Digital Darwin

Darwin can be used as an illustration for pretty much anything...

"It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change" - Charles Darwin.

However "responsive to change" as a piece of marketing advice is probably a little thin.

In a fragmented media landscape companies must battle issues of cost, complex messaging requirements and consumers being able to edit or evade adverts. Change for change's sake or change with out direction won't get you very far, a marketers response (no matter what the media) should really be "will it cut through? Is it interesting or amusing? Will people talk about it?"

Constantly interrupting people with adverts just won't work. Whilst there can't ever be a truly perfect new media cocktail, I recently came across an interesting paper by BBH's Jim Carroll who set out "10 principles for marketing in the age of engagement".

1) The first priority is engagement
2) Fame is a legitimate objective
3) Recognise the critical role of the aesthetic
4) Embrace speed and intimacy
5) Explore beyond narrative
6) Extend across platforms
7) Treat brand messaging as content
8) A big idea holds it all together
9) Take risks
10) No sector is exempted from the principles

User generated TV

In the crowd-funded arena, one name keeps popping up: Mark Bowness the man behind Tribe Wanted, the experimental island community he founded, was the focus of a BBC documentary series. Two other ventures - VIPbandmanager and the Liverpool Culture cafe - haven't taken off as quickly, but Mark has high hopes for his latest project: Have you got the nerve TV.

Have You Got The Nerve aims to be a new type of TV production company: one that's created, lead and inspired by a group of 3,000 executive producers. Fusing the collaborative power of the internet and the enduring mass appeal of television, Nerve will take on three genres: documentary, drama and entertainment. Content will be made both for TV and online viewing.

To sign up as an executive producer, anyone can pledge to pay a one-off fee of GBP 60 as soon as 2,999 others have agreed to do the same. Once the 3,000 execs have joined, Nerve will be open to more people, who will pay a small monthly fee have access to the the platform. These members will also have input into programming, but only the executive producers will share in Nerve's profits. Revenue sources will be the traditional 10% cut of production value that TV production companies get, plus earnings from book deals, online social networks, games, mobile content, etc.

Will the crowds be able to create content that's more engaging than traditional producers? And will Nerve be able to reach a wider audience than user-generated Current TV? I'll be watching ;-)

Website: www.haveyougotthenerve.tv

Wake up world

I was reading Russell Davies' post about William Gibson's line about the future and it got me thinking...

Digital is here, it's just not evenly distributed.

There is no doubt that Media Consumption has changed dramatically over the past 10 years, with the Web now a close second behind TV in terms of daily media consumption.

Yet overall, marketers invest only 7.5% of their advertising / marketing budget to online initiatives. If consumers spend 30% of their media time online, why has allocation of media budget not caught up?

McKinsey recently published a study of 410 marketing executives in retail, telecomm, technology, business services and energy. McKinsey reported that the primary barriers to online investment were:

52% insufficient metrics to measure impact,
41% Insufficient in-house capabilities,
33% Difficulty of convincing upper management,
24% Limited reach of digital tools, and
18% insufficient capabilities at agency

The leading deterrent to investing online is not a surprise as online marketing is still a relatively new, somewhat complex, and rapidly changing entity. But wake up people, Digital will continue to take share from traditional media, and marketers must adapt to the changing times. Savvy marketers will take advantage of the opportunities in online and mobile marketing; those who drag their feet are in for an uphill struggle.

The picture was taken from the excellent http://thepostitproject.blogspot.com/

Hello...

Hello world...!

I have been wanting to start a blog for a few months now and whilst my comments (with only 5 months of experience behind them) will not yet merit any great or life changing authority, having already learnt and discussed so much I figured now was the time to lose the digital swimming arm bands and at least pretend I know how to swim with sharks....