Two Cents

Over the last 12 months, the idea of social media being a highly important, if not essential, part of any brand’s marketing communications strategy has come to seem like common sense to me. However, working every day with brands who have taken up the challenge can admittedly put the blinkers on to the reality of what most brands know about, or actually do with, social media in Australia.

A new survey from the USA (unfortunately reported at AdNews behind a login) pours cold water on the notion that Australia is embracing social media:

Although… 67% of Australian executives regard their company’s reputation as vulnerable, the majority is blind to the blogosphere and unaware of what consumers and ex-employees may be saying about them in Twitter, Flickr, Facebook and other social sites.

Two-thirds (66%) were either unaware or did not want to admit that employees were badmouthing their employers online. Only 10% thought it would be helpful to build relationships with influential bloggers. Less than one in four (38%) had searched their own name online in the month prior to the survey looking for tell-tale signs of gripe.

This is bad. Very, very bad. In an age where it is so easy to put your ‘ear to the ground’ and listen, using tools like BCM’s own BuzzHound, there is little excuse for brands being so blissfully unaware of the opportunities (and threats) for their brand. And this is the bare minimum of what brands should be doing – most should be moving far beyond this into acting and influencing in the social media space.

So, why the Australian social media malaise? Is it because there have been too few highly-publicised examples of social media success with an Australian brand? Possibly. I am reminded of the challenge laid down by a prominent Australian blogger last year: To get a CMO/CEO of a blue chip Company to state the success of an Australian Social Media Strategy in The Financial Review in 2009.

As far as I know, nobody is yet to take him up on the offer, and based on the findings of the recent research, we might be waiting another year until somebody does.

Getting consumers on board to help your company produce your next ad campaign is nothing new. Look no further than Dorito’s “Crash The Super Bowl” campaign (below)  -- which asked US consumers to create and ad, the best of which was actually screened during the Super Bowl -- for an example of a highly successful consumer-generated media strategy.

A couple of recent efforts indicate that tapping the wisdom of crowds -- or crowdsourcing -- for creative advertising ideas is gathering pace.

The first is Dorito’s again. In an effort to repeat the success of the first “Crash The Super Bowl” campaign -- and no doubt latch on again to the masses of PR it generated -- Dorito’s is repeating the campaign, but with a twist. In addition to the winner being screened during the Super Bowl, they will also take home $1m if their ad rates the highest of all Super Bowl ads. Not a bad reward for someone with a bit of creativity and drive.

The second example of crowdsourcing in action comes from the California Milk Processor Board, creators of the famous ‘Got Milk‘ campaign, and more recently ,’White Gold‘. In an attempt to better target a lucrative demographic -- teens -- the California Milk Processor Board is running a competition at California schools to come up with their next campaign. Students will ultimately present their ideas to the milk board and the San Francisco advertising agency behind the crowdsourcing initiative:

“It kind of gets us out of having to create the advertising,” said a jocular Jeff Goodby, co-chairman at Goodby, Silverstein & Partners [advertising agency].

He continued, more seriously: “The idea is that it’s fine to involve people in the solution of problems. And people love to see if they can do as good a job as the professionals.” [link]

Involving the crowd to come up with fresh ideas or hone existing ones is clearly here to stay. It hasn’t taken off too much in Australia yet -- unless, of course, you’re aware of any examples? Do let us know in the comments.

Sadly for the industry and for most marketers, almost universally these days, media agencies work in isolation from creative agencies – with the obvious exception of an independent agency such as ours.

This situation is far from ideal on many levels. Firstly there is an inherent disconnect between brand strategy, creative strategy and media strategy. How often do creative agencies find the budget and media strategy has been approved before the creative brief has been written? On the other hand, it is not uncommon to hear that the creative agency has written a TV commercial that the client has fallen in love with, before the most effective media channels have even been considered. Sound like a recipe for ineffective marketing?

Add to that the headache for clients of managing the politics and often quite separate agendas of a number of communication partners.

The tipping point for the current concern about the lack of effectiveness of the unbundled model is the booming interactive world. There has never been a greater need for media and creative brains to work together. Not only should we be channel neutral, we need to be idea neutral. Interactive media is so fundamentally different to traditional media that it is impossible to create innovative strategies without close consultation between media and creative teams.

Many in media agencies today lay claim to being channel planners. How is that possible in the interactive space without some influence over the creative idea? Conversely how can a creative agency create interactive strategy without an interactive media strategist involved in the idea generation?

So how to fix what’s broken? Like a shattered mirror, it seems impossible to repair – too many empires have been built on the unbundled model.

Fortunately for us and our clients, this is not a problem that we need to grapple to solve. However it will be very interesting to observe the industry try to superglue the shards of the broken mirror back together in the coming months and years.