First let’s presume each of these people will be responsible for a company that has around $100 Billion in gross revenue. So to grow their businesses even by a single percent they need to bring in $1 Billion in bacon. With those types of numbers, it’s going to be hard to get them excited about even the Ninja’s revenue stream.
That means we need to think bigger. Much bigger. They’re not interested in making a million here, a million there (crazy I know).
So let’s think huge.
What would you pay to increase your sales 5-10%?
That’s what social media can do for your brands. That’s what it did do for Diet Coke sales thanks to the Mentos and Diet Coke phenomenon created by Eepybird. They boosted Mentos sales by 20%.
- Younger demographics are harder to reach today, despite them consuming more and more media. They are skeptical of marketing and advertising.
- Alternative Attention Aggregators, like web video, video games, social networks, and SMS are what MTV was a generation ago. It’s where the eyeballs are now.
- There are too many channels now, which means you have less control. You need to shift your PR and Marketing goals from control to facilitation, empower employees and customers to embrace and push your brand into their own personal worlds.
- People knock this sort of user generated marketing as only available to brands that inspire passion, if you yourself don’t have passion for your products, no one else will.
- If you don’t support the space with your ad dollars, your competitors will, and you’ll have lost the only avenue to these new customers.
That’s a lot of ground to cover in 15 minutes. So I think I’ll concentrate on these three points:
- Younger demographics are harder to reach today, despite them consuming more and more media. They are skeptical of marketing and advertising.
- There are too many channels now, which means you have less control. You need to shift your PR and Marketing goals from control to facilitation, empower employees and customers to embrace and push your brand into their own personal worlds.
- If you don’t support the space with your ad dollars, your competitors will, and you’ll have lost the only avenue to these new customers.
Thoughts?
13 Comments
April 28, 2008 at 9:27 pm
I think that the first three points are the most important ones. The competition for ad dollars is true, but I think that dazzling them with their lose of control is much stronger.
I pitched such topics couple of times and found that managers are looking for insight on how kids consume media mainly.
April 28, 2008 at 9:28 pm
I love the control vs facilitation. It’s so true. I moderated a panel at Ad Tech and the agency guys kept saying “marketers want to tell their story so they use their 30-seconds online.” And I said, “maybe they need to get over that or find a new way to tell their stories.”And your idea hits on that very topic. Businesses need to understand that stories including brand stories are told in new ways
April 28, 2008 at 9:59 pm
I agree. I would take care to emphasize that whereas with current (advertising) media, one has full control over timing and placement (because one specifically buys that 30 seconds of TV or that half-page of newspaper), however that still only has a statistical connection to the desired audience of customers.
In the new Social Media of “The Web 2.0″, one has even less “control”, and can merely make product information available in an interesting way. The audience has control of timing and location now and they object when that control is lost via force-fed ads (such as long pre-roll video ads or streaming video with DRM that blocks downloading for later viewing).
That seems like a bad thing, but note that each piece of “new media” can cost less than it did in “old media”. Spend your money on marketplace research and entertainment to create multiple low-cost pieces rather than committing to a single version of the message. Spread them around freely using Creative Commons.
Some pieces will fall flat (just as some old-media ads were ignored), but a few will hit and grow audience automagically.
I can tell that the above is too verbose, but it is past my bedtime so that’s what you get. Say it in your own way and it will be better.
April 28, 2008 at 10:29 pm
“You Have No Control Over Your Message” is so true. Too many conversations happening to keep track, much less push your heavy-handed desires-slash-branding. Give people authentic experiences and tools to share them with others. And then, you’re either relevant or you’re not.
As for your take on media for the youth market, I saw a great post a while back:
Mind Your X’s and Y’s
by Brad Abare, Think Personality
http://snurl.com/269sf
April 29, 2008 at 5:53 am
I think your point about empowering employees and customers to push the brands in their ‘worlds’ is really where it’s at. There are 2 reasons for this.
First, there is so much ‘stuff’ out there, it’s just impossible to wade through everything. Much of the online content I watch is related to my interests. My buying decisions are highly influenced by the reviews of those content providers not by the ads on their shows.
Second, those same people have introduced me to others that I may not have seen before. The community development that goes on around their content exposes me to a myriad of others that I would not likely connect with otherwise. Those people then carry some influence as well. I follow a bunch of people through Twitter and RSS that aren’t directly involved in things I’m interested in but have peaked my interest somehow.
If these CEO’s want to really make an impact they need to inject their products where they’ll have the highest purchase to contact ratio. I think most people, especially internet users are ad blind. I mentally tune them out just as easily online as I do on tv.
Actively seeding product to content providers for use and leveraging employees involved in online communities to create buzz will be much more effective than actual advertising in the future.
The difficulty will be finding a business model that pays content creators but still maintains credibility.
As an example, I watch AAN but would not likely purchase VerizonFIOS. However, I did buy a T-shirt because I have an interest in seeing the show continue. It’s your content that influenced my decision, not the ad.
My 2 cents.
Deke
April 29, 2008 at 6:56 am
“if you yourself don’t have passion for your products, no one else will.”
So true. Reminds of of Douglas Rushkoff’s book “Get Back In The Box” – http://www.amazon.com/Get-Back-Box-Being-Business/dp/0060758708/.
A company that takes true joy in their products inspire so much more that a widget factory. And that’s most of the battle right there.
April 29, 2008 at 8:28 am
I don’t know… these are good points, they are smart points to cover. But if I were in your shoes, about to go up infront of a bunch of a CEOs of $100 billion companies… I would consider telling them flat out “you don’t get the space, and you never will”.
A) Because I think the kind of person who runs a business of that size, isn’t told normally that he “can’t” do / understand something… and it will kick in that “oh yea” mentality, and they might actually listen closer.
B) because it would be would be better to explain that you have seen example after example of big business come into this space and get it completely wrong. And the results are people (teens especially) who don’t fall-for or participate in marketing or advertising. You can’t just blast the internet with your shitty “billboards”. Or create some flash based game that somehow promotes the company and call that “interaction”.
Their “understanding” of the internet is: let’s make a viral video and upload it to youtube. Which can work… but it’s very, very rare – and it’s a fluke more-so than a advertising strategy.
I would just stress that, like you mention, that facilitation is a very important part of it… but also that most of them in the room, again, will not get it, and they never will. But the few in the room who do, will, like you said:
“If you don’t support the space with your ad dollars, your competitors will, and you’ll have lost the only avenue to these new customers.”
I’d like to explain this better – but I’ve got to get ready for work now…
April 30, 2008 at 12:40 pm
Why does Ask A Ninja engage viewers to respond?
Why do kids want the Ninja to talk about their questions?
What can these CEOs learn from that?
April 30, 2008 at 3:19 pm
Nice points. I do think that the “inspire passion” item needs attention, because I think the difficulties of hitting the younger demo is probably very familiar to them.
“Inspire” will be looked at in a marketing context (e.g., some aspirational message or brand, re: passion). But in its most classic form, it’s more like “inspires stories,” which is what the viral stuff is really all about.
It’s like humming your favorite jingle from childhood; George Lois on a Studio360 episode noted jingles are a lost-art today because you don’t get the forced, repeat views of ads that you need to drive them into memory. We don’t first remember the jingle for the product, we remember for the connections they’ve made with us, and the stories of “when I was a kid…,” the product comes later. Really, I’m not passionate about lunch meat, but I remember Oscar Meyer vividly. I remember it because a teacher backed into a hot radiator and another kid quietly sand the “we’re gonna have a weiner roast!” line from the commerical.
So “inspire” is really an extension of storytelling or more accurately, being an actor in a story. But the difference is that the stories of people’s lives today are happening through digital, from email to mobile to social networks. They watch TV like I did, but then they *go online* and explore it further. They may even watch that TV online. The passion manifests in the digital space from activity — sharing, discussion, and interaction. These stories will heavily involve online, from something that was texted, to something that was found in a comments feed.
Tim above summarized this pretty damn perfectly. It doesn’t have to be as big as building a Mentos rocket, it’s as simple as a building content around user correspondence.
If they’re not willing to make themselves a partner to that activity, they’re asking to be *invisible,* because these are the people who later will be talking about what they loved about internet.
May 2, 2008 at 2:41 pm
Web 2.0 is about tools.
They can’t be thinking that they are networks, they have to be thinking that they are the new “Black & Decker.”
By thinking of themselves that way, they become facilitators for creatives and audience to meet and greet.
May 2, 2008 at 2:59 pm
I don’t agree with your third point – if they’re not there today, they can get there tomorrow. There’s a small advantage to being the brand that gets there first, but it’s not an insurmountable advantage, and all of these companies have enough $ to buy their way into the game even if they’re late to the party.
Moreover, the history of big, old companies getting into new media proves time and again that they usually do it wrong. (Am I the only one old enough here to remember Time Warner’s Pathfinder?)
May 2, 2008 at 7:01 pm
Lots of good points have been made in the comments here and on the last post. However, I think some big points are missing. I have worked with a lot of CEOs like these guys. They tend to be very smart and aware people. They may not understand what’s going on, but they know something big is going on.
It really became clear to me when I heard a VP from Levi describe their experience with the Levi Project 501 user generated design contest. I posted about it here: http://ta.gg/16f
The main challenge in these big organization is how to get their organization to do something different. Big organizations have huge amounts of momentum and changing course is very hard. The other thing that will block them and their organizations is perceived risk.
If you want to get them to spend more on this you have to show them a path that lays out how they get their organizations to try these marketing methods and how they manage the risks.
If I were you, I would do a short Ninja video, with Ninja as CEO and being blocked by the organizational momentum and risk aversion. Use your humor to make them see that you get their problem.
Then show them what 21st century marketing (Levi’s term) is all about.
Tell them a story where a big company tried something, got the organization to get traditional and new marketing working together and how it made a difference.
The Levi VP would probably take a phone interview with you and tell you the story, if you want to want to use that case study. Maybe she would even give you some of her video to use.
Let me know if you want to reach out to her, I think I have her card somewhere handy.
Good luck.
Best
Alex
Digital Podcast
November 20, 2008 at 2:58 am
What would you pay to cut your costs to zero?