Modern Marketing - Blog by Collaborate PR & Marketing

2009 : Digital vs Analogue Must Die

Bang-for-bucks will be the only topic on the table in the next few years.  And marketing metrics is sorely in need of a rethink if it's going to thrive.  Simon at Big Picture picks up this quote from mega-mogul Barry Diller: "You really want to get a headache? Try to understand Internet advertising. Social networking advertising is being discounted because there is so much inventory [of available ad spots], and because methods have not yet been found to make it very effective. Will that get figured out? I absolutely believe it will. What form will it take? Absolutely unknown."  Kent Nicholls says the answer is for digital executives to build powerful stories that are as effective as those in print media: "Advertisers don’t know how to value online eyeballs.  The myths of old media have accrued until now they are just pure common sense or conventional wisdom.  My favorite example is what’s known as the pass along rate in magazines.  The pass along rate is some imaginary number that publishers say that original subscribers pass along the magazine to friends and other non-subscribers.  And that certainly happens in the real world, but it’s also very hard to quantify.  It’s squishy and human and imprecise."  Joining the debate from Saatchi Towers, Richard Huntingdon decries the: "the ludicrous way in which the digital community generally sets about proving effectiveness."  Richard says that at Saatchi, it's all about hard returns: "Talking about any effectiveness metric that does not tell you the incremental profit that your marketing activity generated for the business isn’t worth the paper it is written on."  So there you go.  Digital metrics are a mess while traditional techniques continue along a path of relentless value that sates the desires of every C-Suite bean-counter in triplicate.  But hold on.  If that's the case, why are the commercial TV channels in the UK suffering so badly?  Surely those gilt-edged media metrics should have brands forcing their shekels into the hands of TV execs promising juicy TVRs and solid returns. And if newspapers can be shown to keep on delivering print sales straight to the bottom line, why are they are finding the going so tough?  The truth is that traditional advertising metrics are every bit as messy as those found in digital.  Marketing folk may feel all-at-sea on the vast oceans of digital data that the web serves up, but traditional craft are creaking and look ready to go under.  And therein lies the opportunity.  In 2009, talking about digital vs traditional media will be increasingly meaningless.  As all media is sucked onto personalised IP platforms and the share-and-compare economy grows, the idea of analogue vs digital will become a distant memory.  Brands will want it all.  As Hulu has done in the US, the big winners will be those who can mix the proven strengths of the old with the innovation of the new.  The ability to deliver that double-whammy will be the only thing worth measuring.

The Share-And-Compare Economy

The web has evolved into a billion soap boxes where people can gather and discuss, rant, plot or chat about their passions and problems.  Naturally, some of the chit-chat is about companies and their products and services - positive or otherwise.  The question is how do companies best react to this mass online critique?  In many ways, there’s nothing new here.  Marketing folk have always kept an ear to the ground and taken the views of their customers seriously.  Focus groups are now so prevalent that almost nothing escapes the confines of MegaCorp without going through a few rounds of such scrutiny.  So what’s the big fuss?  People used to chat away to each other and are now they are doing the same thing on blogs and online communities.  The difference, of course, is that today we also have Google.  And a million other aggregation tools and review sites, such as Trip Advisor. It’s not that we can talk to each other, it’s that we can find out what everyone else thinks.  The social web has created a share-and-compare economy - where traded opinion affects purchase decisions.  And unlike the wider economy this one is growing.  In fact, a McKinsey report this summer noted that : “25 per cent of Western Europe’s Internet users now post comments and reviews about consumer products of all kinds.  User generated media sites are growing in numbers of visitors and participants by 100 per cent a year, traditional sites by perhaps 20 to 30 per cent.”  One area that has become more popular as a result of this new environment is Co-Creation – the idea that innovation and ideas can be discovered by...

The Water Cooler Show Lives On...

I did something new this morning.  I watched a great BBC programme last night and was able to (legally) link out to it from Twitter today, because so much of the BBC's programming is now available through its Web TV platform - iPlayer.  So the show in question - Louis Theroux's chilling documentary about the gangs of Philadelphia - now has currency in a way that it didn't before.  Previously I could talk about it, but not curate it.  It couldn't become part of my personal media platform, the media space that I build everyday using tools that allow me to share-and-compare with my friends, contacts and the others I brush pass in the global mingle that is the modern social web.  Vitally, flagging my interest over coffee this morning didn't involve breaking into a strange locked-down fame silo called Theroux's Echo Chamber or the like.  Instead I created a tiny media byte to float off around the open web, for the heavy-lifting aggregation engines to thread together into a community on-the-fly.  One that will grow on the vine or reach its natural sell-by-date and naturally disperse.  This is what used to be known as a water-cooler moment, when people would gather together in the corner of an office and chat over their favourite lines from the previous night's TV.  So (surprise, surprise) water coolers are still very much alive, they just look different when media becomes networked.  Blogging at the LA Times, Jon Healey writes how Sling.com, the new video site from the makers of Slingbox, is working with this new legal, professional, TV environment.  "Much of Sling's most recognizable programming comes from almost two dozen networks and studios that Hulu supplies, but it supplements those feeds with content from about 100 additional cable networks, online TV channels and independent studios. It's an overwhelming amount of stuff, which is where the social layer of Sling comes in. Like Hulu, you can banter on comment boards about particular shows or episodes. But you can also create an electronic trail of commentary for others to follow."  Yes, TV is (finally) joining the party.

[UPDATE: Loved @beng's comment about Kangaroo's problems: "Who cares if Kangaroo will now not happen? I want proper, internet, on-demand, hypertextual, bookmarkable video services not cable tv."]