersed a little bit more. At the end of the day, it’s got to be about where the client needs to be relevant.
History has a way of repeating itself. I still remember the heady days of the original digital agencies. They were built on the market demand for Websites ranging from the complex transactional to the marketing microsite. The smart agencies however knew that they had to diversify by bringing in "traditional" talent in the form of planners, art directors and copywriters. These new additions to "digital" teams often times didn't even know how to code, push a pixel and many were not considered digital. But they knew how to tell a story.
Today, even the most talented art directors and writers aren't enough. Neither are the social-savvy digital types. Alone, they may be able to push their craft—but working together surrounded by planning and analytics they can operate as the heart of the creative engine behind any campaign. A few thoughts about how these roles should operate:
Art Directors Today's art directors as always should be able to drive a concept and bring it to life. Ideally, in a digital world they possess a healthy amount of interaction design sensibility meaning they can think not only in "ads" but also in experience. It's a rare combination but not impossible to find. Some can even code.
Copywriters Able to use harness written word in all its forms whether it be in headline, script, or crafting the big idea into tangible communication—copywriters are also drivers of the concepts. Today's copywriters articulate concepts and when it comes to the craft of writing for an audience understand the difference in medium (television, print, web, mobile).
Social Engineers The least traditional of the three—this role focuses on the social viability of the creative. Social engineers can come from backgrounds like community management or social strategy and know instinctively what levers to pull in social spaces to ensure an idea has legs there and does more than translates but is social-centric at the core.
Madison avenue creative was built on the legendary relationships and teamwork of art directors and copywriters. Much of that chemistry is still relevant today, when it comes to great creative. Add in a "social engineer" to the evolved version of those two disciplines—and watch the magic happen.
Social media has been good to me. It's re-defined my career, opened new doors and enabled me to make connections that would have been impossible had the Web not gotten connected. I started blogging in 2006 and in less than a year found myself in the pages of BusinessWeek. From there things only got more interesting, not only for me personally but for the business world at large. One by one, brands, organizations and even governments had to come to terms with the connected Web and subsequently the rapid evolution of mobile. It all makes me wonder what's next—and I've been thinking a lot about it. Here are a few not so random thoughts. Many of them fall under the lens of marketing and communications, where I spend a lot of my professional time. Consider it thinking aloud:
Social Increasingly Becomes a Paid Game The early days of social under the broader context of the marketing function was organic by nature. Facebook, Twitter etc. weren't even thinking of monetization models—for them it was about building an audience around the platforms. Today, it's increasingly difficult to reach an audience through your social channels without leveraging a paid component.
Content Isn't Enough Anymore The problem with content is that it can be anything. Text. Photos. Video. It's not enough. People don't share content but they do share stories which resonate with them and their friends/connections. Telling really good stories is hard. Today, we have to be able to do it in a single Instagram sized image and in a six second Vine. We also need to be able to make marketing feel like something bigger—something with a larger purpose. It's the reason we see Dove and Guinness and instantly want to share the story. This is not content—it's a narrative. Narrative which stops us in our tracks and breaks through the noise to earn our attention.
Integrated Marketing Becomes Mandatory One of the stories I love to tell about Oreo is how they launched Instagram. "Dunk In The Dark" is a diversion—a one hit wonder, but Oreo is a masterful integrated marketer and incorporated social and digital into their Superbowl advertising, leveraging paid dollars and creativity to build a sizable audience on Instagram literally overnight. Why this story doesn't get told more is beyond me. Smart integrated marketing is the future, while social one hit wonders will become a thing of the past.
Art Director + Copywriter + Social Engineer: The Creative Team of Tomorrow As someone who works in the "Public Relations" industry, I can reflect upon how we were quick to hire social savvy individuals who knew how to manage and grow communities. Now we hire creatives and planners who must figure out how to partner with these social savvy individuals. Madison avenue was built on the duo of art directors and and copywriters. Tomorrow's creative team will be a trio at the core (and don't forget analytics).
ROI Becomes An Efficiency Play The early days of social revolved around proving out a specific ROI (did you sell more X?) for example. But in the maturation phase that we are in today—under a marketing lens, it becomes about proving out that metrics like reach and impressions were achieved at a cost reduction, or even better, cost reduction combined with qualitative benefits like better targeting (did you reach the right people?).
Yesterday's disruption was digital. It created a new economic model and dominant players (Google, Amazon, Apple, etc.). Social came next followed by the infusion of mobile—we consume information and participate on demand, anytime, anywhere. But none of these things can be viewed in isolation. I've talked about the responsive marketing model recently and some even talk about the responsive organization. Even marketing in an iterative and more agile fashion has to be a connected part of a bigger machine. I believe what comes after social looks more like the aggregate of many pieces vs. the single view of one or two which have dominated the industry discourse for years. It's time to elevate the role of digital, social and mobile as core elements of a bigger, complex and integrated machine.
In the beginning, there were products and services, and some
were good. Fewer became trusted brands, but those that did enjoyed unquestioned
loyalty supported by a simple yet effective marketing engines built to reach
people in mass quantity. The formula worked for decades. An empire was built on
the shoulders of Madison Avenue and expanded globally. It is an empire, which
still exists today, though arguably it’s a diminished version of its former self.
More recently, technology has had it’s own evolutionary process which it’s
still going through. Well over a decade ago, when large organizations developed
and updated their complex Web properties, the most popular and rigorous process
one could follow in development was referred to as “Waterfall”. Think of this as a descending, linear
staircase where one step of the process was completed in full before moving on
the next. The methodology was rigorous, but also left little room for tweaking,
testing, adapting and improving along the way.
Responsive Design Today, digital design and development is often done
leveraging the “agile” method of development, which favors smaller, cyclical
bursts of development and rapid testing. Start-ups favor this approach as well
building not only their tech products but also their business models in a way,
which resembles more of an agile philosophy vs. a rigid, sequential approach.
Even “large” start-ups like Facebook demonstrate this in how they roll out
enhancements to their global platform, often making the changes incrementally,
rolling them out with select users and then adjusting based off the data they
analyze. Google often works this was as well. If you were to undertake designing and building a digital
property today—you would also have to ensure that it would perform across
multiple platforms (desktop, tablet, mobile). A popular methodology for
developing this way is called “responsive design”—a technique, which leverages
code that results in a shape shifting design which auto-magically fits the
medium it, is being interacted with in.
Most Marketing
Remains Linear And Unresponsive Despite the pervasive nature of all manifestations of
digital, including social and mobile, much of the marketing emphasis remains
dedicated to reaching people in mass, following a tried and true formula for
advertising designed to build off consumer insights and craft compelling
messages which could be distributed across a myriad of channels (including
digital). The approach is designed for the broadcast industrial machine
including print, radio and television, which, despite rumors of its demise is
likely to stay with us for some time. The problem it poses however is that it
is an approach that much like its counterpart in tech development, (Waterfall)
is neither nimble nor flexible and isn’t built for rapid change nor does it
adapt well beyond the dominant media it was designed for.
“Content Marketing”
Is Disrupting Modern Day Brand Building CMOs, chief digital officers and brand managers across many
organizations are currently grappling with the notion of content used in the
context of marketing—inherently they understand that their customers value
content, consume it, create it, and share it—and they want in on the action.
They also understand that this type of content isn’t often the traditional
campaigns they execute for broadcast so they face a dilemma:
What content do
consumers value most?
How do they find it?
What gets individuals
sharing content with peers?
How does content
scale, reaching the right audience at the right time?
How do brands insert
themselves into the content ecosystem in ways that bring value back to the
brand?
Responsive Marketing The solution to the content question lies somewhere between acknowledging
that a brand must support both a traditional, linear marketing model in
addition to a newer, cyclical construct which is constantly in tune with the
current environment and operates in consolidated time frames. Responsive
marketing sits at the core of the content evolution that many companies find
themselves trying to navigate as they pull together newsrooms, command centers
and media operations which are designed to help brands act more like
publishers. All of these can be effective in treating the symptoms a brand may
exhibit if they possess only competencies in linear forms of marketing, but
they do not address the root issue—deconstructing a marketing machine which
places the majority of resources on mass marketing will ensure it never gains
proficiency in alternate forms of content and media.
A more holistic approach
is needed.
The Acquisition & Engagement Funnel Marketing is by design measurable, and most marketers are trained to value
metrics, which can be at minimum tied to awareness and ideally connected to
sales and loyalty. This is where the relationship between responsive content
marketing and business objectives must be reconciled—what good is content if it
is not connected to commerce? Content should be a vehicle, which “fills the
marketing funnel” and should be leveraged as the currency, which entices the
target to share, thus creating further awareness for the brand, which can lead
to bringing others into the funnel. It is the consumption of content via
social, web and mobile which fuels the acquisition and engagement funnel—the
flow works as follows:
Shared And Found
Content Drives Acquisition Content which is optimized and valuable inevitably finds its target,
whether through paid, owned, earned or shared means (usually it’s a combination
of all). When content is found valuable, it often leads to an “acquisition”
whether it via e-mail or a subscription to a brand’s social property. The
“consumer” in this construct demonstrates intent to at minimum engage with the
brand.
Acquisition Drives
Engagement Once a consumer, customer or prospect is acquired, a brand can further
engage via content, messages, and through “micro-interactions” over time. Each
like, comment, or share on Facebook for example is a micro-interaction, which
solidifies the relationship and loyalty between the brand and the consumer. Loyalty Creates
Awareness Customers “acquired” via social and digital means are now available for
targeted content marketing tactics which can be especially effective via paid
enhancements whether that be through social or search. In the case of
social—shared content leads to further awareness using the networks of peers as
a distribution ecosystem while organically raising its profile in organic
search results.
Content As Currency:
The Four Key Archetypes For content to be successfully leveraged at the open end of
the marketing funnel, brands must understand the full landscape of content types
and the relationships they have with their core paid, earned and owned
channels. The four archetypes are:
Curated: A brand can curate content from infinite digital sources and provide value
by deriving signal from noise. A popular tactic connected to curating is
aggregating it in a single destination for easy access.
Co-created: Content can be co-created amongst consumers via collaboration or through
the consumer and the brand itself. Brands, which encourage consumers to
co-create content with it, invite them to participate but cannot often control
how consumers will want to co-create.
Original: Original content is produced by the brand, specifically for its target
audience and is owned by the brand. Original content can take many forms and
production value and be planned in advance or spontaneously in response to
emerging trends and events.
Consumer generated: Consumer or user generated content is often produced by non-professionals
and May or may not include references to the brand. It’s often in highest
quantity but also lowest quality.
Building &
Maintaining A Responsive Content Marketing Machine In order to build a content machine for a brand or business, the leadership
behind it must buy into the premise that content is a viable brand building
tool. This sets the stage for an evolution of roles within the
organization—brand managers must at minimum be literate in community
management, editorial and digital analytics. Organizations internally should
re-evaluate their digital centers of excellence and take stock of partners to
ensure that content strategy and execution exists as part of the mix. This
foundational work is core to then constructing a an “always ready” content
machine, which operates in a continual, cyclical fashion as part marketing,
part editorial operation as illustrated above.
Conclusion: Marketers Must Evolve Beyond The Linear Unlike software or web development, marketers have had less pressure to
overhaul their approach despite signs that media consumption is highly
fragmented, shifting to digital and increasingly more difficult to track. As
more pressure is applied to the CMO to produce results for the organization; it
is more than tempting to rely on the mass metrics of the past to demonstrate
that reach is being achieved at scale. This undermines the need for marketing
to undergo it’s own transformation where shifts in resources go into building
up direct media channels (social or owned media) and potentially reaching more targeted
audiences who may be inclined to share a brand’s content with their peer
networks. An agile and adaptive mentality is badly needed in the marketing arm
of organizations—one that is less dependent on historical data to make
decisions and is inclined to parse data inputs as they come in daily.
The
content conundrum represent the tip of the iceberg for the marketing discipline
but must be dealt with as proof mounts that content is valued while overt
advertising and marketing is something to be filtered out. Brands will learn to
be more flexible, in tune with rapidly changing sentiment and responsive in
their approach to messaging engagement and telling their stories across a
de-centralized and splintered media landscape.
Brands that insert themselves into relevant cultural events is now becoming a norm in marketing. Did you know that May 4th is considered Star Wars Day? These brands did, and they inserted themselves in the conversation by producing content which reflected it. Here's a few that went to the dark side:
Pop Chips went the simple route and used an action figure to do the heavy lifting.
Harrods did some subtle and clever Photoshop to go over to the dark side of marketing.
PayPal traveled to a galaxy far far away and kept their branding intact
...while Red Bull played it safe and stayed closer to the Milky Way.
Oreo went old school (see original Star Wars for blue drink reference)
...and tide skipped Photoshop school altogether
If Motorola didn't do this, they would have gotten decimated by a death star.
USA Today made their audience do the work for them with a contest on Vine that asked people to make Wookie noises in the six second video format.
Marketing, content and cultural relevancy continue to merge together fueled by digital social and mobile channels. Now it's just part of how brands seek to remain relevant to their consumers, customers and in some cases audience. Have you seen any good Star Wars Day content produced by brands?
I'm in Lake Tahoe this week combining some business and down-time and recently spoke at "Snowcial"—billed as "SXSW for the snow sports and hospitality industry, it attracts a really cool cross section of people who span marketing, technology and even journalism. If you love skiing or snowboarding and marketing/technology, it's worth considering for your event calendar. I kicked off day one yesterday with a short talk about content, convergence and connectivity. Below are a few themes from my talk:
Content As Currency
There's a good reason everyone is talking about the role of *content these days but you have to understand the psychology of it all. Thanks to social networks, people share interesting, entertaining or even informative content because it makes them look good. There's a reason why the word "meme" has "me" in it. So it's not enough just to produce content—your content has to be designed for sharing. I like to think of content in today's hyper connected world as being "snackable"—sending out bits and bites of content which can be digested and shared rapidly. The reason why we're seeing a revolution in visual content which is designed for social newsfeeds and mobile is based on this core understanding of why people like, share and engage around content.
Everyone Can And Will Publish
I shared a recent experience I had with Jeep where I tweeted for help and was not only responded to but had my issue resolved through their customer care service which was facilitated through my initial interactions on Twitter. This is by no means a new model, but clearly Jeep had a process in place and was able to close the loop with me efficiently. This is an area brands will continue to grapple with as people move from traditional ways to initiate contact with brands and go directly to public forums. The obvious follow up question is how does this scale? My answer is figure it out because it's not going away. And yes, my car is working just fine now.
Insights > Influence
For all the hype around influence—we've still largely got it wrong. We should be looking at analyzing who and what are driving conversations in the same context as we might run a focus group. Technologies that allow us to analyze conversations and how they spread and who influences them can provide great insights if we know what we are looking for. For example in working with the association that represents US dairy farmers—we analyzed conversations in forums and found these emerging. As we audited the content the organization was producing—we identified opportunities make future content initiatives more relevant to what people were talking about. You Don't Not Need An App For That
There's no doubt that we are living in an App economy, but it's time to step back and ask ourselves if we need an app for every idea. Unless that idea involves significant functionality, it might not need to be developed as a stand alone app creating yet another format to maintain. My team has been developing content solutions using responsive design techniques so the design reacts to the format it's being viewed it. It's not a perfect solution for every development issue, but worth tapping where it makes sense.
It's All Converging
Lastly I talked about the convergence of media models and marketing tactics. First from a broad perspective inspired by Altimeter's model of converged media, but also ad it applies to new digital advertising formats which blur hard lines. Facebook sponsored posts are a perfect example of how paid, earned, and owned dynamics all come together. You can read more about that on the unofficial All Facebook blog who covered my talk.
Looking forward to hitting the slopes again before I leave!
