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Sometimes you come across corporate communication that makes parody redundant. I think this offering from Delahaye (a division of the surreal sounding Bacon's Information Inc) just about fits that bill. It's a webinar entitled:
"Surviving Blogs: Monitoring and Analyzing Blogs to Protect and Direct Public Relations Strategy."
So blogs are a disease...that requires survival strategies. The website also includes this gem:
Fortune magazine has written up two useful articles on the impact of blogs on US
business. Here's one, here's the other.
Thanks to Business Blog Consulting for the tip.
Johnnie Moore and I are running Open Sauce workshops in London for companies interested in exploring marketing in a networked world.
We clear the mists surrounding the world of blogs and consumer generated media (which I know many UK marketeers find completely bemusing) and tackle some of the bigger issues involved in the growing world of open source marketing, which you can read about here, here and here.
The sessions are fun, practical and easy going. There are lots of case studies from the US (where even the head of GM writes a blog) and some exercises designed to help you add a little bit of Open Sauce to your next marketing plan or brief.
Email enquiries@collaboratemarketing for more.
Hugh at Gaping Void seems a bit miffed at my description of him as Determined Detractor No 1. I don't know why. I think determined detractors are great. (Although I prefer the more positive sounding term digital consumers, or collectively the 5th Estate.) And Hugh is one. With bells on.
Robert Scoble, however, seems to be delighted at the comment below.
Hugh at Gaping Void is the ultimate cynical voice about the world of marketing 
What's amazing is that Hugh's acidic style and Scoble's measured responses are starting to make me feel for MS. For the first time ever.
And as it seems he is a marketeer at a large retailer (Boot's?) his views are especially interesting. In fact from his entry it seems his company are about to delist it -- the worst possible outcome of a marketing campaign.
I still think it's a great campaign. In London several poster sites have had their 'boxes ticked' by graffiti artists, which is a sure sign of engagement. And Dove's similar 'Real Women' campaign last year is said to have worked.
But only the till receipts will tell us. Watch this space.
Dove's campaign for real beauty is great. The website is a bit too flash-mad but 
"Brands are not being built on advertising." 
This is a quote from Amex's worldwide marketing boss, John Hayes, in an interview he gives here. 2004 was a big year for Amex and the web. The company created a series of webisodes (5 minute films) featuring Jerry Seinfeld and an animated Superman specifically for the internet. The films were directed by Barry Levinson of Rain Man fame. So some serious outlay. And not a television schedule in sight.
Expect these modern marketing trends to reach Europe soon as broadband growth takes off.
The Economist reported last week that worldwide advertising expenditure grew by almost 7% in 2004 to $370 billion. It included this quote which I suspect will pretty much some up the big marketing trends in 2005.
What advertisers like about the internet is that the effect of marketing messages can be more easily measured. At its most simple, a company will know how many people who have seen its ad have clicked through to a website, and what proportion of those has made a purchase. Far more elaborate tracking and targeting systems for online advertising are emerging all the time. This is leading some of the world's biggest advertisers to demand better ways of measuring the return on their investment in all forms of advertising. It is hard to exaggerate how big a shock having their performance properly measured will be to traditional advertising folk.
For those involved in modern marketing, the challenges are considerable but the opportunities are immense.
GM has launched a blog called Fast Lane that features the thoughts of Vice 
Chairman Bob Lutz and other GM corporate management. It follows upon the success of it's seriously petrol-head focused small block engine blog but is pretty fresh. Lutz even gets into citizen's media mode:
After years of reading and reacting to the automotive press, I finally get to put the shoe on the other foot. In the age of the Internet, anybody can be a “journalist.”
GM as Modern Marketeers? That's got to be a good start to 2005....
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