Friday, June 26th, 2009
Mars & Venus
Ogilvy’s Digital Influence team held another Open Room, titled “Journalism’s from Mars, Social Media’s from Venus” and after tonight, I think it’s clear that the problem they have is the problem everyone (businesses, schools, non-profits, the music industry, etc) is having. They were sitting on a model that was working for the last 50 or so years, have been blind-sided by the sudden tidal wave of social media and not only are they not scrambling to catch up, but they’re actually holding on to the old world for all that it’s worth.
As with panels, I was fully prepared for some of the audience to be un-accepting of some young (and even worse, enemployed) punk telling them what the world is like. And it was no different this time, which is fine with me, it makes life exciting! How awfully boring would it be if everyone just nodded their heads and agreed.
I think it was a really interesting discussion. There was as much uncommon ground as there was common, and it’s painfully obvious both sides have to learn from each other. Monetisation is not a dirty word, but neither is trusting a fellow blogger. I think we have to move away from our normal worldviews that content creating is done for passion (for bloggers) or that the man on the street (or the Tweeter on Tweetdeck) is less reliable and/or credible than the journalist.
Thinking about “journalism” from the point of breaking news and real good opinion pieces is one thing. But I think we need to think about where the money comes from. Thinking about subscription models and what not is fine (even though they won’t work), but as Thomas Crampton brought up, mainstream media has enjoyed the monopoly on reaching people and advertising for a very long time, and companies are just beginning to realise that they can bypass the “middleman” entirely, thus crippling the revenue model. Will it provide them the reach? Probably not. Will it provide them the influence? Barack Obama’s YouTube channel suggests yes (yes yes I know it worked in tandem with traditional media).
As a closing comment: someone said that old habits die hard, referring to the staying power of traditional media and being used to opening that Sunday edition of the paper over a slow and leisurely breakfast. Here’s a thought: my “old” habits from the old world started changing by the time I was thirteen, and many were gone by the time I was seventeen. Radio, once a nightly listen for the dedication show, is an afterthought, so are magazines. TV serves my purposes when I want it to, newspapers have flown out of the window, music exists in the form of mp3s, not cds. The only “old world” habit I maintain is the reading of books.
My point is this: as much as old habits die hard, to the new generation, new habits form at an alarming speed that the world has never seen before. When, if ever, has a generation been influenced so quickly and successively like from the transition to Friendster to Facebook? That’s not just the speed of platform change, but the speed of diffusion from half a world away. When and how fast did we take up texting to replace calling? The speed of change is crazy. Geographical boundaries barely exist anymore. And I would ask people who believe in the “old habits” to take a look at their children, their nephews, their nieces or anyone under 20 and tell me how many of their “old habits” they see replicated in them, and ask how different the world will be in five or ten years, and if now’s the time to think about that change, or cling on to “old habits”.
Tags: advertising, barack obama, Books, credibility, dedication show, digital influence, facebook, friendster, generation y, geographical boundaries, journalism's from mars, magazines, monetisation, monetization, mp3s, music, newspapers, ogilvy, old habits die hard, old world, open room, radio, reliability, social media's from venus, staying power, subscription models, thomas crampton, trusting bloggers, tv, youtube
Posted in Blogs, Events, Gen Y, Media, Singapore, mainstream media, social media, twitter | 10 Comments »
Monday, May 18th, 2009
This is a quick overview of Day One of Youth Connect! which I had the privilege of attending and being a panelist at today, and I had a really good time.
For the first time in a long time, I could listen to people who actually knew their stuff go up there and tell us about their social media efforts, demonstrate some form of ROI, and hold up under scrutiny. I admit I was all ready to roll my eyes in cynicism when a speaker went up and said he was well-versed in digital marketing with an advertising agency, but then he actually knew what he was talking about. Very different from some speakers who just talk a lot, but don’t really say anything.
So my highlight was really speaking at the youth panel with four other people from the other universities, and I have to give Graham Perkins (@grayperks)props for really revving up the crowd even though it was the last session of the day. It was by far the most interactive session I’ve had the chance to speak at, and I think the smaller size of the conference helped people get used to one another and ask questions.
One thing that I “feel” intuitively at this conference, is that people understand more about social media than they did a year ago. The types of questions I had to answer a year ago and the types of questions I had to answer today, were quite different, and basic knowledge of what Facebook is, what Twitter is, what iPhones can do, can be pretty much be assumed, which makes a lot of difference when you’re trying to answer questions without leaving anyone behind.
As always, my favourite topic of newspapers came up again (which I will blog about soon), and I did have to answer one question about the effectiveness of advertising, and whether youth actually notice them. The room gave a slightly audible gasp when I told them Gen Y is pretty much trained to “ignore” interruptive marketing and advertising, but I think it’s not an exaggeration to say that.
When one other attendee asked if anyone of the five of us saw a physical ad (print, tv, outdoor) and went online to do research on that product or service based on the ad, the answer was a resounding no. So there you have it.
Lots of other stuff I want to talk about, a few great case studies that I really enjoyed listening to, I hope to blog them soon. It’s going to be Youth Connect! Week on the blog this week, but I think you’ll enjoy reading about it.
I will say this about the organisers: It’s not a big event, but I think they brought in great speakers. Companies who paid money to attend this (especially in this recession), should be very satisfied with the value they got out of it.
Tags: advertising, day one, digital marketing, facebook, Gen Y, graham perkins, ignore interruptive marketing, interruptive advertising, iphone, newspapers, outdoor ad, panelist, physical ad, print ad, ROI, social media efforts, tv ad, twitter, youth connect, youth panelist
Posted in Events, Singapore, social media, social media business | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, April 21st, 2009
Arsene Wenger
Reading up on soccer (or football) news before tonight’s game, I came across a great quote by Arsenal’s manager, Arsene Wenger on the topic of mind games in sports, as he draws a parallel to advertising:
”I believe it [mind games] was always something which was overrated a bit. But it is part of our environment and part of the media.
”You never know how much impact it has because it is impossible to measure. It is a little bit like advertising – it is needed but what impact it has on sales you never know. With mind games it’s the same.”
Smart man, that Arsene Wenger.
[image credits: Sun News Online]
Tags: advertising, advertising impossible to measure, arsenal, arsenal manager, arsene wenger, football, impossible to measure, mind games, mind games in sports, overrated, parallel to advertising, part of the media, quotes, soccer
Posted in Marketing, Media | No Comments »
Saturday, July 26th, 2008
I take the train to Dhoby Ghaut station most days to work, and there’s this huge (one level high) Magnum ad with Eva Longoria, as well as this large Magnum prop that’s easily two to three times my height.
One day I walked past and in my usual cynical manner with all things traditional, thought to myself “Does this actually work? Is someone going to see this and buy a Magnum from the 7-11 upstairs?”
Then a few days ago my boss purchased a Magnum and I asked “Did you buy that because of the ad at Dhoby Ghaut?” He said no, but then we proceeded to have a conversation after that about the ad and the huge Magnum and how my boss always likes to grab a Magnum.
So did the ad work? It didn’t lead directly to sales but I did remember the ad enough to recall it talk to someone about it, which is more than I can say for most ads. And I remembered it was Magnum and not a Cornetto or something else, compared to the ads for TVs that I can never tell apart. Thinking about why that is, I’ve got a couple of reasons:
1) I pass by the ad almost everyday. Maybe there’s something to be said for repetition after all?
2) The giant Magnum is huge and impossible to miss. On the verge of being remarkable?
If you’ve seen the ad or the huge Magnum, did it make any impact on you?
Tags: advertising, being remarkable, eva longoria magnum ad, outdoor advertising
Posted in Marketing | 13 Comments »
Monday, July 21st, 2008
A couple of weeks ago I was at Ad:Tech and besides meeting some companies who treated us like idiots and some that didn’t, there was a pretty decent talk by three creative directors with their own set of “Five golden rules” in advertising.
The first and the last creative directors gave typical rules like stay true to the brand etc. Very advertising in the ’90s or web1.0. Now one of them gave five points that were much, much more relevant to this day and age:
- Understand your consumer
- Own an issue, stand for something
- Spark & manage a conversation
- Involve your audience
- Aim for impact
Alright understand your consumer and aim for impact are normal, but while the other two were talking about transmitting one-way messages, at least he mentioned “conversation” and involving the audience.
If you’re paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to an agency to do your advertising, wouldn’t you rather it be an interactive, engaging effort instead of one of 2 million “impressions” that registered in their peripheral vision for all of two seconds? Because if you’re still engaged in the transmit model (i.e one way monologue) as opposed to conversation and two way dialogue, it seems like a waste of time. Especially if your demo is Gen Y.
Tags: ad:tech, advertising, advertising advice, conversation marketing, creative directors, engaging your audience, five golden rules, gen y demographic, one way monologue, reaching out to gen y, Singapore, transmitting messages, two way dialogue
Posted in Gen Y, Marketing, mainstream media | 4 Comments »
Saturday, February 2nd, 2008
Jaffe Juice #102 was released with perfect timing, on a day that I had lots of driving around to do. The beginning, a Scrabulous introduction is hilarious and well worth listening to, though of course, not the only thing you should listen to.
Early in the podcast, there’s a conversation about whether you would prefer 10 good relationships or 5 million impressions. Just one person in a room full of professionals voted for 10 good relationships. Perhaps some reason can be attributed to the fact that the numbers really are very far apart, and I suppose even for someone who wants to go down the relationship path, it might be hard explaining why you’d want to spend so much money on 10 relationships vs 5 million impressions, especially to a boss who’s well stuck in old marketing.
That said, I’m actually pretty curious about what number it would have to be before people start agreeing with 10 relationships. 3 million? 1 million? I was thinking to myself the other day that I wish I had done my Advertising module later, because I know so much more about new media and new marketing now than I did 4 months ago, and I have no doubt the new ways can be equally if not more effective. However, I’m reminded that unfortunately, the client and to some extent the professor, still graded very much on old marketing, which is sad.
What could be a worse situation than having the knowledge of how to make things better, but have people around you who don’t realise or recognise it?
Tags: advertising, impressions, jaffe juice, Marketing, new marketing, new media, old marketing, Podcasts, relationships, scrabulous, social media
Posted in Marketing, Podcasts, social media | 5 Comments »
Monday, January 21st, 2008
As reported by Advertising Age, advertisers and marketers are beginning to turn to podcasts for places to sell (or at least create a presence) for their products.
I think that’s pretty interesting for people thinking about doing their own podcasts (I keep thinking about Scooter groups on WetPaint). After all, even the people who do Mugglecast are getting money and stuff (I say stuff because it ranges from Subway coupons to other things).
I guess the biggest draw here is not so much the amount of reach, but who you’re reaching. Harry Potter merchandisers could easily tap into Mugglecast, Pottercast and the others out there, and of course, Scooter wheel retailers could target Scooter groups. Better ways to spend marketing dollars, no?
Tags: advertising, Marketing, mugglecast, podcasting
Posted in Marketing, social media | 1 Comment »
