photo from Flickr from joey.ganoza
Jeremiah Owyang had an interesting post in his blog about Facebook marketing demanding a high tolerance for risks in order to achieve success. He summarized these into the following theme - which I thought captured the realities that marketeers and marketing planners now have to contend with:
Successful applications were experimental, embraced risk, and quickly iterated - everything (that) big brands will struggle with.
I think that hits the issue on the right spot.
And I also believe that at least in Southeast Asia, that encompasses not just Facebook marketing - but marketing in any new forms of advertising and communications, including online and digital marketing.
What struck me in Jeremiah's entry is this comment from one of the speakers in the event that he's attending (Graphing Social Networks), from Rodney Rumford:
“Most of the people (at big corporations) who are making the decisions for Facebook are 45 or older, and are not immersed in Facebook”
... to which I say is one of the many challenges that we are facing.
There are more challenges in Southeast Asia for digital communications planning to truly take off and be more than just a "by-the-way":
- Lack of Real Experts. We lack experts who can truly guide people. Now - one would argue that there are now a lot of digital shops out there. And with all due respect, these digital shops are churning out great creative stuff. However, I think that we're barely scraping the surface.
We cannot impose traditional media and advertising planning philosophies from before into the new paradigms that the web is now offering us. We can't merely measure reach and frequency and impressions anymore. We have to go deeper. And some experts are yet to come to grasp with this. - Data. Data is sorely lacking in the region. ComScore supposedly has data on most Southeast Asian countries - but so far,it has not moved into making their data to be a currency. I am certain that when data comes in, it will be a watershed - it will be a starting point in getting planners to start thinking about the digital world.
- Risk-aversion. I read in an article (which I cannot find now in my box) that the reason why media planners are not too keen about recommending digital media to clients is that because they are not sure how clients are going to react with a digital media campaign. Hence the reliance on what has happened in the past in the context of traditional media.
I also read in the same article that the reasons why clients are not too keen about digital media is because their agencies are not recommending them - and if they are, the "signal-to-noise" ratio is so high that they don't know what to believe in and how to decide. Besides, "TV has always worked for me".
This risk-aversion, which Rodney Rumford's quote above suggests, needs to be addressed. It's a case of waiting for the other to start. - Old Modes of Thinking Still Dominates. Seth Godin, in his book "Meatball Sundae", raises important questions and offers important thoughts. For one thing, most clients are asking their agencies "How can we make all these digital media work for us? How can we make Facebook, Friendster, and other social networking sites work for us?"
Seth Godin believes that that is not the right question to ask - the right question is "What can we do in our business to align ourselves with the new "normal" that are being symbolized by the increasing usage of social network sites?"
That's a total turnaround in terms of thinking. - Inventory-focused Vendors. Vendors are still thinking in terms of inventories rather than on creating differentiating and (buzzword alert) engaging audiences. It still is based on "how many impressions can I sell today?" - a remnant of the TV- and print-selling process. I believe that a shift needs to happen, too.
And the shift will need to be towards "depth of experience, engagement with the content (not a webpage, not a set of websites), affinity with the service and the technology, and personalization - without invading my privacy".
Inventory needs to be rethought. Vendors ought to be selling experiences to audiences - empowering experiences. Not another website, not another webpage. Depth of pages is not necessarily going to deliver depth of engagement. People get engaged with things that matter to them. Identify it. And then develop these services to meet their needs.
The idea that "if you build, they will come" no longer is a surefire way to get audiences and engage audiences. Check. Feel the pulse. And respond. - Banners are not the end-all/be-all panacea. Most of the people I have worked with in the past have the impression that "if you have a print campaign material, you can change that into a banner and into a micro-site". Not anymore.
- Raw, individual level data are ignored. Now, more than ever, audiences and tech-users are offering information. There needs to be a way to harness these information (without sacrificing privacy of the users). This is sorely lacking.
The days of percentages and aggregated data as the only solution to a quantitative question are almost over. We need to know movements, the dynamics of users - and more importantly, their mindsets whilst moving in the digital sphere.
There are more barriers, but these I think are the ones that need to be addressed soon for digital media planning and communications to take hold and accelerate even further.
Unless these are addressed, I don't think that we will make significant in-roads into the area of digital media communications.
