We came. We swam. We went to the Forbes dinner. The schwag fairy came and we are scared. Your motherfucking dot com is melting.
Set is here, nice stuff.
Hacker Boy Cabana Boy is the perfect date for this weird, weird corporate event. The Forbes people are very friendly, but I am as out of place as I thought. Still, obviously, I am having lots of fun and have a lot to say on the “web disrupters” panel tomorrow — again, I’m on the panel with Rich Jenkins (Editor-in-Chief MSN Money), Greg Bartalos (Asst. Managing Editor Yahoo! Finance), Robert Scoble and moderated by Paul Maidment. The glossy says this forum is a “program featuring industry experts, thought leaders, and technology innovators.” I now understand that the people here for this — read: our panel discussion — are all senior marketing executives. For the hell of it, my talking points for marketing execs about 2.0 and the disruption of their channels (by people like me) are after the jump.
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Thoughts, not organized, but something to look at while on the panel and Scoble is “evangelizing” about Silverlight:
* I want to talk about the Digg user uprising.
* Just as there is New Media, we’ll now need “new” advertising. Broadcast (bulk) ad mediums don’t make sense in the New Media space. It’s rubber duckies vs. Toyota spots. The failure of pre-roll vlog ads and untargeted vlog advertising is an example. Pairing ads with content is the challenge.
* New Media people spend a lot of time simply educating advertisers and companies about the medium/space. Too much time.
* 2.0 communities have emerging personalities (because of their opinions) who become the center of these groups. They can act as point people for advertisers to the communities and vice-versa. automation could, and should, be paired with embedded personalities. Part of this discussion might include Google’s AdWords snafu in March where they disallowed the use of self-descriptive words preferred by the LGBT communities while actively using words (and associations) they found deeply offensive. (I wrote an online column, and they quietly changed their practices.)
* IMHO, the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine and the consolidation of corporate media created the need for blogging (and podcasting and vlogging). Journalist bloggers hold the self-correcting mechanism of blogs, along with a respect for disclosure and transparency, as values.
* One of the questions in a pre-panel email is whether or not traditional journalists will be replaced by bloggers. My opinion is no, we will work in parallel. Old media will never diminish, but its role will — must — become radically different.
* There are so many examples of marketing “not getting it” in the blog- and vlogosphere. Like when companies send DMCA’s to have their *ads* removed form sites.
* What I really want these people to understand is how and why consumers using new media is different that MSM.
* Consumers are hungry for opinions. Also, consumers may not know exactly what they want, but they know when they’re being lied to. If not, they will eventually find out on the internet. Trust is everything in this space; the great thing about blogging and new media is that you are absolutely valued by your actions. Same goes for advertisers. Act like a douchebag, and you’ll be ridiculed.
* Unlike the past when a blast of ads in all the usual channels would guarantee a product’s success, things like movies can bomb because of social media — blogging, text messages, etc. Consumers are now in ever-increasing control of their own media tools, making for a democratization of communication. There are no longer a small number of channels — the channels people are using (like 2.0) can’t be bought: like, SMS, IM, Twitter, Digg. Now that consumers are controlling their own media tools, they are now in control of the “message”.
* The answer? To communicate directly with the communities their customers interact in and engage with them as a brand. Example: Coors is branded as the “all-American” beer. Many who slurp up this message are homophobic, yet Coors actively advertises and sponsors Gay Pride in San Francisco. Moreover, brands need to become members of communities *and gain trust*.
