Mele’s Musings

Like It or Not, We’re All in This Together

Key idea: “A marketer’s challenge and job is to enter [the] conversation.  And when you do join in, you had better be prepared to add value.”

Article excerpt: IAB’s Randall Rothenberg on the Shift From Portals to Platforms — and Why This Is Good News for Marketers and Consumers The revolution is not being televised. That’s because it is being webcast. Right now, in real time.  It’s on aaaa.org, the website of the American Association of Advertising Agencies. Look, listen and read about the record-breaking attendance at its recently concluded Media Conference, the first devoted to digital, where the TV lions who have shepherded the industry for decades palpably passed the leadership torch to the next generation of interactive-agency savants.  It’s on ana.net, where the Association of National Advertisers is distributing reports in which a score of chief marketing officers declare that the role of the marketing organization has been altered forever. “The world is in the middle of an ongoing conversation,” American Express CMO John D. Hayes says in his segment. “A marketer’s challenge and job is to enter that conversation. And when you do join in, you had better be prepared to add value. If your attitude is, ‘We’re going to pound away with this many [gross rating points] talking about our new product,’ all you’re doing is interrupting the conversation. People don’t like that.”  And it’s on iab.net, where the trade association I lead, the Interactive Advertising Bureau, just disclosed that interactive-advertising revenue reached $21 billion in 2007, surpassing the radio industry and growing at a rate that many observers say will take us past $62 billion by 2011 — at which point interactive will be the largest advertising segment in the U.S. adage.com

Musing: This is a very good, if long, article, that really covers a variety of topics, not the least of which is how portals are changing the way they are considering themselves.  It does make me think of the Dilbert cartoon in which the punchline is “everything is platform.”  What is intriguing to me in the article is that we are seeing more and more the effect of digital, which is quite a different beast from other media.  Because it is a blend of media, creative, and technology, and because consumers have so much control, it will be in a constant state of flux, and that just means that we have to find authentic and real ways for consumers to interact with brands.  The digital channel is not like TV where user behavior is well defined.  Because user behavior online is determined by users, our job is to find ways to keep up with consumers, and give them tools, content, etc. that are meaningful and valuable to them.  Whadda you think?