What Constitutes a Sustainability Themed Marketing Effort?

The development of a proper marketing effort for a “green” product or service first demands a basic strategic audit. This is a multi-tiered effort that bundles together, processes, and synthesizes information gleaned from assessing the goal of the effort, familiarizing oneself with similar marketing plans, determining resources, and much more. The following constitutes a comprehensive and forensic consideration of all possible touch-points and implications for all stakeholders in the brand experience-both internal and external- centering around a “green” product or service. There are a lot!

1. So what’s your strategic goal in considering a sustainable or “green” approach for your client? This is step one in the audit: establishing the goal.

• To leverage a lagging product category or asset?
• To revitalize existing brands?
• To broaden appeal to green customers?
• To gain green credibility?

2. Are there potential green brands in your portfolio already and are any of your products truly aligned with them? Do you have the resources and capabilities needed for a similar initiative?

3. How will this initiative affect the positioning of and resources for your existing brands? Should your greened brand be a stand-alone or a strategic brand that puts a green halo on the business as a whole? Segmenting for affinity with “green” or sustainability is critical-although “green is most certainly
considered “mainstream”.

4. Which consumers in the category are looking for greener products? Does your candidate brand have “permission” to enter the green space? Can you enhance the value of green in the category?

5. Are your competitors greening their existing products? Can you differentiate your brand? How can you exploit your competitors’ green weaknesses? How can you capture a “share of voice” in the category? (Caution: Do you have environmental skeletons in your current portfolio or business model?) Will your green claims be credible—or are you vulnerable to accusations of “greenwashing”? Have you made this consideration from within your company’s ethos to “jump” the bandwagon?

6. What’s your agency’s strategic goal of leveraging the sustainable theme?

• To capture customers?
• To bring in new green capabilities?
• To broaden access to mainstream customers?
• To gain green credibility?

Many of these questions can be organized under two umbrellas: acquisitional considerations and competitive considerations.

First, the acquisitional considerations:

Which companies would make attractive green acquisitions? Do you have the resources and capabilities needed for this initiative? How will this initiative affect the positioning of and resources for your existing brands? Will this initiative provide new abilities that can be applied to other brands? Should your acquired brand be a stand-alone or a strategic brand that puts a green halo on the business whole?

And, the competitive considerations:

8. Is this the prototypical brand in the green niche? Like before, how can you exploit your competitors’ green weaknesses? How can you prevent competitors from poaching your newly acquired customers? Can you add green attributes to the new brand or emphasize existing attributes to increase competitiveness?

Much to think about, but the more these questions are considered, mulled over, and answered, the better prepared you will be to brand a “green” product or service.

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Philanthropic Efforts and Brand Effectiveness in the Social Media Space

Social media should be an integral part of any marketing outreach a nonprofit undertakes, but the rules surrounding it are different from those guiding a for-profit business. For the most part, the singularity of the nonprofit’s use of social media conforms to the different branding models of both types of companies.  And the differences are mostly a result of the type of consumer each business is seeking. While the for-profit business seeks out segments within the all-encompassing kaleidoscopic range of buyers, in other words, everybody everywhere, the nonprofit holds tight to a very particular niche, and that niche gets smaller when you focus on the consumers that are social media savvy.

Within that sphere, branded nonprofit efforts and associated charities have a strong opportunity to engage in meaningful conversations (that may lead to contributions) with the social media savvy (30-49 and >50) – especially those who are uncultivated. Clear indicators reveal types of conversations the social media savvy are seeking, so, the onus is on engaged brands to outlay their messaging in such a manner as to be both convincing and viewed as a “trusted source”.

Key Points:

• 81% want information from a highly credible or quality source

• 77% want information from a trusted organization Drip

• 59% would like to interact with other donors

• 58% want to interact with philanthropic experts

• 41% want to lead a public conversation

• 36% would like to lead discussions of their own

• 80% want organizational impact

• 74% want to hear success stories

• 71% want to learn more about the organizations they are participating with

• 70% want information on causes they care about

•  43% want information on financial accountability

The numbers were very similar among the 50 and older bracket.

Verifying this opportunity for content sources, 71 percent of 30-49-year-olds directly looked to the charity they support for information, and 63 percent trust referrals from friends. In comparison, 78 percent of those 50 and older directly look to their charities and 72 percent trust friends.

Conclusions: Philanthropic activity on-line must be supported by transparency, and the transformation of some portion of Social Media activity towards providing a portal to information, dialogue and impact is crucial.

* Social Media for Social Causes Study: The Results. Mashable/Social Media

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Trends in the Wheelhouse: What’s Next in Digital

I realize mid-August isn’t exactly high-time for trend predictions. That’s exactly why I am doing it though. So shake that labor day fog (Southern California is enmeshed in said fog right now) and let’s visit some ideas about the future of social media.

Foremost, I think co-creation in participatory networks and brand environments might go completely to hell. Saturation here is inevitable. I mean, you have everyone from Pringles to Land-o-lakes Butter in the social space, all scrambling for mind-share and people. The least sophisticated of these efforts will simply fade into the background-just like brands that forget to do the simplest of things like update their website. I mean, hello?

So that growth might be limited to internal growth, for example, how social media can be networked and utilized internally to gather employee sentiment, crowd-source for creative and tactical ideas, or even research and development.  This is where untapped Social Media potential lay.

Notice the interconnectedness here-all of this activity is material to increase marketers’ reach and for brands to crave metrics and indulge in mad “data-frenzy.” Even further, the development of intelligent agents capable of automating browsing functionality or parts of the social media listening process is right around the bend. I’ve been predicting the death of the browser since 2007, and it feels ever more imminent.

Once everything moves to “pull” media, after the arrival of said agent, then how the consumer personally aggregates information will be of great interest to brands. Each consumer already has a “affinity map.” What might be interesting is when that map is made available. Think “opt-in” preferences on steroids. The outgrowth will allow further targeting. Consider micro-segmentation and super-granularity.  Getting way more local and way more direct will increase both as more data is made available and as it transitions from timely to “real-time.” Naturally, segmentation and consumer insight will deepen to a point of pin-pointed accuracy and that is the future of digital.

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Oh Mama!

There are 13 mm of them. On-line. Right now. Mom’s that is. Check out these excerpts from the Digital Mom study down by Razorfish and Cafe Mom last year.

·      Not only is a mom handling the responsibilities of caring for her children and managing the household, but she is juggling work demands, keeping close tabs on her family and their needs, and maintaining friendships. She is also looking for outlets for “me time” and leisure time with her family despite complex schedules. On the shopping front, mom finds herself confronted with more brands and products than ever before, yet she has an overabundance of information with little time to research the best options for herself and family. It’s no wonder that 70% of Americans say moms today have it tougher than their counterparts did 20 or 30 years ago.

·      Now, she’s likely to be managing the household DVR library or downloading videos/podcasts to teach and entertain; relaxing with casual or multiplayer games; using her mobile phone to text her family or browse the Web; and meeting and connecting with a wider range of “friends” than ever before through online social networks.

·      And digital moms are not a niche; they have, in fact, become the mainstream, representing an estimated 84% of moms online in the U.S. today.

·      Women with children highly value social media, mobile and other digital technologies as a convenient means to stay connected, seek advice and information, shop and learn about products, meet others like themselves, and simplify the many dimensions of their lives. Digital technologies and social media are also providing new emotional and social outlets for moms including new ways to express themselves, get support from others, or just have fun. And as their habits change, how we market to moms also needs to change.

·      According to Nielsen NetRatings, there are 32 million women in the U.S. who have children under 18 and go online, which translates to about 40% of all women online in the U.S. today.

·      Moms are typically the key influencers and purchasers for both themselves and their families.

·      According to our survey, more digital moms today interact with social networks (65%) and SMS (56%) than with news sites (51%), and just as many can be found gaming online or via a gaming console (52%).

·      Moms under 35 are significantly more likely to leverage newer communications platforms like social networks, SMS, and mobile browsing; while moms 45 and older are more likely to utilize informational tools like online news, consumer reviews, and podcasting.

·      MAJORITY: channels used by more than 50% of digital moms include: social networks (65%), text messaging (56%), instant messaging (55%) and gaming (52%). These channels join email (94%), search engines (74%) and news sites (51%) as staples in the media diet of digital moms.

·      Based on their consumption habits, digital moms who are younger in age tend to be more comfortable with newer communications tools like social networks and SMS.  More moms with children 12 or older are interacting with technology to monitor their children.

Digital Moms drive Consumer frugality, and price sensitivity continues to drive the market.  At least here in Los Angeles and most major cities the trend is a pleasant one. More and more people are  going  “Local” with  and keeping their shopping within a few miles of their home. The Coast continues to percolate the notion that you can be bohemian and bourgeoise at the same time. Not a bad thing.  Gender-bias out there? Yes. Moms, lots of em’.

Seeing their consumer stay at home has forced some bigger brand to think about how to improve shopper experience/loyalty programs in-store  and on-line.   Recessionary forces empower the consumer to demand better prices.  Brands will increasingly explore e-commerce, digital coupons and focus on Shopper marketing, and location based intelligence to micro target shoppers, and increasingly use Social Media, and advances in mobile technology, &web analytics, to reach their target audience.

Look for Branded Gaming environments, specialized instructional videos and a boom in marketing to wired and tired Gen Y Moms who will demand a higher standard of ethical compliance and lower carbon footprint.

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Social Animals navigating Social Space

What’s the value of Social Media and how does it work, how will it work for me, my brand, my company, my product?

Questions, mind you, I am not answering academically, but in real-time for our clients,  everyday. I’ve spent recent gloomy Southern Californian Saturday and Sunday mornings perusing many of these blogs-only to find overly-enthusiastic rantings as if Facebook and Twitter are the Second Coming of the American business model-if not Western Civilization-without any reference to the larger global phenomena that is commerce-and more acutely to commerce in crisis.

There are two cogent points to made out front. Social media is a phenomena and a technological platform for human communication- not a new business model. Metrics associated with the media platform comprise that end of the equation. It is critical that Digital Strategists not just understand the variances of brand and consumer-but that they understand the market and marketplace, human tendency and human behaviour-and how all of these relate to the Social Media space.

For me, the number one critical insight into social media is as a cultural placebo for the human tribal tendency. People need to and want to belong to social groups and to cultivate shared experience-be it barbecues, baby pictures, a night out or an article about hand-gliding.  Not a bad thing.  This is a good thing, a fun thing. A very human thing. The main point is sharing. I wonder sometimes if anyone remembers the kindergarten definition and not the 2004-2010 definition of this word.  If one recalls that sharing means giving freely, then one has the idea. So logically,  Social Media is an ambivalent media with regard to commercial value. Social Media doesn’t care about money; nor do it’s adherents. Again, the platform is to be seen as media phenomena not commercial oddity.

Commercially speaking, monetary exchange is somewhat irrelevant-if not downright offensive to some groups.  There is a some measure  of truth to the notion that social media may not actually be monetizable in a truly economic sense. That is not off the table yet.  I would challenge any Strategist that says otherwise. Nonetheless, Social Media (particularly for Millennial) as critical to market entry for Brand. Interesting dichotomy right? Social media may not make your bottom line grow tomorrow, but it may very well grow your customer base in the long run.  And last, there is compatibility, the critical importance or transferring whatever corporate cultural value exists into the social media space.  In other words-if your values are ones that can be shared , then, how do you do this?  Look at the video assets that Cisco has posted on it’s homepage.  http://www.cisco.com.  Cisco clearly posits itself as technology-driven, people-centric. A living, breathing company.  Good job Cisco.

Make no mistake-Social media is about “belonging”-but it is to an artificial set of relationships and to an astounding media artifice. Studies show that people tend to actually interact (as in person) with about 1/4 of their “friends”.  So keep in mind, even though “Belonging” in a tribal, and therefore thoroughly human way is absolutely essential to the species. That does not make it antithetical to commerce per se; in fact the very artificiality of it makes potential commercial value even more likely. In the new media-marketing reality-the norms are so overturned, so unattractive to the millennial generation-that “belonging” is now paramount to buying something, but not exclusive of it. To the degree I, as the consumer are willing to forfeit true individuality-which is borne only of struggle and understanding-in so far as “character” is antithetical to “commerce” and adept instead an artifice, indeed a “costume” of freedom and liberation.

Whatever the cost is, belonging, tribal behaviors, “fitting in” and not “fitting in” are not bad things-to see the grandeur of the Olympics, or the World Cup and to proudly equate one’s self as an athlete, a champion, a footballer, or a German or Ethiopian, or even, yes-an American are wonderful, totally human sentiments. How many times have you seen a good Nike, or Gatorade commercial and actually got goose-bumps?  Make no mistake-these are brands you are interacting and equating yourself with.  But I the social media space can they be ”friends”?  That’s the trick isn’t it?

Brand affiliation-be it with soda, cars, watches, or running shoes isn’t exactly new either. You will recall a spate in the 90’s when inner-city teens were shooting one another for a pair of Air Jordans. So everything in this light, even media phenomena is subjugated to the marketplace. People are willing to buy products that they feel some associative correspondence with-be it value, “coolness”, athleticism. The media in which the brand can live and thrive best-as a “value” is the place the brand will bear most fruit.  Social Media  will eventually bear fruit and lots of it-but not before the somewhat contradictory forces of market and media are reconciled.

The value of Social Media can be overstated, and understated. For one-long-lasting. meaningful relationships with consumers are valuable. Using the platform correctly is about knowing the difference between real value and promotional hype.  Consistent messaging can continue to come from traditional media-so long as it matches that which being promulgated on-line. Determining the best on-line strategy is a function of understanding the interplay between these forces and activating and engaging where it makes most sense for the brand. In evaluating a brand it is almost always valuable to determine a localized and segmented audience-and reward the strongest influencers with attention and social currency. By observing, interpreting and influencing the flow of ideas in the social space-we naturally leverage the tendencies and behaviors that are inherent to us as social animals.

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Welcome to the “Ask Economy”

Beyond building or maintaining brand awareness, most traditional modes will soon be outdated-I’m thinking of outdoor, the 30 sec spot, in your face advertising.  I’m not alone. The consumer is simply tired of being inundated with “needs creation”.  They get it,  the consumer has finally gotten smart, and they want something else from us. The consumer sees us coming-and they are armed with Tivo’s, Apple TV, and several other ways to avoid us entirely.

Change at this level promises, indeed ensures innovation in the field.  Traditional advertising will become an almost invisible art-messaging will be “embedded” in digital media; and advertising for the purpose of lead generation will simply go away. The “Ask” economy will link consumers directly with what they want and make it even easier for them to get it. Look at the Apple Itunes model. One touch applications, music, video, and all the things you might need in one, hand-held device. How long will it be before this model is fully evolved in the marketplace? Not long folks, not long at all.

The primary difference between the “old” marketplace and the “Ask Economy” is that the consumer, in her new-found power, does not need the advertisers. In fact, it is common knowledge now that they are essentially tuning most of the advertising noise out of their lives, and out of their consideration prospects.   The question then, is simple and profoundly powerful. If the consumer is now looking for us (Advertisers and brands) and keen to ignore us in the traditional media channels-then how best do we “embed” messaging in media that they do use?

I believe that this is often bandied about but mostly overlooked question in Agency circles.

Lets Review, shall we?

Today’s consumers live in an entirely new “matrix of intent”. In plain English-there are immediately more choices available to them at any point of entry onto the web. When they search-they are given a matrix of possibilities to satisfy the consideration need from which they searched.  Consumers live in an “Ask” economy-and in the Interactive environment they can get the consumer to the point of purchase-instantaneously.  It’s even a bit strange to experience-the advent of true, immediate gratification. We can leave the ethical ramifications of this up to the philosophers.

The Web responds with choices that range from information, video, trends, music, shopping, and sharing.  Let me repeat that: The Web responds to Consumer’s.  Billboards and commercials do not respond to Consumer’s. Theyyell at the consumer, and no one likes to be yelled at.

Interactive Engagement provides the User with what they want-a simplified purchase funnel-a place where they can engage in their most prevalent behaviours-searching, watching, sharing, and buying, with ease and confidence.  This is worth noting.

That evolution-from searching and being given multiple options in multiple places to searching and being given one, singular place to fully exercise satisfy that urge is happening now, today. Organizational sites like Newsvine.com and Twine.com make it easier for people to find and organize information. Social Media giants like Twitter and Social Media facilitate greater consumer communication and sharing of critiques, suggestions and referrals. WOM has been turned on it’s head-now the consumer is your primary evangalist and advocate.

What is both frustrating and equally befudding to agencies and their clients alike is that these consumers no longer speak the language of traditional marketing, period. So increasing frequency and upping the disruption noise is the equivalent of yelling at a deaf person.  My answer to a frustrated client whose on-line efforts resembled their broadcast efforts almost identically Is-“Well, they still can’t hear you”.   Moreover, they think you’re an idiot for yelling louder into a different megaphone.

Consumers are no longer interested in a one-way relationship. They don’t want to just buy anymore-they need  dialogue-driven relationships to convince them that you are worth buying from and that you are actually interested in doing business.  A great measure of success then is how well we’ve done our homework on who consumer is and what they relate to.  Successful engagement brings the consumer into community and into dialogue with the brand and each other, or creates opportunities to do so. Moreoever-what this paradigm shift bodes is an entirely new marketplace-the “Ask” economy.

New Market-New Tactics

This new formula is based in large part,  on the unique interplay between Creative and Media.  By elevating the importance of thoughtful creative and production; we can imbue campaigns with a sense of direction and foresight.  Moreover- delivery is key.  Media “frenzy” translates into new creative.  We must begin to pay as much attention to how people receive messaging as we do to what the messaging entails.

I am referencing one point back (engagement) and one point forward (liquidity) here.  By getting to the exact touch-point the consumer relates to, what are we putting in the consumer’s hands? How can we give them “more” information, connection, power? How can we make this process easier?

Liquidity or Fluidity of content (Mutli-platform)

Good content can live and thrive anywhere on your desktop, on your phone, on your TV. The point is that it needs to live everywhere because consumers are “snacking” on content. They may see a provocative commercial and watch it a second time on-line, and tell a friend about it, who searches the for the site, where they might be delivered a SMS code that they might use later to find your location…get it?

Simplicity not complexity

Surprised? This one may seem counterintuitive, but it’s overlooked all the time. Experiential and new media ideas needn’t be compared to the Second Coming.  Providing consumers with practical, useful technologies or platforms that allow them to interact and get to know one another work better than something that makes a lot of noise and gets a lot of eyeballs only once.  The real-time shopper meets supplier direct model engineered by Google is the prima facie example in the market right now.

Insight: People share silly widgets on Facebook for no particular reason but to tell others (signal) something about themselves. That they are cute and generally quirky (LOLcats) or sports fanatics (Adidas MLS campaign).

Integration

Yes, the media environment is fragmented and diverse. No, media planning does not need to be the same.  Connecting all of these guidelines is matter of breaking through whatever silos exist internally and getting everyone literally, on the same page.  A huge hurtle for Innovation in marketing cirlces is the reticence between departments that have been classically separate and it is crucially important that these groups learn to work together in the New Media environment.

So it comes down to simple-again. The traditional advertising model is one of demand generation.If you’re lucky, you’re generating leads. The direct marketing model connects suppliers directly to prospects.  If you’re lucky, you’re generating sales. All the buyer/seeker needs to do is ask. You can ask your cellphone, your Blackberry, your Google toolbar. It doesn’t matter where you are. Just ask. You’ll find an answer. If what you need is a product, an ATM machine, a red dress, a meal, or a hotel room in Palo Alto tonight, you just ask.

The next step in this evolution is to discuss the best possible ways to “embed” messaging in the “Ask” economy media matrix.  It is  my opinion and the proposed topic of my thesis that this evolution will be one towards greater practiicality and seamlessness with “everyday” needs-and that Interactivity will begin in its ascent to look more and more like the “Ask” economy that Sci-Fi novelists have pointed to for years. In other words-brands will have taken on such a profound level of immersion that they will actually sponsor not only the content we interact with (news feeds, market feeds, entertaiment) but the tools that will make life easier. Imagine a time when your  bottled water of choice is providing automated health-scans (co-sponsored by your health care provider). Imagine you’re the manufacture of your automobile providing free animated Global warming education for your children, and moreover-carbon imprint games for their schools that match your kid’s bodytype and metabolism.   How do we get there? By paying attention.

The Importance of Buzz.

Can’t be underestimated; can’t be over-valued.   Never before has WOM been so boisterously and obviously important to the marketing world.  Buzz can, if given the right impetus and attention, truly make or break your brand.

Consumer’s are snacking today on content from often several and disparate sites. They don’t really care where the content comes from-as long as it’s good, informative, fun, or entertaining.  More often than not-they want all of the above. They are gravitating almost entirely to sites and sources that are age and interest relevant-and the more the aggregator/publisher takes note of what those affinities are and the niches they create-the more likely they are to engage with what you have on the page and come back for more.

The exercise of Buzz Metrics or Buzz analysis given to us from the likes of Radian 6, Neilson and Buzz Knowledge, suggests that there is an essential structure, a three part break-down of browsing behaviors with relationship to distributed content.

First off, distributed content is now the “new net” that the Brand casts to invite the consumer into dialogue. The idea here is that the Brand is representative, and immersed enough in the consumer’s “lifestyle” Matrix (Think surfing, skating, music, video=Taco Bell) that the consumer can be found in several areas-snacking-on a Brand-heavy menu of content that ranges across all of the Interactive and off-line areas that comprise a daily dose of advertising efforts directed at the user.

Distributed content, of course, because it is distributed increase the chances of virility and thereby advantageous or disadvantageous “Buzz”. The wider the better. Provided-of course-that there are strategic insights that inform that distribution-and that we entrust to media buyers and planners.

So short of our messaging showing up in the wrong place-we can assume that people will talk about it; and differing from the past-when buzz was limited to the water-cooler-that banter will be Broadcast. For the entire world to see, read, and yes Buzz about.  At it’s inception-whatever messaging is being offered to the consumer is either good or bad. And thereby, is either going to be ignored or taken into consideration. Either way, it is the bigger the brand the greater the chances that they will talk about it.

It will, if properly strategized reach many outlets, and many different touch-points presuming of course, the consumer targeted is multi-dimensional. We can in the case of QSR brands be assured of this. QSR consumer’s-millenials in particular cut a broad swathe across Interactive content channels and can be reached in myriad ways.

Most importantly, once triggered by some aspect of Buzz-the consumer can be counted on to flap his or her gums about their Brand experience-whether or not they are properly or improperly motivated to do so,

The elasticity of Brand Buzz is such that even if Brand content is accurately and strategically placed-even if emotional and experiential triggers have been exploited-and the user’s affinity for a product or brand capitalized on-the environment in which all of this is taking place is still expansive.

Consumers will and do, then place an overlay of their own expectations and behaviors on top of the Brand generated conversation…they will place another matrix on top of the brand generated one-and spread the content further in consumer-generated blogs, leave a response sites like YELP, social media forums and in email conversations.

The importance of Buzz Marketing and the necessary and attendant Buzz Monitoring cannot be understated.  To follow the flow of this conversation is to follow the flow of conversation.  The coordinates derived from this analysis will not only serve to tell us where the consumer is congregating but where they are conversing, commiserating, and of course spending their money in a tight economy.

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Data, data, everywhere →

Gary Wolf’s intriguing piece in yesturday’s NY Time magazine entitled “The Data Driven Life” leaves much to be desired for the e-marketer’s palette. Taking all the infinite quanta of life and deriving meaningful data is old hat to metrics and analytics quant heads in the agency world; so what are the implications for consumer behavior?

Like I’ve said many times about Social Media, the best consequence of all this connectedness is empowerment. The consumer is being given more information from which to make myriad buying decisions. So what of more data-or in particular of more personal data? Does this bode anything at all for consumers?

All of this granularity is useful-and for one it serves the consumer first, and business second.  There are innumerable mind-boggling implication for business-and where it will take advertising delivery.  Whether or not is is about knowing someone’s Foursquare location or what they had for Breakfast, or how many miles a day they run-advertisers will be able to truly satisfy niche demand, with niche products and services.  That may in fact sound simple-but it’s not. Long before any of this mega-direct marketing happens there will be legal and ethical hoops to jump through that will allow access to the consumer.

The interesting implication here is this-as consumer’s grow “inwardly” paying more attention to their own cues-and not ones telegraphed to them by advertisers-they will become more astute and more capable of choosing everything from bath oils to running shoes. If at all.

What I am predicting is the death of impulse buying.

You won’t have any extraneous desires, because you’ll know exactly what your triggers are by doing a little self-analysis of your habits-you already know what you need and don’t need, right?

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Competitive Innovation and the Agency

I recently took a weekend to sift through piles of old articles I have kicking around from the Harvard Business Review, the Economist and the like. I’ve taken to collecting a sizable amount of research on the ad industry but with more of a focus around competitive innovation and strategic thought. I am also constantly on the look-out as to anything related to Emerging Markets. As a Strategist-I am continually fascinated by the holistic relationship between the Global Market, Brands and Consumers. The Micro-Macro relationship is one that I think we ought to be paying a lot more attention to.

Growth Strategies for Agencies in this particular economic climate are complex and necessary-and they will come from smaller, leaner business units. Leveraging a digital toolbox with limited internal resources and trimmed capital is undoubtedly challenging. However, it is the opinion of this Strategist that one must first decide if one actually has the resolution, the stamina, and the inventiveness to compete and ultimately exceed. Those who are risk-averse, big or small, will fail.

Competitive innovation rests on the ability of an organization to actually accelerate internal learning, and in many cases, to extend this learning to the client. By necessity, an agency may need to make a surgical assessment of one’s own and the competition’s technical, tactical and creative advantages  in order to “right size” one’s ambitions-not, on the contrary, to maintain strategic equilibrium. (which tends to  have little or not results).  By engaging in Competitive Innovation as a primary strategy-the agency can leverage it’s unique competitive resources in an aspirational manner with the goal of broadening it’s porfolio of offerings-especially in the new media environment.  These two trajectories are not mutually exclusive-indeed, they are necessary cohorts.

The US economy has gained 290K jobs as reported in the NY Times yesturday the biggest gain in 4 years. Only twenty-four hours later the “Grey Lady”  reports that the European debt crisis may slow American economic growth. Also there has been a considerable bump in hiring in the Ad Biz (according to Dove Ryan of Acquent) on the Eastern Seaboard-cities like Atlanta, Boston, Philadelphia and New York are beginning to fill vacancies that are as old as the Fall of 2008. This seemingly contradictory stream of news coming from the Times-over only a 24 period-is certainly compelling.  And yet few if any ad-people actually understand the economic crisis in a way we would communicate to a friend over coffee. Derivatves, mortgages, bail-outs, TARP monies, Goldman Sachs “funds of funds”, the list goes on. How is it even relevant to our industry?

The public is saturated with social media and the phenomena itself I believe it will reach some sort of critical mass (whatever that might look like is for another article) in the next five years. The is a far greater and more easily digestible stream of information available to the consumer. Heavy on Economics? Get the Economist widget on your Iphone. Political junkie? Check out Newsvine or Politico.com.  Plain ole’ not very serious-sign up for The Onion’s twitter feed. However you want your news and views-it’s out there. We are also now more than familiar with the usual barrage of client concerns that include: new, uncharted and seemingly contradictory consumer behaviours, crowd-sourcing, media fragmentation, the ever-looming “end” of broadcast, and the complete domination of the market of “apps” and device-specific functionality.

Agencies themselves will tend to fall into two distinct categories. They are either data-focused in  their new zeal for quantitative measurement-and often because of this completely unimaginative, or they are creative power-houses.  Either way, 2/3 of the equation is missing.  Clients insist that the primary motivation for strengthening their digital arsenal is to procure better methods for measurement, and yet only 16% of clients even use metrics!  Remember Agencies have three distinct and primary challenges.

1. Thought leadership in New Media. Which, mind you, means tolerating and cultivating individuals that don’t necessarily fit into your “culture” but who can bring new life and ideas to it. The invigoration is good for everyone.

2. Intellectual property Development. (Apps) This is absolutely key.

3. Radical design innovation-which means hiring creatives who have strategic anddesign sensibilities.

Overall, the Agencies that will master the next 5-10 years will be lean, mean, and ultimately dominated by strategic mastery, technological prowess and radical design ethos.

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Competitive Innovation and the Agency: Part 2

Continuing the trend I started last week, I listened to a fascinating podcast in FT on the topic of “Work-life balance: Yesterday’s news”  and realized that there is a decidedly softer approach to be taken with regard to both proliferating “digital sensibilities” and utilizing social media in the workplace-in other words “evolving” an Agency.  Namely it is an entirely better idea to take a less “aggressive approach” (the gun) and adopt a sweeter one (the cannolis). Please excuse the random Godfather reference-but it seems accurate. Too often changing agency culture is a bloody affair-and it needn’t be.

You can listen to the podcast here:

http://ftmedia.podhoster.com/ft/finaldbmay12version2.mp3

I had begun thinking on this topic last year during exactly this kind of blood-letting when I was called on to revamp a tired Strategy department and reinvent the thinking end of the business for a large, corporate Direct agency. It did not go well. I’d honestly been a bit soured on the affair until recently when I took a meeting with the North American EVP of a small independent agency about the future of his agency.  Agencies big and small face similiar challenges with regard to built technology;  technological advances that are both internal and external, and last-the effects of technology in society-as these advances “trickle down” to the consumer. In this regard, agency professionals respond to the consumer as much as they respond to us.

We spent considerable time considering the utility of the terms “Digital” versus “Integrated”.  We pondered together if there is a “pure” digital play to be orchestrated by smaller business unit agile enough to drop traditional marketing all-together; or whether or not that is even a good idea.  We also talked about the ubiquitous term “Integrated” It’s an interesting quandary-and it does not lack nuance or semantics.  We asked: Is “Integrated” a placeholder for agencies who have been slow to adopt the full relationship/engagement model ? Does integrated include above and below the line efforts? How about event, experential, digital, broadcast, social media-do you do all of it, or some of it ? It is of course “easy” enough to craft market position around a singular concept, “digital” for instance. But it is decidedly more challenging to create a “hybrid” organization that enables internal technologies and accelerates organizational innovation at the same time as it produces interesting and relevant work.

I think some caution is to be exercised in and around the “digital” moniker. It is one thing to produce microsites, organize and optimize the search modality, make videos and facilitate a social media presence-it is another thing entirely to create a functional and fluid thinking protocol that is both relevant to, and in sync with a “present-tense” understanding of the digital marketplace. One of the two above has a strategic outlook, and the other is simply a production house. Which are you?

The next query should be obvious:  ”How do you sell this thinking”?  Well for one you make your Strategy understandable and accessible. Inevitably, the advent of a completely new age of  media means new language and new ideas. But strategists need to bring the concepts “down to earth”-they need to be able to navigate those high altitudinal places-and they need to to cull workable, feasible and manageable concepts out of them.  Moreover they need to communicate this insight via something more intelligible than symbiotic hieroglyphics.

This is more rare than you might imagine. On the one hand, you have a slew of technologists talking about everything and anything imaginable under the sun from Semantics to AI, to bionics and neuro-marketing.  I think all of these things are fascinating-but let’s be honest. How many of your clients are asking you about the semantic web or neuro-marketing? How many of them know anything about either? I would bet few to none. More importantly, there is a very small (and coveted) group for whom these concepts would even be remotely relevant to right now. Your lucky if they are your clients.  Some of the truly brilliant among us will try and ignore this so that they can live stratospherically “ahead of the game” but the fact is that most of the marketplace (the clients) are only now trying to figure out the what to do with  Social Media. Hence the barrage of articles, podcasts and interviews to that end.

I’ve even recently read one such Strategist that believes that Social Media ought not to have any commercial application at all-and that we are framing the entire question in the wrong light.  Admirably, this Strategist posits human interaction and conversation as sacrosanct, as paramount, critical.  He writes:

Perhaps where we’ve been hindered or even stopped in our evolution, particularly as corporations operating in the post-industrial age, is the fact that we attempt to commercialize conversation and human interaction. The simple fact is that we really can’t, and it starts with our perception of what we want out of human discourse.

This is loaded. For starters, the notion that Social Media is somehow incompatible with commerce is naive. Profit is  not a barrier to effective social media, particularly at the customer service and enterprise software level.

http://ftmedia.podhoster.com/ft/digitalbusiness_20_04_10.mp3

Secondly, conversation and human interaction have been commercialized for years. It’s called THE MOVIES. I’m kidding-actually the most obvious example of the commericial proliferation of social media is enterprise software-a veritable cottage industry. This is an interesting position coming from someone who in the next breath talks about binary directories and semantic analysis. What’s even more interesting is the notion that there might be some sort of “opt-out” for social media innovation-as if it ought to be kept “pure”.

Last, I realize that Zuckerman created Facebook for fellow Harvard students-but he also put it on the market-has taken massive amounts of capital from everyone, everwhere and it now has a rumored Market cap of 5 Billion.  According to Wikipedia, Facebook had positive cash flow since September 09’.  Bottom line?  There is a capitalized value proposition lurking somewhere in this miasma of money, people and privacy. Moreover-it is patently naive to think that strenghthening relationships and building trust isn’t good for brands.  Isn’t that what brand integrity is to begin with?

By the way-these guys get it right: http://relationshipera.com

Without being too hard on one colleague-there are better examples of communicating actionable, and compelling insight without sounding like a robot. I believe the best example of this comes from Razorfish.http://www.razorfish.com/#/ideas/reports-and-papers/white-papers/view-all.

I tend to not veer too far from three fundamental barometers: Market, Brand, and Consumer.  Where is the market going right now? Who are the top ten brands and what are they doing? Last, what’s the consumer doing. Where is she on-line, where is she spending her money ? By providing a simple and primarily economic base for our thinking-you are almost guarunterd that you will  end with an economic reccomendation-even if, tactically-there are technology platforms, sem-web solutions and algorythms undergirding the whole thing. I’m quite sure that the client is fascinated-but I wouldn’t spend a whole bunch of time confusing them with the latter.

At the end of the day, the client isn’t really interested in how smart you are. They are interested in something Social Media is built on: RELATIONSHIP. The client is interested in knowing if you know his business and his product or service. With that being said-he is more concerned that whatever thinking you bring to the table is 100% relevant to his brand experience. The client is normally not compelled by non-linear thinking and solipsistic singularities. The client is interested is compelled by lagging Q2 returns and whether or not they sold more units than last year.

So there is an interesting balance to be struck. Namely-the ability to manage certain “altitudes” but the crucial ability to bring them into focus and into relevancy to the brand and consumer.  Let’s not get ahead of ourselves please.

Row single scull, and forget the Speedboat for now.

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Tip-toeing around the Elephant

The promise of the Internet wasn’t merely to inflate relationships, without adding depth, resonance, and meaning. It was to fundamentally rewire people, communities, civil society, business, and the state — through thicker, stronger, more meaningful relationships. That’s where the future of media lies.

Umair Haque – Harvard Business Review

Here’s the thing. It is a different landscape out there-an entirely different marketplace now. Find a new map. You already know this. You have been introduced to the elephant. Stop tip-toeing and wake up. Digital is now at the very core of everyone’s business. The consumer is planted solidly in the core of everyone’s business. So your organization needs to change. Stop tip-toeing, re-introduce yourself to the Elephant. Don’t tip-toe around him! Shake his trunk! Say hello. Good.  Now, onward. Are you creating the kind of fundamental coherency with your marketing efforts that translate into hard metrics and revenue?  If not then what are you creating?  What else is there,  in terms of real results?  Status quo efforts are paltry, lousy.  Check your GPS. If you are in the “on-line efforts can’t really be measured” camp, you are just north of out of touch. Big mistake.

Friends, fans, followers, colleagues. Relationship, engagement,  synergy, loyalty, affinity, advocacy, propensity, userability, measurabilty.  Rhetoric or Real? It’s up to you to decide. But don’t wait too long to figure it out.Today’s marketing economy is sink or swim.   Sure you can tread water for a few years with traditional methodology and thinking. Sure. But this sort of backward-ness won’t help you. You must leverage actual strategic insight against popular and internal anxiety. That’s right. What is going on inside of your organization perfectly mirrors your clarity or confusion about what’s going on outside. What’s the point of people preaching about  Social Media and not practicing the same values internally? Are your people engaged? What are your own organization’s parameters for success? You  want your creatives to be happy? Engage them in your own brand conversation. Empower them!  Want Media and Planning to play nice in the sandbox? Remove the titles and stick them on the same team. Figure out who the albatross is and jettison them. Empower the provocateur. Shake the Elephant trunk. Consider putting laughter at the center of your organizational org chart. Lighten up and then get really serious.

I’ve worked for over 25 Fortune companies and dozens of agencies big and small. One thing I noticed? They all like to be smart. Yes, believe it. And they all like to make money for their clients.   One other thing I noticed ? Most of them tip-toe around innovation as if it were a dirty word.  This cannot be the way forward. Tip-toeing, that is.  Those who are going to survive, who are going to triumph, have aligned their thinking towards creating value, wealth and meaning for themselves and their clients alike.  They walk like elephants, no tip-toeing.

Here’s three big elephant-like steps to consider taking. Thought leadership, creating a culture of innovation, and radical design aesthetics. One, two, three.

Marketing and branding efforts do not exist in a vacuum-they exist dynamic dialogue with the consumer-All strategic considerations must be respective of the overall economic environment, consumer forces, and inclusive of all stakeholders in the brand experience.  Messaging must be  consistent across the entire holistic spectrum of communications.  The more  coherency with which we plan, the easier we are to engage with and be understood. New ideas, new techniques, new media. Now, today.

You want to be friends with the Elephant, don’t you ? Yes, you do.

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