Note: the following post is by our friend and colleague Adam Henige of Netvantage Marketing.

Part of search engine optimization, unfortunately, is stepping into a quagmire of a site and trying to turn it into a gold mine. This is not always easy to do, nor is it my favorite thing to do, but it is completely understandable. Marketing, for much of its existence, has provided people with bite sized chunks of information – logos, catchy slogans and taglines that were plastered on everything a company could afford to affix them to. With the web, and with Internet marketing, things changed. As more nimble companies quickly found out and acted upon, the experience offered by the web needed to be a different one. People wanted to be immersed in content and given quick access to actionable outcomes.

It was the new paradigm of the Internet – marketers were no longer the ones looking through the crosshairs, it was the other way around. Whereas the public might not always want to be hit by the radio spot or TV commercial you’re aiming at them, you best believe you want to be wearing the bullseye when Mr. and Mrs. Consumer decide they’re looking to pull the trigger on a purchase or an information gathering mission.

To some extent, the majority of companies worth their salt acknowledged this change to some degree. However, for the most part, it was only given minor consideration. The ramifications of this underwhelming response to changes in marketing were twofold: The one I encounter most frequently are sites that acknowledged the need for taking action, offering users ecommerce functionality, ability to contact a sales rep, or download more information. Forgotten in this effort, typically, was enriching the content to meet users’ growing expectations. So what users were left with was a site that was functional, but didn’t help educate or engage visitors experiencing the site for the first time, missing an opportunity to provide a great experience with a new prospective customer and thereby largely negating the functionality. I find these people tend to be the ones who say, “The web doesn’t work, we spent a TON of money instituting a shopping cart (or insert other functionality initiative here) and the supporting infrastructure and we didn’t make a nickel!”

The second problem in not properly addressing the content of the site is perhaps even more important – search engine optimization. The challenge is to find a balance between strong site aesthetics, and paying attention to search engines. Again, some companies adopted this strategy and reaped the benefits. Quite simply, search engines love content. If your site is short on content, or lacks rich, relevant content, this will quickly explain why you’re not showing up for the many terms you’d like to be found on. Those nimble firms I mentioned earlier took care of content right away, reaping the benefits of engaging site experiences as well as the added boost in visibility from search engines. Beyond that, some of them likely got wise to search engine optimization a long time ago and have also been building backlinks ever since, placing even more distance between them and their Luddite competitors.

What does this mean for the companies looking up from a page seven result on Google? It means there’s a long way to go. Fortunately, everyone’s playing by the same rules, so you’ll just need to take the appropriate steps and work a little harder to gain back that positioning on search engines. Now, as for the customers lost and the brand building opportunities missed already, I’m not sure I can help there.

OK, at the beginning of the year I went downtown to a relatively prominent ad agency to talk to them about a client they had.  The client is a large business/trade association that’s involved (admittedly laggardly) in the digital revolution.  They’re somewhat, but not totally, dinosaurs.  An industry that has to change, is taking to long to do so, but has a large enough presence to stymie some elements of change that would actually benefit many of us.  And, the client, being a trade association, they are innately slow moving, averse to change.

The ad agency guy told me that they could use me (and Abraham Harrison) in two ways.

The first was advocacy.  Grassroots.  Online.  Offline.   Here in DC.  And througout the US.  The agency itself was a traditional  shop with decent interactive capabilities.  Neither the agency nor did the ad guy have any political experience.  I’ve done that.  So has Abraham Harrison. Solid.

The second was social media.  Their client wanted to do some “non-traditional” stuff.  They wanted to “engage”the public.  The need here was a rebranding campaign, as in “Beef, it’s what’s for dinner.”  An attempt to get the public to look at the industry that this association represents in a different light.   Again, Abraham Harrison.

I followed up how we’d work with him.  I gave him some ideas.  More than once.  It was always “let’s talk in a week or two”.  But I could tell that his lack of understanding of social media and political advocacy was a roadblock.  He had some fear about coming across clueless to me.  And he didn’t want to admit himself.  But I’m guessing he was terrified of coming across clueless to the client.

But the client is clueless as well.

I offered to have a conference call set up so we could not so much explain what we do, but to better equip him with idea on how effective social media could be in this case.  He demurred, saying that he would first meet with the client.

Bad move.  This means that the clueless meets with the clueless to discuss something they are clueless about.  Which means that neither of them brings it up because neither one wants to reveal that they are clueless about what they both are choosing not to talk about.  Yet they both know in the back of their minds that the thing that they don’t want to talk about is something that they need to  know, then talk about, then implement.

But if they don’t talk about it, and not look like idiots, and they can manage to delay all of this that much more.

So then they’re going to run this campaign old style.  Part of it is already online.  I’ve already seen the logo.  It looks like something out of the 1950′s.  Seriously.  It’s color scheme doesn’t make sense.  Nothing bold.  Lots of black and white photos to remind you of back in the day.  It says “We are a timid industry. In decline”   There’s a bunch of print ads, some outdoor ads, a few radio spots.  And one online ad.

They are trying to remind us how important they (or more accurately, they’re members) play a role in our lives. Yet they do nothing to integrate us into that equation.

And more and more, people are turning away from what they’re about.  I can see why.

In my last post, I talked of the coming disruption of the three way relationship between marketer, agency, and media property. Essentially it centers on the idea that marketers (who are often behind themselves) are becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the lack of digital savvy of their agencies and are now turning to media properties for strategic ideas and creative capabiliites. And these media properties are making themselves all the more ready, willing, and able to carry out the needs and wishes of the marketers.

I believe that that’s happening. But there’s still a big problem with that model. Consistent brand messaging

On a micro-level, this new way of doing things makes perfect sense. Crafting an marketing campaign tailored to the offerings of an online property could maximize the effectiveness of the campaign itself. For that media property.

But last I looked, most advertisers don’t use all their spend on one property. They’ll pick many properties in many channels. They’ll test here and there. They’ll sometimes concentrate on branding, sometimes concentrate on direct , sometimes (and the web makes this more possible, concentrate on both.

If the marketer – the company that is the end client – has to tailor each of its marketing messages to that of the publisher, chaos could result.

Publishers will need to realize this and further expand their services, sort of becoming almost full service for their advertisers. But still, this still could run into brand confusion as each publisher will owe it to their paying client to create the most effective campaign for their specific property or properties, leaving potentially different and confusing brand messages across several media properties.

Wise agencies should see this as the window of opportunity and work with publishers before they even get clients to formulate the framework for effective marketing campaigns that can perform very effectively over a cross section of properties and platforms.

Writing in AdAge, Steve Rubel points out some telling statistics regarding the coming relationship between online media properties, ad agencies, and marketers. And it doesn’t look all that good for ad agencies.

What’s happening is that media properties, realizing that their revenue models for their businesses will likely be tied into advertising dollars as opposed to subscriptions have been deciding to develop creative and strategic digital capabilites to help serve their likely base of advertising customers.

Steve got this information from Christopher Vollmer of Booz Allen Hamilton, who made a presentation at IAB’s annual meeting in Phoenix last week. I went to Booz Allen’s site and couldn’t find the study, but Steve lays out some interesting statistics.

More marketers believe they’ll be doing more business with online media properties from a creative standpoint (52%) than they will with agencies (27%). That’s almost 2 to 1! This means that marketers either don’t feel as if they’re being well served by their agencies or that agencies as we know them today will just not be needed as much tomorrow. Or perhaps both of these will ring true. And media properties seem to be thinking the same thing. A full 53% of them expect to be working more with their advertisers by 2010.

If you still have doubts, the study showed that 91% of media companies have some sort of “agency-like” service, including idea creation (88%) and creative development (79%). I know this to be true – because I’ve used them.

My thought is that the end client – the marketers – are often laggards, so to speak, just like many agencies. But when it comes time to choose creative thought, they will just as likely turn to the media property that knows their audience and knows what works, than they will their ad agency that has, for whatever reason, resisted becoming digitally savvy.

I decided to put together a list of reasons why I think many marketing agencies “don’t get” social media. Some are legitimate reasons, most aren’t. Feel free to add some of your own.

1- Elitism

The marketing industries – advertising, PR – are considered to be ‘cool’ or chic. These industries (including social media by the way) are filled with people who are self-consciously aware of this. For years I’ve been on online forums filled with ad people trashing the industry, talking about the lack of creative talent the whole time positioning themselves as being above it all.

Enter social media and its marketing aspects and these self-important types have something else to look down upon. If that attitude is prevelant in an agency, then it means you’ve got an agency that’s closed off to innovation.

2- Lack of Vision

An agency gets an RFP for a major client. They have meetings to brainstorm. How to position the brand. What creative they should use. Where they should make placements. Do we look to bring in a spokesperson? What strategies, what tactics?

And the whole time, social media didn’t enter their mindset.

That may be because they’re too rushed to give their response to the RFP and, because they haven’t had the time to learn much about social media. When it comes crunch time, it never occurs to them to do something with social media.

3- Lack of Interest

A couple of years ago I contacted a mid-size ad agency to see if they were going to incorporate any type of online marketing capabiliites. They had no interest in it. It was more than a lack of vision. It was simply put, a fundamental lack of interest of what was happening around them

4- Unable to figure out the revenue model

This is an underrated and compelling reason. I don’t believe as some doom sayers do that advertising is on its way out. But it is changing and some of these new business models involve little revenue. If you’ve to a lot of overhead and a project comes in that could mean little revenue, you’re going to be flummoxed and scared shitless of this.

5- Terrified of Technology

Often, people in agencies play the “he’s a tech guy” routine. Cordoning off those who do online stuff as a whole as tech people. And tech people usually aren’t marketing types. So by placing that label on it, ad types both partially remove internet marketers from the decision making pro and set up a situation where they don’t have to deal with technology – and the unknown.

6- They undervalue what it takes to establish a capability

Other times I’ve talked to agencies that it seems they want to hire someone “young” and not pay them much and “teach” them about online marketing, even though those that teach no little of what they speak. Developing an online capability is viewed as a cost, not an opportunity and the idea then is to go as cheaply as possible.

7- Methodologies are still being developed

Yes, this is true. The field is very new and, while there have been many successes, the constantly changing nature of social media – blogs, social networks, microblogs, online video, is often in a flux. Methodologies have to play catch up.

8- Social media is largely unproven

No, this is not heresy. It’s the truth, plain and simple. It’s an emerging field and, while social media usage is growing phenomenally, it’s growing in many different directions. Each time it grow, new lessons have to be applied to new strategies.

9- Too much hype from social media strategists

“Engage or die”. “The customer is in control of the brand”. Overblown statements by ‘visionaries’ that usually aren’t true and turn off traditional marketers. Statements like that seem to be directed at other social media strategists where it becomes part of the echo chamber. Not everyone had to ‘engage’ and not everyone will die if they fail to do so.

Me too.

You want to get back to the show, the game, the newscast. See the bad guy get his ass nailed, the final two minutes of the tight game, or news on the latest scoop on the election cycle. The last thing you want to see is a series of presentations about pills that can make you pee better, a car that supposedly makes you cool, and a law firm that chases ambulances.

Me too.

But every once and a while, you’ll watch something that will catch your eye. It will make you laugh. Chuckle inside. You’ll be able to relate to it. Or you’ll be impressed because it’s impressive, not because the commercial is trying to pretend that it’s impressive with itself. Or you’ll think, shit, how did they do that?

Me too.

If that’s what happens, then that’s a commercial that will likely end up on Firebrand.

Firebrand is a client of ours. We’re proud to have them. They’re a new media outlet – literally. We’re proud to have them. They’re a new media outlet – literally. They’re on the web at ‘re on the web at http://www.firebrand.com and on the ION network on cable in 95 million homes. They seek out and get the world’s best commercials and play them, MTV style. From the States, Britain, Malaysia, Canada, Australia, India.

Now, let’s talk football. Let’s talk the Super Bowl. I could go off on a tangent and first talk about the great commercials, but I’m a lifelong fanatical New England Patriots fan so to me, this Sunday means football. I had to get that in.Allright, so lets’s talk about those about great commercials that the Super Bowl is known for. They get plenty of press beforehand. People do stop and watch them and they then talk about them the next day. They remember them. And they wish that all TV ads were that good.

We’ll, this week Firebrand will be celebrating ads of Super Bowls past all week long. Then on Monday, February 4th, they’ll be hosting “Firebrand Monday”, showing all the ads from the previous day’s Big Game. Viewers will be treated to the likes of Terry Tate, Office Linebacker and Carmen Electra

Here’s the lineup for the week.

Monday January 28th: “BIG TIME ATHLETES” in classic Big Game commercials

Tuesday January 29th: “BIG BUDGET PRODUCTIONS” for classic Big Game commercials

Wed January 30th: “CHICKS IN CHARGE” in classic Big Game commercials

Thursday January 31st: “BIG TIME CELEBRITIES” in classic Big Game commercials

Friday February 1st: “BIG TIME BRANDS” in classic Big Game commercials

Monday February 4th: IT’S FIREBRAND MONDAY, THE DAY AFTER THE BIG GAME – CELEBRATE THE HOLIEST DAY IN ADVERTISING WITH THE OFFICE LINEBACKER, CARMEN ELEKTRA AND CLASSIC BIG GAME COMMERCIALS!

Apparently we digital marketing types have a good future. At least that’s what Accenture tells us via their recent survey of 70 advertising, technology, and media industry leaders. But more telling is their view of who is the most likely to suffer because of the evolution and integration of digital technologies into our lives: traditional ad agencies. Via Adverganza, ClickZ, Five Blogs Before Lunch, Pushing Envelope, Think Multicultural.

That’s right. Traditional ad agencies. Forty three percent of the respondents said that these entities would suffer as opposed to 33 for broadcasters.

This shouldn’t be, but it easily could end up being the case. I’ve seen many a mid-size agency here in the DC area treat anything related to the internet – besides building an occasional website – as something from another planet. It may be radioactive so we don’t want to touch it. If we ignore it, it will probably go away.

It isn’t.

You’d figure these agencies would get the drift and evolve. You’d figure that they’d be learning new media inside and out. But apparently, many of them aren’t.

The number one reason that traditioanl agencies are set to struggle is related to media usage. We’re no longer a mass audience. We use media differently. More personal. So the marketing is more personal. And sometimes creating it ourselves.

The two industries most likely to gain? Search marketers and digital ad specialists. Half of the respondents say this will happen within 5 years, 80 percent within ten.

McKinsey posted a report on the results of a survey they recently took of marketing executives. It’s called How Companies are Marketing Online. The report may not have earth shattering findings, but it does offer some key insights into the future if you read between the lines.Three things stood out in my opinion.

One is that current levels of spending and implementation are quite low as compared to how marketers and other decision makers perceive the overall effectiveness of online marketing.  This will mean that future investment in online marketing is bright as the level of investment will catch up with this perception.

The second was the lack of understanding of various facets of online marketing and how these facets should be integrated, implemented, and measured.

Many marketers also felt that, while they themselves and their internal folks weren’t up to speed quite yet when it came to online marketing, the marketing agencies that they used weren’t as well.

And this was a contributing factor in the delay of implementing strategies.The third was that the majority of respondents felt that online marketing was more efficient than traditional marketing. This underscores the expectation of the growth in online spend.

And fortifying this was that marketing online was roughly equally as good for brand building and direct response.Early in the report, it mentions that respondents expect that the majority of their customers will discover new products or services while they are online. A full one third of them will purchase them there.

Also, 10 percent of sales will come from online channels, an increase of 100% of what it is today. These expectations are going to be the impetus behind the increased spending that we’ll see.I can’t help but see this as a continued strategy of seeking to get immediate ROI, a factor that may have limited growth at this point.

And I’ve always viewed that as a mistake. The reason I see it as a mistake is that companies need to invest in knowledge and experience to develop and implement the right strategies as opposed to wait a while and finally invest money in what they may view as only tactics. Indeed, the report mentions that 42% of the respondents felt a greater investment in the overall capabilities would have made their initial investments more effective.

That’s because the online arena is not going to be a place where you toss out a conglomeration of tactics and hope they stick. Together they formulate a strategy and a very important one at that.Significantly, many of the companies that advertise online see it as both a brand building and direct response vehicle.

And that includes search advertising. I see this making sense for several reasons. People, as a whole, whether they are acting as a consumer or a business purchaser, have taken in the internet deeper into their lives. It is no longer relatively new.

It is a necessary part of one’s life. With this, online experiences become richer. So people go online to learn and to get information. Ergo, effective online advertising helps build brands and increases direct sales.Finally, companies that have been making significant online investments are including collaborative tools for customer retention and brand building.

This is important because we in the so-called echo chamber have been saying that companies must ‘engage’ their customers online. Get in conversations. You know, a Marketing Conversation.

With the issue of reputation management in the news, I’ve been thinking a lot about the recent discovery that many of the Mattel toys made in China were painted with lead-based paints. This had followed several other unrelated incidents that had previously caused embarrassment to either Mattel or to China.

A company such as Mattel needs to have a proactive online strategy that could meet the negativity head on, to help suppress those damaging rumors that could hurt the company both immediately and permanently. A company needs to understand what is being said about them in online forums, on blogs, and, if necessary, it needs to help blunt and diminish the negativity headed their way.

For Mattel, it was the recall of millions of other toys that contained small magnets that could fall out of the toy and could be swallowed by young children. And for China, it was the massive recall of pet food earlier this year.

Oddly enough, a controversy erupted when Mattel apologized to U.S. consumers. The company had done the ‘right thing’ – or what is now considered standard practice – as they trotted out CEO Bob Eckert and put him on video with him stressing that Mattel will immediately look into the matter and make changes. And he wanted us to know that he, as a Dad himself, was concerned. Relational empathy works.

But the problem was that as Mattel was apologizing to US citizens, they were subtlety making it seem the problem was ‘with China’…which, if not exonerating the toy company, muddled up their role in the fiasco. In the meantime, the Chinese government was not thrilled as most of the recalled toys had problems with their very design as created by Mattel as opposed to lax Chinese standards or poor Chinese workmanship. As a result , Mattel made an apology to China, even though lax standards DID cause some of the problems.

So, as it often happens, we don’t know really who is to blame here. Or if any blame is damning enough to have either the company or the country or both scorned. Now that may be good enough and the issue may go away. But today, with the blogosphere in full swing, with online forums abuzz, with citizen journalism being heralded as a wave of the future, my bet is that problems like this will last more than a bit longer.

So, to me, companies such as Mattel (or governments, or associations, or any type of organization) and their PR agencies are going to have to either learn about or invest in the services of a digital consultancy that can help them manage, repair, or defend their reputation.

Disclosure: Abraham Harrison offers those services. But hear me out.

Businesses are going to make mistakes. Some honest ones, some callous ones. There will always be forces out that the will – very legitimately – call them on these mistakes. But mistakes can lead to rumors to that can spread very fast, to activist groups looking for the killer punch, to media outlets looking for that big story…when there may be no story to speak of.

Traditional PR practices still make perfect sense. Put the CEO on video, develop an new (and more effective) set of guidelines, work with the media. But today that may be enough.

A company such as Mattel needs to have a proactive online strategy that could meet the negativity head on, to help suppress those damaging rumors that could hurt the company both immediately and permanently. A company needs to understand what is being said about them in online forums, on blogs, and, if necessary, it needs to help blunt and diminish the negativity headed their way.

It’s a whole new ball game.

I asked Kevin to write a blog post (which rocked) based on my assumption that the US is headed towards a recession based on the devaluation of the dollar, the housing market slump, and the war in Iraq. I believe that marketing and advertising online is recession-proof, especially as attention profiling and behavioral targeting strategies improve and ads become customized to each the unique hopes, dreams, needs, wants, and context of users online.

My premise, in short, is that folks will hunker down during this recession with only the “Internet” to keep them company, in the form of VOIP, IPTV, social media, MMORPGs, and networked video games.

Essentially, folks will spend all of their attention online so there will be more ad and marketing dollars spent online in order to reach them. During the upcoming recession, search engine marketing (SEM), search engine optimization (SEO), new marketing, online outreach, online engagement, online advocacy, viral and word-of-mouth marketing, targeted direct marketing, and laser-targets online ad buys will thrive because they’re relatively cheap, focused, and where the people are, while print ads, commercials, and radio spots will plummet: too much buck for the bang.

We’re going to have a recession. let’s just make that assumption.

Usually, during a recession, ad revenues drop. My argument is that during a recession, people stay home more. Web surfing is cheap, amusing, plentiful, and also most amusing with broadband. While people may cut down cable, they will keep their Internet connection — and will hunker-down on the Internet while they’re low on personal spending money, on discretionary income.

My dad was an photographer and ad man in Hawaii during a recession in Japan that totally gutted the the Hawaiian economy. Traditionally, the first thing companies do when the shit hits the fan is pull ad dollars.

In that scenario, my dad’s company almost shuttered. What this shakedown did, however, was created stock photography and video, killing the bespoke day-rate on-site corporate photographer. Something always comes out in the end.

Downturns result in a need to make systems more efficient and more effective. It just wasn’t affordable for agencies to hire shooters to do shoots, bespoke. There were too many variables and all the risk was on the shoulders of the client. Stock photography changed all of that: cheaper and oftentimes better, since the shooter incurs the risk and the stock is “all the best of all time” and not the best that a particular day, week, or season had to offer.

How effective is plastering walls with bills or standing on a soap box when people are at home and online? How effective are commercials on cable channels people drop as a “luxury?” How worthwhile are those magazine ads when people drop their subscriptions to GQ and O?

The Internet is a commodity. Broadband is no longer a luxury — people are not willing to either go back to “rabbit ears” or to dial up. Folks will keep their basic cable, I am sure — it is a commodity — and they will keep their Internet, another commodity.

Is it very interesting time. I guess this is sort of a prediction. We’ll see if it all comes true. Check out that Canadian Loonie, eh?

Well, at the end of the day, I will always quote Kevin Donlan quoting someone else:

“When times are good, you should advertise. When times are bad, you must advertise.”

Go ahead.  Read it.  And tell me (or him) what you think.  I agree with it 100%.

Joe Jaffe is frustrated after reading that, yes, upfront is supposedly on the upswing. That’s understandable…although to me, it’s not about numbers, its about the attitude that upfront is back. It never left. It’s just not as strong. And it isn’t bouncing back. But it still exists and it will continue to exist.

But what got me thinking was the larger conversation that was brought upon in the comments. Two things actually.

A debate began to develop between Tangerine Toad and Paul.

Paul says that “Advertising is dead – the advertising that bombards you with crap you don’t need and brands you don’t care about. Any online advertising that does this is also dead.”

Well, yeah. But when was this not true?

He then adds “people don’t mind being advertised to at all! As long as it is relevant, interesting and engaging (the key one being relevant).” Bingo!! I’d add as long as it’s convenient. Not too disruptive. We have come to expect that advertising can be disruptive to an extent. Especially when the content is free or cheap. But if we’ve gotta completely change our experience to deal with it, then it now sucks.

Toad however, is more absolutist. He calls out Paul, saying his view on advertising is a “clichéd mindless crock you should be embarassed to repeat.”

WTF?

Sorry, Toad, but your above-it-all blather doesn’t work. You contradict yourself a bit later by quoting Howard Gossage. “‘People don’t read advertising, they read what they are interested in”…To Gossage’s point, it doesn’t matter what media your message runs in so long as it’s interesting.”

Interesting. Compelling. Relavent.

I then headed over to Toad’s blog where he has a very interesting and insightful series going on, here, here, and here.

From Part 1…one thing he points out makes total sense…

“Yet to listen to all the self-appointed Web 2.0 gurus, this is the wave of the future, it’s a matter of years before every single American- nay every single denizen of the planet- has a MySpace site and that hanging out on MySpace will replace watching television and anyone who disagrees with them is a fucking Luddite.

Okay.

Only there’s one thing they keep forgetting: The whole world is not made up of people EXACTLY LIKE THEM.”

Yes, how true. Everyone uses Skype, has a blackberry, blogs, has profiles on MySpace and Facebook. And of course owns a Tivo.

So not true. Not everyone is an pioneer or an early adapter. Right on, Toad.

But what gets me is what he says later…

“most people aren’t living in a city they weren’t brought up in, thousands of miles from their closest friends. They’re living with spouses and children who actually get offended if they spend a few hours online, which is a solitary activity, rather than joining the rest of the family watching “American Idol.” Which mindless though it may be, is still a group activity.”

Hmmm…seems to me that Toad is making the same mistake as he accuses the Web 2.0 gurus. Making the assumption that everyone is like them. Which is exactly what the decision makers dedicated to the upfront are doing.

Comes full circle, don’t you think?

Strumpette published an article by John Bell called Bell on Who Owns “Conversational Marketing”? Nobody owns conversation marketing. Conversation marketing is not a thing, it is an understanding and an agreement. It agrees that PR, advertising, marketing, politics, and business will stop resenting and reviling its very own clients, “the people.” Firstly, since when did the people become “them?” I am a person. You are a person, right? Oh, no! I forgot, you are a senior communications executive director.

Well, I own marketingconversation.com — and marketing conversation is really what new media marketing should be. I spent three years working at New Media Strategies, promoting movies for Buena Vista and TV shows for Sci-Fi “on behalf of” the client — and it works.

The true problem, in my very humble opinion, is that old PR — and Edelman is surely old PR, as I discovered in a mere 90-appalling days — really disrespects “the people” the way loverboys essentially disrespect women. They want them, they need them, but they feel essentially superior to them, feeling entitled to use them for fun and profit.

The title of this piece highlights the issue: “Who “owns” conversational marketing? PR, Advertising or The People!” — aren’t we all the people? Aren’t you and I — expensive consultants, PR wonks, and Admen — people too?

I taught a creative writing course to high school kids. One of the kids was much wealthier than the rest. One day, he came to me to tell me that the rich were people too. Well, Admen, PR wonks, and marketing consultants are people too.

Loud, inauthentic, and bombastic surely work when one is busy — in the short run.

Oh, and the award for the most naive thing said this week is, “Conversational marketing isn’t right for every client. But when it is, we need to be pushing our client forward into that conversation.”

Truth is, the movie “Singles” said it best with the quote, “not having a thing is your thing.” What “the people” are responding to is the grotesque feeling of entitlement that Old PR feels — the level of noblesse oblige that advertisers, politicians, marketers, and PR professionals feel… when I was told that I needed to write copy that aimed at 7th grade reading ease, it was not said out of love, it was said out of loathing.

What differentiates old PR from new PR is this: old PR loathes its clients and “the people” while new PR — or the most effective Cluetrain PR — must love its clients and “the people.” I guess I can boil it down to “love the sinner, hate the sin.”

While most PR folks cherish their address books, their contact files, and their lists of Times, Post, and Tribune reporters, very few of them realize that the men and women who run message boards, organize WoW guilds, build islands on Second Life, run television prediction market sites, organize IRC channels, and publish blogs are the new reporters, publishers, and editors.

I wrote an article called, “Online Communities are Real Communities of Real People” where I ask, “Do you think that people who play Second Life, World of Warcraft, Xbox Live, MMOGs, and MMORPGs are freaks? Do you consider message boards, forums, virtual realities, and virtual communities to be a waste of time, populated by losers?” and then answer, “If so, then you need to leave online advocacy, new media marketing, online brand promotion, online word of mouth marketing, online outreach, blogger relations, and brand ambassadorship to someone who has lived, loved, and connected to people in real ways online. And continues to do so.”

So, if you are saying that Old PR needs to stay away from New PR until it gets over itself, then yes, I agree; otherwise, I do have to hand it to Very Old PR Agencies like Edelman Worldwide for at least going out there and making all the mistakes in the book.