One of the clearest differences I see between newer social media marketing types and more traditional - yet digital savvy - advertising vets is the way they present themselves online.
Social media types will give you all of their contact info. Their emails, their places on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Pownce, LinkedIn, Jaiku, and Plaxo. They’ll tweet or twit or twitter (what is the right term anyway?) what they’re doing at that exact moment, regardless of how inane it is. Consider the following that I see on my computer screen:
“applebee’s it is. <sigh>”
“dogs heads out of car windows today in DC”
“You are stronger than a bagel”
Got that? This is how some spend our weekend afternoons. Odd as these might seem, there’s nothing wrong with that. I guess. That’s part of the culture of social media types. Or anyone who’s likely to use Twitter extensively.
But then there’s the folks who have been in advertising a bit longer. They’re not digital dumb and they’re not skeptical of all of what social media people talk about. But they’ve been through a lot and they’ve got great insight and they have their finger on the pulse of how the ad industry is and how it’s changing. They usually understand the mentality of clients better than frustrated social media strategists who often rightfully complain that the traditional marketing types “don’t get it”, but mistakenly view established strategies and venues as being completely ineffective and obsolete.
The thing that most telling is that many of the traditional types that blog won’t reveal their true identity. They create certain personas in order to be able to write freely. I get the impression that they’re itching to tell it like it is, but don’t want to deal with all the blowback.
The ad industry is a tough industry. Can be harsh, cannibalistic. Filled with people who are convinced of their own creative talent yet think that the current state of the industry absolutely sucks. Yet for all this cynicism, it seems that if anyone sticks their neck out and challenges that mentality - or anything for that matter - could be asking to have their heads cut off and then attacked by a swarm of hornets.
So I admire these intrepid types. I learn from them. I love getting their insight and call out the haughtiness of both stick-in-the-mud uber traditionalists and some of the cocky younger colleagues who have decided that the entire marketing industry has officially changed because they say so.
So here are a few of my favorites
Tangerine Toad - Toad’s blog is actually The Toad Stool and it’s a must read for me. He’s a NY-based CD who is sharp enough to see both the pretentiousness and strengths of traditional advertising and both the promise and the hype of new media. And he’s created two great categories on his blog, Your Brand is Not My Friend and Not Everyone is a Upscale Urban 30Something White Male Hipster. I love them both because most people don’t want every brand they buy to be their friends. They just want to buy a product and be done with it. And so many ads out there seem to be designed to appeal to the same demographic that’s creating the ads, when most of us aren’t that demographic.
There’s new friend AdBroad who’s been in the business for over 30 years and has had to deal with sexism on one end, and now ageism on the other. Through it all, she’s learned way more than many of today’s young hotshots would want to admit.
AgencySpy’s got a great idea going on. He or she’s got a blog that allows ad agency types to send in the scoop as to what’s going on behind the scenes. Plus he or she has their own biting commentary. And biting = humorous.
MultiCultClassics takes a look at the industry from a VERY underrepresented group in today’s advertising arena: African Americans. I have no idea who this guy is either. His blog was one of several I turned to when writing what has become the most viewed post here on Marketing Conversation.
And then there’s Where’s My Jetpack? who explains his blog by writing “Back when we were kids, the advertising people told us that “in the future” we’d all be free from disease and living in peace, flying around with our own jetpacks. The future is now…and we’re still waiting.” With that, I knew it would be great read.
So there’s a list of my anonymous All-Stars. Check ‘em out.
3 Comments » Posted on February 3rd, 2008 by Jonathan Trenn
Loading ...