Sean Black reports on iMedia Brand Summit in the Sales Sushi blog at:
http://salessushi.com/2009/06/09/what-i-learned-so-far-at-imedia-brand-s...
Here's the post:
What I learned at iMedia Brand Summit
By Sean Black
June 9, 2009
Random learnings:
* The professional guide that took us hiking is a cougar horn dog that took someone into the woods!
* Mattel - “Barbie has a FB page. She has an opinion. She likes Ken.”
* Travel bans keep large agencies like Starcom Mediavest, CIA, Digitas and OMD from attending iMedia. We publishers should sponsor their flights! Let’s do it!
* It costs $600,000 to buy a lifetime membership to the Broadmoor Golf Club
* We need to put the “i” back in iMedia with high speed Wifi in every room and outlets at every seat!
On bashing agencies: “Has the agency lost its “Special Strategic Place” at the Client’s Table: They are now just one of many players?”
* The reason digital only gets 8% of overall media spend is that agencies can’t make money in digital
* Digital media is far too data intensive for agencies or humans can handle. It will be automated by tech
* Agencies will make themselves obsolete if they don’t innovate to compete
* No one is an expert in social media today, so the brands, agencies & publishers are all trying to figure it out
* Brands having multiple agencies represent them causes natural competition and everyone has to step up their game constantly
* Agencies will always have a role in the creative, but technology is moving to fast for low paid, 20 somethings to keep up”
* We have real time automated tracking now! Brands don’t need to sign long-term contracts with agencies anymore!
Question is “Clickthrough is a Junk Metric: The future depends on Finding Scalable Audience Metrics to Redirect TV Dollars?”
* Google had 18 trillion clickthroughs in 2008. The click war is over and Google has one!
* If brand marketers are going to scale their business we need an audience based measurement and buying platform
* Intuit: “we assign brand campaigns points per actions. Sites that score high in brand points often don’t score well in transactions and vice versa”
* New term - CPW, cost per whateveryouaretryingtomeasure
* “ClickThrough is like the centime (French penny) toward the end. Its just not used anymore”
Question: “In the Social Digital Age, the Idea of “Advertising” is a joke” “Your Message [marketers] has No Place in a Conversational World?”
* Not many people are going to engage with your brand online, but those that do are passionate about your brand! They are Viral!
* Some brands are so scared of social media that they are overthinking and will be left behind
* Click is the first step. What happens next interests us Keep us posted on convo discussion
* Lots of companies think of social media as buzz and monitor what people are saying about their brand. There’s so much more!
* Rarely are companies thinking of social media as what people are saying about your brand in a deep way. Who are they really?
* Things happen so fast on the web that you can’t keep up with a reactionary strategy to social media as a company.
* Brand monitoring cant stop PR bombs - they happen too fast to stop
* Companies think they can identify key influentials we can get them to create positive buzz for the company
* Do the influentials speak for the masses…and are they really that influential?
* JD Power says even with real time monitoring, brands can’t expect to prevent dominos disaster or even dramatically mitigate
* Journalists in blogger costumes are very dangerous to follow as “influentials.” They want readers. Consumers want solutions. The two interests are NOT alligned!
* Social media monitoring should help identify brand strengths and weaknesses to address proactively and serve as support
* So if you count on journalist online comments/opinions/review thinking they represent the masses you are missing what your customers are really saying about your brand
* Value of social media to companies is consumer insight, product innovation, but U have to ask the right questions 2get answers!
* Tribe analysis Don’t start with what [people are saying] start with who [is saying it and what they care about]
* Conclusion: social media is exploding and provides a whole new way of listening to consumers. Look deeper at who is really behind the conversation!
