Cool Marketing Thoughts

Existing traditional media is in troubles. The 30 second spot is taking its last breath. Broadband & wireless networks initiate an endless offer. Digital video recorders made it possible to simply skip the commercials. The consumer become more intelligent, more sceptical and more critical. Merciless, he looks through the offers, if he can still remember the commercial due to the overload. So we need new ideas to connect brands and consumers.

Introducing new marketing:

Jaffe: It’s irrelevant whether or not the 30 second spot is dead. The book says: there’s life after the 30 second spot, which means: there’s more out there. Traditional advertising is represented by three colors: print, tv and radio. Right now, instead of three colors, there are 93 colors out there, as a metaphor. We as consumers owe it to ourselves to understand, explore and integrate them. We need to explore these colors, these channels, to figure out how and when we want to use them, explore them.

Nothing is linear anymore, nothing is one way. Everything is part of something bigger. Everything is part of ‘conversation’. Everything has another meaning than the obvious one you see or experience.

In the olden days:

• Companies lied
• Companies pretended they were deaf
• Companies surrounded themselves with “Yes-Men”
• Companies coasted on being “part of the chasing pack”
• They focused on the “median consumer”

They never focused on the influentials, the innovatives. The mediocre consumer who never fought back, who never participated was (and in most ways still is) the target audience of many brands.

You think the olden days would be in the past, but no, the olden days are for many companies: today.

Pepsi: win a 99 cent download on i-tunes, 1 in 3 wins. Error in this form of thinking: if 1 in 3 wins, that means 2 in 3 are losing.
One consumer figured out that if you tilt the bottle 25 degrees, you can see the code. He puts it online on his blog and all of the sudden 1 in 1 can win. That’s consumer power. Marketers have become powerless. They run behind consumers that outsmart them, tryinh to hit them with a blunt object until they are numb. But it backfires.

Reach ° Connect ° Effect

The key is ‘wireless’.

In the early days, if you pissed off a consumer once, he’d tell 15 to 20 friends. If you made him happy, he’d tell 7 friends. Nowadays if you piss off a consumer once he’ll say: “screw you, I won’t tell 15 to 20 of my friends, I’ll tell 100 million of my closest strangers.” The ‘New’ consumer is connected anywhere and anytime on their terms.

Average consumers spent 7,5 minutes with the subservient chicken. That equals 15 commercials. The media defines itself. We read papers, we listen to the radio and we watch television… but we interact on the internet. Internet is the integrator. The web makes into a whole by connecting all the different parts. It unifies and unites the big idea by offering a way to distribute it immediately.

We can’t look at the web as a medium. It’s whatever the consumer and marketer wants it to be. Calling it a medium is limiting the possibilities of it.

The web is not sold out, it creates unpolluted new iventory every day. CGC causes the web to get bigger and better every day. Media sellers should no longer hold you hostage. There’s new and other ways to get in touch with consumers, to channel your message.

Of the IM generation i.e. those born after 1980, 62% of the content they consume comes from people they know personally.

The many to many model: all the conversations that go on a once. As brand you can be invited to join the conversations, to participate to catalyse and maybe even make it better. You can use multiple channels at once and interact with an exponentially growing number of consumers.

Refers to ‘Red Paperclip Guy’ aka Kyle Macdonald. From ‘A’ via C,D,E,F,G,H,I,J,K,L,M,N and O to B (from the paperclip to the house via a lot of different people). It wouldn’t have worked if Kyle would have been sponsored by some brand who bought him the house. The story wouldn’t have been the same. It worked because it simply was ’sincere’ and ‘honest’. It was 100% consumer generated.

Ultimately new marketing is a state of mind, it’s a culture shift. Don’t take the 30 second spot and put it online like that. Participate in conversations and try to capitalize the outcome.

It’s what I’ve never seen before that I recognize. – Diane Arbus –
It’s what they do recognize, they shut out. – Joseph Jaffe -

End of keynote / Panel discussion starts here.

/ eDay site /