Below was the first message I saw early this morning. I didn’t realize that I was a half day late seeing the initial email message. The first blog post was this:

We have four new ads which are either on the air, or ready to go on the air. The ads have been “cleared” by every network… except for NBC which has refused to clear a :15 second ad about Iran.

Right when I was about to post this, I circled back to the site and saw a more recent blog post that updated the situation.

On Wednesday the Pickens Plan Army engaged in a battle against NBC. The network had refused to run our 15-second ad talking about how Iran–IRAN–is moving quickly to CNG-powered vehicles so they can free up their oil to sell it to us at $120 per barrel.Guess what: We won the battle!By Wednesday evening, NBC had re-examined its position and told us they WOULD allow our ad to run in its original form.

There’s no questioning the web’s impact on things like this. Call it social media, citizen journalism or what have you, the fact remains we’re in the midst of some big shifts around traditional media. The winds of change are here.

ShareThis

The social media stuff is probably the most important thing we do today, from a marketing standpoint. A lot of the other elements of our marketing mix has sort of become more and more transactional and more and more tactical in nature. The social media stuff is much more strategic… It’s about how to use social media to power the fundamentals of the business. That’s what we’re focused on.

ShareThis

I thought WPP chieftain Martin Sorrell covered all the bases as he described his firm’s motivation:

“Growth is being driven by continuous pressure on clients to raise
their like-for-like revenue growth and to optimise their investment
against a backdrop of changing demographics, decreasing product
differentiation, intensifying global competition, the fragmentation of
the media and the impact of digital development.”

The forces at work here are disruptive to say the least. The big agencies are getting pressure from clients to move away from costly print and TV ads and move to more conversational forms of marketing and advertising. It’s not enough to just deploy a microsite and track page views. Customers want real-time information and they’re demanding it on their terms.

If I were a mid-market or large brand, I’d cut down on the one-off microsites and email-based newsletters and move the conversation to more interactive environments. Many companies have figured out that tapping the collective wisdom of their customer base provides huge value. Evidence of this is the large number of customer-driven communities and B2B networks getting sponsorship deals from consumer brands and software companies. It’s likely these communities are where your customers are lurking anyway or they’re building their own versions. Why not engage with them on their terms and in their environments?

I’m not calling for the death of traditional marketing techniques - unless there’s no infusion of 21st Century smarts.

ShareThis

| View | Upload your own

ShareThis

It was a hectic June and I’m finally starting to distill some of my conversations and briefings. I was in Boston a few weeks back for the Enterprise 2.0 Conference and while I definitely came back energized, the best part was the old-fashioned version of social networking — pressing the flesh as the saying goes.

I was there as media and while I would’ve liked to have blogged more about the show, I did manage to get some microblogging in courtesy of CoverItLive’s service. I realized early that I’d be attending a bunch of sessions with a crappy Wi-Fi connection in the backdrop, so I figured I’d cut my losses and get as much micro content in place as possible.

The widget below is the snapshot of my ad hoc meetings, session tracks, and a few hallway and bar conversations. Some of the latter were definitely the more interesting as I had several instances where I connected with folks I’d blogged with and collaborated with through Twitter and other channels.

I ran the CoveritLive widget on the Content Management Connection and ECM Blog after the show and noticed it had about 500 unique views over the course of a few days. How much of that had to do with the novelty of the service remains to be seen. Janet Lee Johnson thought it was cool enough to blog about it, and I noticed it had enough lift to light up Twitter with a few Tweets.

ShareThis

“A key tool the team uses in-house to keep the content organized is Vignette 7.2 (specifically, Vignette Builder and Vignette Portal). Remember, the mission’s content is feeding to podcasts, NASA TV on the Web, Second Life, and elsewhere. We’re taking the same content and representing it in many different ways and by all means.”-Jeanne Holm, chief knowledge architect for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

ShareThis

Hiring Resources Based On Price
Let’s take marketing, for example; it’s hard to show the clear ROI for a dollar invested. I’ve seen more companies that choose to hire a communications or marketing manager that’s inexperienced in the industry, but fairly cheap. This is the person controlling your content, your message to the outside world. If they don’t understand the dynamics of what it takes to manage a modern-day Web site, your brand will suffer. We can make a similar argument within the IT group — if the collaboration software is handled by a non-collaborator, you’re probably doomed to live out your collaborative existence in the meager confines of Outlook. The end result is the usually powerful combination of content and collaboration is deemed another shiny, new technology failure.

Choosing A Vendor Based On Personal Reasons, Not Technology
Similar to reason No. 1, choosing a vendor based on any reason not related to the ability to ensure you look like your own media company is unacceptable. In the past year, I’ve seen companies hand over their content strategies to the CEO’s brother-in-law, the founder’s nephew, the co-founder’s fraternity buddy, and more. I’m not saying some of those folks aren’t capable of providing value, it’s just that most of the time the expectations are unrealistic. Some of the results are actually really funny, in a sad, "how much did you pay them?" sort of way.

Using Technology That Dates From The Wrong Decade
So maybe your company has avoided the first two pitfalls; you picked a solid vendor that delivers good results, and you’ve got the right team in place. Don’t cripple them by refusing to invest in the right technology. Yes, the market moves fast and it might feel like just yesterday you spent a fortune updating your infrastructure. But the best jockey in the world won’t win the race on an old horse. Listen to the recommendations of your team; chances are they’ve already used other tools that might be complementary to what you’re trying to do.

And you know the routine: Send me your customer experiences and we’ll post them here periodically. Don’t worry, we won’t expose them or you unless you give us permission. All details will be removed to ensure everyone can return to their office without having to worry about the content management walk of shame.

ShareThis

John Shinal at vator.tv interviewed Draper at the OnMedia Media conference recently about the changing new media landscape.

..it may be a little like a producing company and a little like a venture capital model..but somehow we’ll pull those two things together and end up with a new model for venture investing that none of us has quite envisioned before.

It just validates how the social web is redefining how content is controlled and monetized. If you’re a marketer and not positioning your company to operate more like a media company, you should beware of being replaced.

ShareThis