Thoughts on how we got where we are, current consumer trends, how we have to think when it comes to digital and social marketing, tactics and strategies for changing an organization or agency, and mistakes you should avoid.
Presentation to Boulder Digital Works Exec 36 Hour Session.
This presentation had five parts. It is also online as a video, though you have to get through some dead time at front at: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/6182068
Part 1: A generation has to die
The basic ideas is that legacy systems -- manufacturer/consumer; broadcaster/viewer; publisher/reader; agency/audience -- still exists. But right side (viewer, reader, audience) has changed faster than left. Consumer is no longer passive. Instead she’s a creator, distribution channel, commenter, etc. Brands no longer need ad agencies. Kogi BBQ builds brand with Twitter. Cliff Freemen, agency for Pizza Hut and greatest TV agency of all time, goes out of business. Learn from what Google did right, the power of community, the limitations of legacy systems and power of free content. Read Auletta, Shirky, Lanier and Anderson.
Part 2: Digital is not about technology. It’s about people. Eight trends. I’ve talked about them often in my presentations. 1. The consumer wants to create. 2. We have complex relationships with media. 3. Community is our new source of content. 4. We want to do business with people or brands that act like them. 5. We have more power than ever before and we carry it with us. 6. There’s no such thing as perfect. It’s crazy to pursue a single insight and a one-message campaign. 7. We have a new definition of quality: fast, easy, portable, accessible 8. Attention is the new scarcity.
Part 3. If you can’t be a digital native, be a digital immigrant. 1. Conceive ideas that generate content. (True Blood, Go with the Grain, Art of the Trench) 2. Create experiences that earn attention by inviting participation. (National Grid/Floe, Nike Chalkbot, TheNextGreatGeneration.com) 3. Be media specific with your content. Don’t stick the same video all over the place. (Timberland’s Stay on Your Feet, for example) 4. Master conversation strategy. See my blog post on conversation strategy. This is an art and a science. 5. Embrace agility, constant presence,frequent experimentation (BrandBowl2010.com, AJ Bomber’s Swarm Badge; you can Google it)
Part 4. Expect some pain. Here’s what we’ve done:
1. New strategy based on how consumers interact with content, media, technology and community. Not about main communication point; about generating talk value. 2. Interdisciplinary vs multi-disciplinary. 3. Expand the team and learn to appreciate each other’s perspective 4. The "T" person who understands and can inspire all the many roles. 5. Make the process iterative; don’t start with TV, then web, then media, then PR. Turn it inside out. 6. Become a learning organization. Made by Many, a London company of 23 employees, send 18 of them to SxSWi. Learn to love to learn. Think in new terms: community (not audience), experience (not message), engage (vs target), interest plan (rather than media plan), collaboration (instead of penetration)
Part 5. Smart people can be really stupid. Here are some of the mistakes that my company, Mullen, made in how it sold, scoped, staffed, delivered and rewarded before we got digital right. Learn from them.
Understanding the Pakistan Budgeting Process: Basics and Key Insights
Digital Transformation: Talk at Boulder Digital Works
1. A generation
has to die
Thursday, April 15, 2010
This presentation has five parts to it, all with the hope of sharing some lessons about how an agency can start to
migrate from being traditional to digital. But it makes sense to start with why so many of us are where we are.
2. Thursday, April 15, 2010
For me it begins here. In the 60s, the golden age of television and media. Look what
happened.
7. Thursday, April 15, 2010
And Madison Avenue gets us to pay attention to its ads.
8. Manufacturer Consumer
Publisher Reader
Broadcaster Viewer
Advertiser Audience
Programmer User
Thursday, April 15, 2010
It was the decade that gave us two classes. Those who created the content and messages
and those who received it. What’s happened in recent years is that social media and digital
technology have changed the right hand side of this equation far more rapidly than the left
hand side has gone along. That in a nutshell is what we are all struggling with, what we have
inherited. Unless you are starting from scratch. Youtube. A digital agency. A new social
platform. You are stuck with the legacy systems, to some degree, of what’s on the left. It’s a
mindset, embedded deep in your muscle memory. I don’t care if you are an agency, a client,
even an educational institution, this is how many still think. As if there are two classes. This
is Rupert Murdoch believing people will still pay for newspaper content. Ad agencies thinking
you can still market with interruptive messages.
9. Thursday, April 15, 2010
Many media companies still operate as if this is the way things work. I remember this. I used
to listen to albums in the order the artist intended. Who was I to change that order. I was a
listener. The band were the creators.
10. Thursday, April 15, 2010
Not anymore. Now I, we, they create, thanks to all things digital. Open source, APIs,
miniaturization, whatever.
11. Thursday, April 15, 2010
And it’s everywhere, perhaps mostly with the digital natives, but also with the digital
immigrants.
12. Thursday, April 15, 2010
And it’s everywhere, perhaps mostly with the digital natives, but also with the digital
immigrants.
13. Thursday, April 15, 2010
Know one sits back anymore and receives. Not only that, the tools of the marketer and
creator are available to anyone.
14. Thursday, April 15, 2010
Like Kogi BBQ, which launched a brand with a Twitter handle
15. Thursday, April 15, 2010
Or consider Gary Vaynerchuk. A folding table, a video camera and a belief in the
democratization of wine. He builds his own audience on YouTube and along with it an $80
million dollar business.
16. Thursday, April 15, 2010
So, no arguments that the right side of the equation has changed. But here’s some evidence
that the left side had better. You know much of this, but it’s worth dramatizing.
17. Thursday, April 15, 2010
The ad agency that used to be known for fast food marketing went out of business.
33. If you canʼt be a
digital native,
be a digital
immigrant
Thursday, April 15, 2010
34. Thursday, April 15, 2010
Everyone has to evolve. It’s about what comes next.
35. A generation Conceive ideas that generate content
has to die
Thursday, April 15, 2010
So, that paints a picture of what we’re dealing with. So what does it mean we have to do.
58. March 2010
1 2 3 4 5 6
7 8 9 10 11 12 13
14 15 16 17 18 19 20
21 22 23 24 25 26 27
28 29 30 31
Thursday, April 15, 2010
I’ve written and spoken about this, but in social media, you can’t simply sell, you have to share,
engage, create little gifts of content and then sell.
68. Check list manifesto
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Make sure everyone in the room knows each other. Avoid mistakes like this one.
69. copywriter
art director
web designer
IA/UX
programmer
video producer
content strategist
connection planner
PR/social media
media
analytics
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Lots of disciplines
70. copywriter
art director
web designer
IA/UX
programmer
video producer
content strategist
connection planner
PR/social media
media
analytics
Thursday, April 15, 2010
You need to be a T person
71. TV > WEB > MEDIA > PR
Thursday, April 15, 2010
The old sequence. WTF?
72. PR > MEDIA > WEB > TV
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Be more iterative
74. audience community
message experience
target engage
media plan interest plan
penetrate collaborate
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Re-think how you think
75. Smart
people can
be really
stupid
Thursday, April 15, 2010
76. sell scope staff deliver reward
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Sharing some mistakes
77. how we sold encouraging offline ae’s to think and how we delivered collapsed all project
sell digital with no training or supervision management into one group, allowing key online
neglected to put digital-savvy person in new pm to leave assumed a “brand” creative brief
business role arrogant enough to think we knew was enough despite lack of details to do effective
what we were talking about digital work allowed traditional creative teams to
present ideas before including UX and technology
how we scoped refused to acknowledge true
failed to unite different groups physically
costs of digital gave team leftover money
delayed integrating digital media, creative,
squeezed from offline budgets failed to train
Technical Support neglected to invest in
clients on actual value brought message rather
collaborative technology, depending too much on
than experience mentality to the space gave
IT instead of developers
digital work away to “get” the business
perpetuated the diminished worth of digital how we rewarded assumed digital people would
put learning on hold while they spent time cleaning
how we staffed continued to hire legacy talent
up after offline colleagues under invested in
focused on usage rather than future when
training (formal and informal) didn’t mandate
downsizing assumed traditional talent could
digital skill expansion as part of performance
lead digital efforts believed project management
evaluation for all
could compensate for digitally naïve account
people defined integration as offline people
could try digital (but not the other way around)
Thursday, April 15, 2010