Media Pro is one of the marketing industry’s annual exhibitions which according to the blurb, is ‘a meeting of the brightest marketing minds – planning and preparing for the next generation of marketing integration.’
Given this billing and the current flux within the marketing industry, I thought I’d chip down to London’s Olympia and gauge the temperature. I’d set my sights on some of the keynote speeches as these often reveal the industry pulse.
It was surprising to discover that the opening talk was on the need for large enterprises to adapt their social media strategies to the countries they are operating in. Are marketers really that out of touch? Do they not know that their brand might mean one thing in Spain and another in Sweden?
From a US perspective this is understandable as there’s a tendency to view Europe as a single homogenised mass, rather than the bubbling pot of different cultures and customs we know it to be.
But surely European marketers are aware social networks usage can vary widely from country to country and that Facebook means little in some countries? In fact, I’d put money on it. To the Catalysis collective mind – I know, it’s a scary thought all that thrusting ambition, schizoid creativity and questionable wit – this understanding is as rudimentary as ABC.
Yet, that said, the keynote was well attended – there was barely an empty seat in the house. Perhaps people were just being polite? Perhaps the brightest marketing feet needed a rest – it can be quite a feat (no pun intended) reaching Olympia and the lack of natural light and air can do funny things to you. Anyway, I’d nail my own feet to the ground that this presentation was already preaching to the converted.
But the keynote did throw out some interesting snippets, such as the most popular social network site in Russia – I can’t even pronounce it, just think of a long word with lots of z’s and y’s and one vowel – is used for downloading pirated movies. And there was a tantalising aside about behind-the-scenes campaign monitoring, workflow management, customer care and product development.
Media buying giant MediaCom also pitched up and did a nice little piece about how the rules of advertising today are wrong. Totally wrong, it said. These rules were cast in the 1950s by white, middle-class men, when advertising was about above-the-line TV, and the brand was the parent and the consumer the child. The ‘parent’ said ‘this is good’ you need it. The ‘children’ nodded in wide-eyed passive agreement and bought it.
Today, it’s all turned upside down. We’ve got traditional media, new media, emerging media and things that aren’t really media at all – things like widgets, mobile, gaming, events, word of mouth, customer conversations, SEO and social networks. The one-way dynamic no longer works.
And this understanding was in evidence at Media Pro. If there was a single pulse repeatedly throbbing through the keynotes it was this: Today, brands have to engage with customers in two-way conversations and social media shouldn’t be used just because it’s there. It should be used only if appropriate and as one channel in a wider integrated strategy. Another blog on this subject follows soon.