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Archive for November, 2009

Digital marketing’s guilty secret: we’re making this stuff up Thursday, November 19th, 2009

I was listening to an interview recently with the head of Razorfish, one of the world’s largest digital agencies (If you want to keep up with what’s happening in the digital media, I can recommend Susan Bratton’s Dishymix program, it’s very informative).

It was both surprising and refreshing to hear this fellow, Clark Kokich, frequently use phrases such as “none of us know anything” about digital media, “we’re actually inventing this as we go along” and “there are no experts”.

If the head of an organisation that is billing hundreds of millions a dollars a year in digital media is prepared to admit this, it’s time for all of us working in this space to come clean. This is the guilty secret of digital media “experts” all over the world: no one really knows what consistently works. There are a few principles to be applied, but unlike traditional media - be it advertising, marketing or publishing - there is no established framework that ensures a certain level of response to a program or campaign.

If someone tells you they have a fool-proof way to engage your customer base and turn ordinary customers into raving fans, guaranteeing huge exposure and profits, they’re bullshitting you. We’re all still experimenting with clients’ money.

So why on earth should customers take their money out of traditional marketing and advertising budgets and give it to online? Well, one big reason is that traditional methods are becoming less and less effective as the world’s embrace of online irrevocably changes their life habits (you can hear more about this in a Zazoo-produced podcast interview with Ad Age colunnist Bob Garfield published on the HotHouse blog this week. Be warned, this interview is not for the faint-hearted.). You need to find alternative ways to reach your customers, or else your competitors will get there before you.

Ready or not, your world is changing. Finding your way in the dark with someone who has a torch, however dim, is more effective than sitting there cursing the dark. And those torches are getting brighter all the time.

- Ray Welling, Content Guy


In praise of online text Monday, November 9th, 2009

Jonathan Salem Baskin, who was the subject of the most recent podcast we produced for HotHouse, has written an insightful post about the continuing importance of text in online communication on his blog. 

“If video killed the radio star, wasn’t video supposed to obliterate text?” he wrote. “It hasn’t. Not even close. Who would have thought that 2009 would witness instead the continued resurgence of the written word?

“As opposed to video, text is a ‘hot medium,’ if you buy into Marshall McLuhan’s theories about media (and I do, for the most part). Even when viewed online, words engage a single sense, and thereby establish a direct connection that is richer in specific information and meaning than more participatory, or ‘cool’ multimedia experiences.

He goes on to ask: ”Why do businesses use words so poorly?

“Maybe because words seem free when compared with the cost of producing a video or sound file. Perhaps because social media conversations are so fast and frequent that specific word choices seem less important. One of my pet peeves is that we still use words to satisfy ourselves; we talk to our aspirations for our brands, and not to make those direct connections to readers.

“I think the year proved that what companies say matters, whether as the inputs into social media, or as the tool by which they make those direct connections with their consumers. But it has to be accurate, honest, and credible. It’s harder to get away with a lie when it’s literally spelled out; conversely, if we use words to state truths (and avoid all of the nuances that distract or lessen them), then text is a powerful tool that transports across technology platforms, and works with all age groups.

“I believe that 2010 will give us great and useful opportunities to use video and other media to communicate with our customers, but I suggest that there’ll be even more, better, easier, and more cost-effective chances to wring more impact and value out of the lowly, simple, written word.”

Use of video is growing quickly, but there are some things that will always work best in text format.

Ray Welling, Content Guy


Shameless self-promotion, part XVI Wednesday, November 4th, 2009

I was interviewed a few weeks ago for an article on social media marketing in NETT magazine. The article, “Not all conversations are markets“, published this week, canvasses the views of a range of communication and marketing experts about issues in social media facing businesses today. It covers areas such as:

  • What department should be responsible for social media? (My vote went for the marketing department)
  • Should you try and control what your employees do and say on social networks, particularly during work hours?
  • Should businesses create “trusted avatars” and “sock puppets” (unidentified company spokespeople who try and create and steer conversations on social networks)? (The overwhelming answer was ‘No’)
  • Should you buy lists of friends? (Again, ‘No’)
  • What’s the proper etiquette for joining in on conversations in social networks?

It’s worth a read (of course I would say that, wouldn’t I?).

While on the subject of self-promotion, here are other marketing/social media articles and podcasts we’ve produced recently, for the HotHouse blog:

  • A messy village of communication and Branding’s mid-life crisis - Podcast interview with US branding expert Jonathan Salem Baskin and accompanying article about his book “Branding Only Works on Cattle”
  • Greater than the sum of the parts, The great juggling act and Confetti on the screen – Podcast interview with Australian Internet pioneer Tony Surtees and accompanying articles

    • - Ray Welling, Content Guy