Modern Marketing - Blog by Collaborate PR & Marketing

The Wrong Data

The other day I was chatting to a Digital Grand Fromage (they exist now) in one of the big four ad networks who told me that one problem with today's brand marketers (aka clients) is they don’t like data.  Huh?  Don’t like data?  How can this be I thought?  The marketing industry is utterly obsessed with the stuff; be it GRPs, TRPs, OTS, RPC or the myriad of consumer segmentation schemes, such as TGI. Or the insights garnered from quantitative or qualitative market research about, for instance, awareness and recall. Surely, the marketing business is awash with metrics and measurement.  In fact, I think what this highly-esteemed DGF was talking about was a fear of the type of data produced on the web, by machines, apps, devices and other web wizadry.  Not ‘proper’ media and marketing information like BARB.  At a superficial level this fear of online data is the understandable anxiety felt by brand marketers who, when trying to invest their media megabucks, are interrupted by someone suggesting the use of a webby analytics package.  A kind of ‘dashboard-itis'.  Such dashboards promise to offer huge amounts of business-critical, C-Suite-level insights into ROI delivery.  In reality, they make people want to rush into a dark room and apply wet flannelling to their throbbing brows. Indeed, ongoing exposure to...

When Will It End?

Last week I was chatting to a Grand Fromage in private equity and he asked me what I do. I explained that my professional role is helping companies with challenges, in all their guises, arising from the ongoing march of networked media.  The GF in question said he found the area exciting and clearly had a sophisticated view so his next questions were very interesting. He asked, 'when will it end?', and will there be a, ‘Y2K moment’?  By which I think he meant will all this techy stuff just stop and leave us sitting around wondering why on earth we’d spent half of our lives typing updates into Twitter.  I know exactly what he means.  I frequently find myself wondering if technology has, finally, hit some plateau and that everything will just calm down a bit; whether Silicon Valley will lay off the macchiatos for a while so we can all take a breath. These questions may be down to the basic human desire for a stable, predictable world.  As they say, no one really likes change.  But change, it would appear, is what we've got. Furthermore, the type of change that can seemingly arrive from nowhere.  Strange new digital gubbins build up a head-of-steam under the radar and then evidently pop-up fully-formed, driving people into odd new Alice-In-Wonderland behaviours.  For example, normal folk become determined to be ‘Mayor’ of their local coffee shop.  But not really - only virtually!  Others start having conversations with, rather than on, their phones.  Or, more fundamentally, strange...

Brand Conversations – Is Anyone Listening? (And If So, Do They Care?)

It can be quite hard to be clear about the effect social media has had on brands and the broader marketing landscape.  Some people would have you believe that the online global conversation that social media has unleashed is a revolution that brands simply have to be involved in if they are to stay relevant.  Others say it's only really significant within specific, albeit important, areas of marketing such as customer service.  Either way, there can be no doubt that social media in its many guises has changed people's habits and expectations and therefore it remains an area of ongoing fascination for brands who pride themselves on being close to their consumers and the marketplace.  However, for such brands to join the conversation in a credible way...

That Distant Rumble Is Big Data

‘Big Data’ is the phrase of the moment in tech circles which probably means it will be appearing on the to-do lists of marketing folk soon.  The expression refers mainly to the oceans of information being poured continuously onto the open web and social networks by ever more connected consumers (aka people).  This tsunami comes in the shape of comments, images, scans, tweets, likes, views, posts, videos and a kaleidoscope of other digital expressions.  However, whilst people's everyday lives are providing a big piece of the pie, the scope of Big Data goes much further.  Less obvious but just as vast are the intelligence flows that stem from our web browsing behaviour or location signals from smartphones.  Other component parts include corporations publishing market information , governments opening up public data for others to use, or vast social platforms that encourage smart developers to weave new applications and services.  The result is a share-and-compare economy where people, companies and organisations trade digital views, opinions and information in order to help make decisions - commercial or otherwise.  As ever, this creates challenges and opportunities for marketing and brand folk.  But there’s no shortage...

What's The New Normal For Big Brands?

What's the ‘New Normal’ for global brands?  By which I mean that following the collapse of global finance, the ensuing reshuffle of the world’s powerhouse economies and rapid growth of vast technological platforms, what do global brands care about and to which companies and sectors are they turning for assistance? I keep returning to three thoughts. Firstly, that corporations and brand-owners’ aims haven’t really changed a great deal. They want the same business outcomes, such as awareness, sales, loyalty and product differentiation, that create and support Mega-Brands and the shareholder dividends that follow. Secondly, media and marketing remains in the throes of huge waves of what the economist Joseph Schumpeter alluringly called ‘creative destruction’; the painful process by which one economic order is gradually replaced by another.  In the context of media and marketing, creative destruction has come in the form of digital IP technology breaking open the barriers between previously separate industries to create a single global platform upon which vast new networked media oceans surge.  Finally, most global corporates have been quietly shifting their investments into fast-growing markets for years. Now, as growth falters in Europe and the US, these booming economies seem to promise a golden future. Many such as Brazil, India, China and Indonesia see the creative destruction of technology, media and telecomms as a welcome opportunity. They invest enthusiastically in new...  

Will Google Ever Be Cleverer Than Mumsnet?

Now that networked media offers us infinite choice about the way we slice and dice our questions, queries and requests, it’s very easy to become overwhelmed.  While trying to book a holiday this year for myself, my good lady and two small daughters I found myself with so much information and so many options that I felt like I was playing three-dimensional chess.  That country with this accommodation for price one or this country with that accommodation for price two?  Booking through this service directly with separate flights or that agent all-in?  Whilst this country’s currency is strong against the feeble pound its prices are lower than that country which has a weaker exchange rate but is more expensive.  This resort is a longer flight but the weather is good, while this option is nearer but will there be sun?  And last, but not least, there was my five-year old’s very specific request for a pool with a curly-whirly slide.  After a week or so of research using what felt like about four hundred different websites and services, we had narrowed the choices down to about twenty-nine and I don’t mind admitting that my brain froze.  Camping in Wales, I thought? ‘I’ll look on Mumsnet’, said my good lady.  Now I know that Mumsnet is a vast community and has become the UK’s barometer for what is and is not acceptable in terms of parenting, as well as who should be the next Prime Minister.  However, I wasn’t too sure that it would be much help in solving our cryptomatic holiday quandary.  However, about thirty minutes later I received a link to a resort that I opened with very little enthusiasm only to discover the most perfect place imaginable that met all the criteria and some.  ‘It’s got a good write-up on Mumsnet’, was the message that came with it.  And that I believe is what Clay Shirky is referring to when he says that...

Who Will Survive In The New Networked Media Oceans?

Media companies used to exist in their own separate waters. The newspaper industry was the newspaper industry.  TV was TV and so on and so forth.  Each of these unconnected territories had a few super-predators that were top of their respective food chains, untroubled by the small fry. This was also true of technology and telecoms. However, in recent years, the tectonic plates have shifted to reveal a single networked media ocean into which all media, technology and telecomms companies are gradually being drawn.  The result is a gory realignment of the food chain as these corporate animals, so used to roaming their own backwaters as unchallenged predators, thrash around to establish who will survive.  Some will maintain their status.  Others will be usurped by sleek new species and left to wonder where it all went wrong. The tectonic shift was, of course, driven by rise of the Internet and the Web, and more recently the Moore’s Law-powered growth of online computing power aka the cloud.  The reason the undertow is so powerful is because, increasingly, this new networked media ocean is the sea to which consumers themselves are heading.  But why didn’t every big media and technology beast notice the plates were shifting to create this vast new habitat? Simply because they had...

Marketing's 'Big Bang' Is On The Way

There are some huge technological changes coming down the line that haven’t quite hit the marketing and media industry as yet. However, like massive waves a long way out at sea - they are on the way. Think about the effects of the ‘cloud’, or in other words, the limitless amounts of storage space that the web provides and the speed at which people are filling it up with personal information, creating scrapbooks about every tiny aspect of their lives for clever folk to analyse and decipher. Or the rise of the mobile web driven by new types of groovyware that mean we can log onto digital grapevines wherever we are and snack on a mixture of tips, opinions, offers and suggestions, all personalised to our own specific interests and passions. Or the reality of products being linked to the web and providing information about themselves. All huge waves that are about to crash onto the doorsteps of brands and global businesses seeking to maintain the mainstream audiences that drive their revenues, balance sheets and state-sized market valuations. When trying to understand this kind of epic-style change, I’ve been wondering about other industries that have dealt with similar levels of disruption. The one I keep returning to is the global financial services industry that underwent its so-called ‘Big Bang’ in the middle of the 1980s, with its epicentre in the City of London’s Square Mile. The specific date of the ‘Big Bang’ was the 27th October 1986, an event driven by the Tory government overhauling the way the London Stock Exchange was regulated. The primary changes consisted of...

Digital Grapevines

It can be very difficult sometimes to understand what new technology actually means when it comes to changing the way people lead their lives.  Partly, this is because technology is created by techies.  By which I mean that the clever folk who create new widgets are, naturally, more interested in the gubbins inside the box than what consumers (aka people) are going to actually do with it. This leads to the classic marketing error that the technology industry makes on a continual basis – talking about Features Not Uses.  Nowhere is this viewpoint more prevalent than in the world of smartphones, tablets, mobile and wireless web development. The mobile space has a lot of the standard desktop web jargon but with its own additional lexicon bolted on for good measure.  For instance, Geo-Location, Augmented Reality, BBM, Accelerometer, Bluetooth, QR codes, RFID, or the cryptic, ‘Web of Things’.  And let’s not even get into the world of wireless OS upgrades : Cupcake, Donut, Eclair, Froyon and now Gingerbread.  It's enough to make your Google Goggles glaze over. However, now that smartphones have finally become a part of the mainstream, ten years after the UK’s 3G licence auction, it’s helpful to think what they mean in terms of people's lives beyond Steve Jobs’ bank account and the VC-driven, jargon-heavy dreams of Silicon Valley.  One aspect that’s of interest is that people now are increasingly connected to their friends and family - all the time.  This may sound obvious but it’s a fairly new phenomenon with far-reaching consequences.  People from small villages...

Get In When It's Messy

As Gordon Moore’s Law continues to drive cycles of technological development, it can be tempting for marketing folk to wait until the resulting merry-go-round has stopped before trying to get on. However, in reality, if you choose to wait you may well find Silicon Valley’s carousel just keeps on spinning.   My own shorthand for this is that, when it comes to understanding developments in networked media, it’s best to get in when it’s messy.   When the web service or innovation is in the early days and the rules are being written.   That way you get to understand the reality of a new development and the ideas behind it, rather than waiting for someone else to write up the best practice manual.   For example, when blogging began to makes its presence felt within media and marketing circles, it was largely dismissed as a pastime for the lonely and the confused.   What possible benefit could come from letting readers actually give you their opinions? ‘My readers are like the cast from the bar in Star Wars,’ a journalist once told me, ‘why would I want to speak to them?’, he exclaimed.  This type of viewpoint led to people who wrote blogs being categorised, initially, by the marketing industry as a group suffering from rage issues and bad breath - regardless of what they were blogging about.   For some, the ‘blogosphere’ became shorthand for a modern version of the ‘great unwashed’.  That has obviously all now changed, and even the most erudite commentators employ blogs as their personal platforms where they can interact with enthusiastic and well-informed readers.   In short, those who got into blogging when it was messy benefited from their early experience.   Twitter was a similar example where it was best to hold your nose and jump in when it was messy, learning from experience, rather than ranting about the evils of people talking to each other in a 140-character format.   Just a few hours on Twitter in its early days revealed it to be a promising, accessible tool for creating communities of people who were organising themselves around their passions.   Today, of course, no marketing exec worth their latte would suggest Twitter is a waste of time.   And the platform has gone onto to become a love-in for celebs and media players around the world.  Then there was Facebook, that initially appeared to be a WASP-driven club for American frats sharing holiday stories about the Hamptons and their latest drinking escapades.   However, just investing a little attention...