iMedia Brand Summit: Day 1

The first day (for me, the brand folks started a few days earlier) kicked off with a very enlightened presentation by Jeff Cole (Director, USC, Center for the Digital Future).  Jeff talked about how media has been coming apart for several years now.  Some key points from his presentation:

  • Scheduling content/media has been disrupted: we used to get news from newspapers once a day; we used to wait for music from our favorite artists until they put out a new CD every 18 – 24 months – no longer is this the case
  • The Internet is giving people too many choices. The human brain works best with between 7 and 10 choices. Something will have to give.
  • Within 5 years, all music will be free – artists will make their revenue from touring/concerts, merchandise and endorsements.
  • There are 3 ways to acquire content today: steal it, pay fees or accept advertising – Jeff sees advertising being the key in the near future but does hope there is a new model that emerges that will replace advertising.
  • He sees all the major newspapers consolidating to between 5 or 6 online entities in the future.

To me the most important thing that Jeff talked about was the importance of BRAND going forward.  As we continue to have more and more content, too many choices, etc., we start to put a premium on the trust we have in certain brands.  If you want to know the facts about a news story, are you going to go to CNN.com or NYTimes.com, or are you going to go to Johnny’s Basement News Hub?  So branding will become even more important, which I think is contrary to what a lot of people believe.

The second session of the day was entitled, “Marketer’s Wish List: “What iMedia’s Marketers Really Need”.  The idea for the panel is a great one; get marketers to brainstorm together on what they need from their agencies and then host a panel to let the crowd know what they came up with.  And the panelists and moderator were great (see the panelists here).  The content was solid but unfortunately I didn’t hear anything that we didn’t already know, which is fine, but I suppose I was hoping for some kind of, “huh, marketers want THAT from us? Who knew” type of reaction.  Some of the things the panel mentioned that they want from their agencies:

  • Innovation / big ideas
  • New business models and revenue streams
  • Marketing partnerships
  • More of a focus on metrics – “tell me the why”
  • Share risk/reward – “skin in the game”
  • Customized campaigns across multiple platforms (integration)
  • Mobile SOLUTIONS, not just ideas

iMedia Brand SummitPerhaps the most interesting point was made by Brian England (Manager, Communications for Western Union). He talked about the importance of understanding the massive scale of change that companies will need to go through when they start down the path of engaging customers through social marketing.  He explained that the entire company, not just the marketing or PR department, will need to embrace and be ready for the commitment.

I think Brian nailed it.  The unfortunate thing is, the companies that do understand that its a big commitment are thus waiting to get into the space because let’s face it, every company today is somewhat understaffed.  So the question I have is, which is worse, starting slowly and making some mistakes until your company can fully embrace social, or not doing anything and waiting until your company is fully staffed (which could be years)?

Looking forward to Day 2… if you want to follow the progress of the summit, you can do that by following @jeffhilimire and/or searching Twitter for #imediasummit.

3 Comments

  1. Brian England on June 9, 2009 at 2:46 pm

    Hi Jeff – nice post. Wasn't Jeff great? Smart, smart guy.
    I think there's a sense among the rank and file (like myself) that you could always use more help in your job…but waiting until your company is fully staffed could lead to disaster. If you think of the Mortin Moms example – one reason that got out of hand so quickly is they had zero social presence from which to defend themselves/apologize/speak from.
    The expectations that are placed on brands in terms of accesibility, transparency and honesty would have been considered absurd even 5 years ago will be increasingly common as social makes more and more inroads in our society. Think when the web really got going years back…companies weren't sure they needed a website…now if a company doesn't have one I won't even visit their store.
    So – to answer your question, companies must start working out a wholistic social strategy – now….tomorrow is already here. At the very least, companies can start listening to consumers in the space, understand what is being said and start engaging with folks on a very basic level. I have some more thoughts here: https://mightymighty.tumblr.com/post/120217876/m



  2. Jeff Hilimire on June 11, 2009 at 4:11 am

    “Tomorrow is already here”, great line. And your Macbeth example is very insightful. Completely agree that marketers/agencies need to rethink about how they are viewing the consumer.

    Why do I always get the feeling when we say things like this that we're holding the Jerry Maguire “mission statement” and the old-school CMO's and agency heads are clapping and giving us the thumbs up, while secretly whispering about how we're “outta here”? (this will probably be the subject of an upcoming blog I'm writing, now that I think about it).

    Back to the question at hand, I still think there is a disconnect between marketers knowing they need to get into the space yet being too scared of the resources required to do so. Hiring freezes and layoffs have led to less staff doing more work and the idea of adding more to their plate for “an experiment” must be extremely daunting.



  3. Jeff Hilimire on June 11, 2009 at 11:11 am

    “Tomorrow is already here”, great line. And your Macbeth example is very insightful. Completely agree that marketers/agencies need to rethink about how they are viewing the consumer.

    Why do I always get the feeling when we say things like this that we're holding the Jerry Maguire “mission statement” and the old-school CMO's and agency heads are clapping and giving us the thumbs up, while secretly whispering about how we're “outta here”? (this will probably be the subject of an upcoming blog I'm writing, now that I think about it).

    Back to the question at hand, I still think there is a disconnect between marketers knowing they need to get into the space yet being too scared of the resources required to do so. Hiring freezes and layoffs have led to less staff doing more work and the idea of adding more to their plate for “an experiment” must be extremely daunting.



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