USA Networks is about to launch next season premieres for 3 different series in January: Burn Notice, Psych and White Collar (OMG.. set those DVR‘s now!). What and how will this change the online environment and the digital environment of the sites that comprise USA Networks which include Character Arcade and The Clik Blog ratchets up the visibility of the network and their shows.

The USA Network site features full-length episodes of each show and also provides lots of background information on characters, actors and more. Also they have create aa great collection of show-oriented games and mind-bender sites tnat will immerse you more into the world of the various shows.

Want to explore more games ? Check out Character Arcade . This Holiday Hiatus Blues post is filled with suggestions of various games including mobile applicatiions.

Luckily to explain what the digital division has done for 2009 and where it’s going in 2010, is Vice President, Digital Strategy & Development, NBC Universal, USA Network Jesse Redniss. spent some time talking to us about this very subject and a lot more — almost 30 minutes of chat time.

Redniss understands the power of the web and how it interfaces with the USA network and how to leverage it to best make use of the consumer interface. He provided a great deal of insight regarding the direction of USA’s network dramas as well as the online experience of forums, games and other initiatives like Characters Unite-which is a partnership with charitable organizations along with Tom Brokaw’s town hall meeting and others to work on fostering a change and congruence on a variety of issues in the world today. The Characters Unite initiative started in 2009 and will be a huge focal point in 2010. Surf this site and take the Pledge!

Other things to note about USA Networks is GreenUSA. Check out the Eco-ist Corner for tips, tricks and the entire site for more ways to go green and help the environment.

Other places mentioned within the podcast to check out include
Burn Notice Game with Fiona
Ask a Spy

Thank you to Jesse Redniss for his time and tons of information. Also thank you to USA Network and Electric Artists for making this podcast happen!

Stevie Wilson, LA-Story.com
Stevie Wilson writes the www.LA-Story.com blog and is Chief Marketing Officer & Partner, KBP Inc, a privately held corporation dealing in multi-media, real estate developments, internet start-ups and new media marketing strategy.

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My mother received this very plush fold-out mailing from Del Monte for their Love At Last Bite campaign at LoveAtLastBite.com to promote their premium line of bottled fruit, including the Fruit Naturals, Orchard Select, and SunFresh products.

I am very impressed with this promotion and must offer quite a lot of kudos. My mom passed this on to me because she not only thought it was well-done but she also realized that it was a Very Nice Thing and worthy of sharing. Kudos to Del Monte, especially as a family like ours that grew up in Honolulu, Hawaii, the home of Del Monte pineapple. Via Chris Abraham.

In light of the many analyses and predictions that social media will see many budget reductions during this deep economic recession, I’ve begun to take a look at what practitioners should do to help stave off heavy cuts brought on by axe wielding marketing executives looking to stay on familiar ground with what they perceive works.  If we don’t begin to develop solid business cases as to the value of social media, we’ll find ourselves (and what we do) devalued, done in-house by non-practitioners, or by traditional agencies that will being going out of their way to undercut us because they don’t want to lose business.

I’m mostly looking at this from a bird’s eye view for the industry as a whole as opposed to an on the ground viewpoint in which we can’t see the forest for the trees.

1) We need to recognize reality.

That’s right.  We need to recognize that this is going to be a deep, deep recession.  One’s that’s going to last for a long time.  Recessions have major ramifications on how consumers spend their income, how companies formulate their budgets, and, perhaps most importantly, how marketing is viewed.  In a recession, marketing is often viewed as an expense…not an investment.  Companies often get “selfish” when it comes to marketing, where the most important thing is immediate cash flow from sales.  A company may forget that people, especially in hard times want VALUE when they spend their money.

Decision makers often want to work with “proven” models that they’re familiar with.  And these models will often be pushed by their traditional agencies because those agencies provide these services.  Of course, proven may not – or may no longer mean effective – but at least it has been done before and for the decision makers, it’s best to stick with what is familiar.

We also need to understand that, business is business and business can be ruthless.  Traditional agencies – ones that we may be working alongside or subcontracted through may think nothing of undercutting us by devaluing the concept of social media to their clients or by trying to learn some basics through observing our work, and then summarily dismiss us as they bring these capabilities in house on some level.

2) We need to embrace outward integration and recongize that traditional marketing still very much has a primary role.

No, traditional is not dead.  Traditional agencies (both advertising and PR) and their services are still very much needed.  Needed to introduce and position products, to work with the media, to explain features and benefits.  People still watch TV, listen to the radio, and yes, read magazines.

Companies that provide these services are often the ones that have the ear of potential clients.  They may often be the gatekeepers.

So there are two major points here.  One is that we can’t afford to dismiss traditional type stuff as being “so 20th Century“.  The end user – the consumer – will be getting the information they seek on products from various sources.  That’s reality.

The second point is the most important.  We need to understand and preach integration.  Social media may not be for every business.  Or, more realistically, the emphasis placed upon social media will vary depending on the client’s needs and the industry they are in.  In practically every case social media will be only PART of the equation.  That’s reality.

Therefore, we MUST learn how to best integrate what we do with what the traditional types do.  Both online and offline.  In an economy such as today’s, we can’t afford to offer a haphazard slew of services that isn’t tied into their overall marketing picture.  Meaning everyone…the ad agency, their PR firm, their SEO firm, their website company.

This means we’ll have to ask clients if we could have access to and  then get to know these other companies.  What they’re about.  How to best integrate everything.  It blows me away when I hear of an ad agency that is running a marketing campaign that doesn’t know who the PR firm is.  That has to stop.  We have to insist on it.  Otherwise, we me be looked upon as the least important part of the puzzle, the “kids” of the group.

Sure there are risks doing this, but the rewards will be greater.  We’ll be putting ourselves at the same table as our cohorts, establishing our presence.  And the client will be infinitely better served by having a mostly seemless marketing team.

In the long run, this is how we need to look at things as well.  We are, to use a cliche, solution providers.  Not just blogging consultants or Facebook adherents or Twitter experts.

3) We need to embrace inward integration and become strategic driven as opposed to offing a slew of tactics.

Having a slew of tactics is one thing.  It’s another thing to be able to understand a client’s needs enough to meld them together to offer strategic solutions for clients.  It may sound like a cliche, but what clients really want are solutions.  Many of them may not know where to start.  It should be up to us to show them the way.

Now in defense of social media strategists, many clients and potential clients are so lost on this stuff that it may be best to offer tactical capabilites at first.  But we have to soon get beyond this.  John Bell of Ogilvy writes in Digital Influence Mapping Project:

Many social media purists resist the discipline of strategy and marketing as if the fundmentals of strategy were the problem. They may resist or they may just not know how to create it. Tactics like blogger outreach, viral video online and the dreaded facebook application come tumbling out.  Strategy and how you get there is as fundamental and necessary as architectural plans to building.

Understanding that we must offer strategic thinking to our clients means that we understand the so-called big picture…and not just our client’s needs, but the industry that they happen to be in.  And it also means that we’ll need to understand what their current and potential clients and customers are about.  This will enable us to better apply our services to our clients needs.  That’s an essential business concept.  Each client will receive a customized, crafted plan.  Thinking primarily tactically means we often will be applying things haphazardly, simply because we have a particular offering that they may (or may not) need.

Customized plans mean that we really need to make the effort to understand our clients, their business needs and goals and their culture.

In other words, we can’t be thrilled to offer them the capability of offering them a Facebook app if they don’t need one.

4) We need to think how we position our services to provide immeidate, tangible ROI to budget cutting executives.

This is especially important now.  Companies are cutting back marketing budgets and social media may be a juicy target becuase of the ignorance and fear factor.

Companies are going to suffer during this recession.  They’ll have needs.  Generating sales leads.  Maintaining customer loyalty.  Social media can play a roll.

You know what?  This is a whole other post I should work on.

5) We have to stop the hype and anti-traditionalist banter.  And the cockiness that sometimes comes with it.  It harms us.  And it ain’t true. (Mostly)

Engage or die.  Traditional advertising is dead.  Marketing messages are a thing of the past.  The people formerly called the audience.

Please.  All hype.  All wrong.  Ladies and gentleman, this is a transformation.  An evolution.  One that is bringing about substantial change.  But the change isn’t absolute nor is it complete.  People may not want every brand to try to “engage” them.  They want to buy something and be left alone.  It may at times in fact be good to use traditional channels to get the word out to the masses.  It may serve as a perfect introductory method for a product.  And it may take marketing messages to inform them…the audience that they are.

We need to stop the shrill “change or die/nothing will ever be the same” mantras.  Yes, change is happening, but we need to remember that we are pioneers and early adopters.  Not eveyone has a Facebook profile or a Twitter presence.  Most people don’t religiously read blogs.

Will some companies suffer because they choose not to use social media?  Ignore it?  Miss opportunities?  Definitely.  But we have to continually prove ourselves in several industry categories before we can be taken as seriously as other forms of marketing disciplines.  As we see, social media is often one of the first things being cut.  That doens’t surprise me.  It may not be the wisest decision, but it’s what to be expected during a recession.

This sometimes blind belief in what we do isn’t shared by a key constituency of ours – the marketing decsion makers that we’re trying to get business from.  They may hear us and groan and roll their eyes.  They may be sick and tired of hearing about Web 2.0.

6) We have to stop the cockiness.  It’s amateurish and unprofessional.

Here’s an (ahem)  brilliant commentby a determined fellow on Adam Ostrow’s article in Mashable, Data:  What are the Benefits of Social Media Marketing? The 15% he is referring to our those who don’t quite see social media as an effecitve means of customer engagement.

The unwashed 15% are the same that still believe that traditional big-budget SEM and static websites are worthwhile investments. Sometimes all it takes is for a proof-of-concept social media portal to hit a Google PR6 ranking in under a month using core social media tactics before they take notice. Then you hit them across the head with customer engagement numbers vs. their SEM budget returns and then you see the weeping.

Love the subtlety.  The sense of modesty.  That will go over well in a meeting with a marketing exec.  Or the web team that build that static site.  Or the SEM people.  I mean the guy’s attitude even shows disdain for other forms of digital marketing.  It shows me he has no idea that the marketing decision maker may (unwisely) be choosing to cut that proof-of-concept social media portal form the budget.  It shows me that he has no idea of the concept of integration of marketing…as if all consumers are the same and the only way needed to market to them is through his brilliant solutions.

I usually don’t call out people like this, but I had too.

We’re in for some tough times.  As a whole, and as marketers, and as social media strategists.  We have to prepare ourselves to work through this as we establish ourselves, our companies, our industry.

If you haven’t read Bob Garfield’s presentations of how advertising will evolve over the next few years (Part 1 and Part 2), then you should. He calls this the “Chaos Scenario”…a perfect metaphor for what he describes. In it, he argues that traditional advertising is dying out as media usage and consumer behavior are changing. Much of the change has its roots in the rise of the internet as a marketing vehicle. But, Garfield points out, new methods and practices have yet to fully pan out. And many companies haven;t come to grips with this new and show no signs of doing it any time soon. This is going to cause (my interpretation) chaos as traditional media outlets struggle to get advertisers while these advertisers struggle to figure out how to advertise effectively with their limited knowledge.

For the most part, I agree with his thesis. Most major traditional marketing-oriented mediums are becoming less effective as promotional vehicles. Media usage is more dispersed, more personal, and thus, more controlled by the end user. And many times those end users today are choosing to ignore or avoid the advertising messages that are send their way. Whether it ends up being as dire as Garfield suggests, I have no idea, but changes are coming and neither the advertising mediums nor the advertisers themselves are ready for it.

And I think local is where we’ll see it first. I see this happening one the local level over the next three years. Goldman Sachs is predicting that traditional local advertising vehicles – local TV, newspapers and radio stations – are going to get hit particularly hard during this recession. I’m going to agree, and the key world there is “particularly”. That’s because local advertising is hurting anyway as advertisers have already been pulling back because it doesn’t work like it used to. Add to that further cuts in ad spend and you could get a serious amount of casualties on the local media market.

In the above graphs, we can see that newspaper get hit the hardest. Readership is down in the first place. That’s permanent. People have stopped buying newspapers for whatever reason – a lack of interest in news, having news available online, and getting quick news capsules in other mediums. A poor economy has little or no effect on newspaper buying. We won’t be seeing a rebound once the economy bounce back.

The collapse of players in the local ad market will reduce the options for advertisers. Yet the demand will probably still meet the supply. So we’ll see further erosion. Craigslist, satellite radio, and cable TV will make this so.

One of the alternatives will be local online advertising. But I don’t see many local advertisers ready for this. I still see most local companies that are likely to advertise having little more than brochureware websites. I see very little use of local Google Adsense coming from traditional businesses. And, again, the websites are neither optimized for online search nor are they set up with the correct landing pages for potential ads. Local businesses SHOULD be developing internet strategies, but the decision makers in them don’t go to our conferences, they don’t read our blogs, they’re not on Twitter. Nor are they probably on Facebook or MySpace. They’re far from it.

So while they’ll be temporarily holding back ad dollars during tough economic times, they’ll be likely losing some of their traditional advertising choices. And they won’t be ready or equipped to start marketing on new media – because they’ve chosen to not take the time to learn it. The end result? Chaos.

While the debate continues as to whether or not digital marketing is now fully mainstream, I’m starting to envision as to how this whole question will finally be solved.  And it may not be pretty.

My guess is that the recent slowdown in the economy, along with the aftereffects of this financial crisis that we are currently having, will create another recession.  And marketing, as usual, will take a hit.  It may be a bit masked by the Olympics, the elections, and the holiday season, but my guess is that we’ll see struggles in the early part of 2009.  Maybe even longer.

What usually happens?  Budgets get slashed.  Marketing budgets that is.  Often, one of the first to go.  That’s often a gut reaction that’s a mistake, but that is all too often the way the business community works.

Now over the past few years, interactive has been growing at a faster rate than other types of advertising.  While that’s good news, that also shouldn’t be surprising.  First, it’s a smaller percentage of the whole pie.  Second, we all know that digital is growing as a whole.  We can’t fully use the concept of percentage of growth as a sure sign that interactive is mainstream.  It helps, but it won’t be enough.

But the point is that, at least with major brands, television still reigns supreme.  Often rightfully so.  But television is often mass marketing.  And very expensive as a result.  It may have the biggest impact, it isn’t very efficient.  And that lack of efficiency could be broadcast TV’s greatest threat in a recession…because, combined with its cost, it because a prime target for the budget cutters.

Digital marketing, including social media, could get cut too.  But it won’t be as harsh (if that happens).  The result may be, in many industries, digital budgets get cut ever so slightly, but increase substantially as a percentage of the budget.  The increase in percentage may cause a sea change in the mentalities of CMOs, CEOs, CFOs, and, hopefully, ad agencies and PR firms.  They’ll all have to adjust to reality.  To the market.   To the way their customer bases now use media.

So, it may take a recession for interactive and social media to get their due.

With all the discussion on what social media is, what it’s future will be like, who will control it, I often feel we fail to see the forest for the trees.

I see it as too diverse of a phenomenon to pin down with one easy definition. Its applications go far beyond the neat capsules that can be used to pick a particular department or function that should “own” it. Social media is creating, empowering, and accompanying a paradigm shift in the way we use all media.

Are we fully there yet? Of course not. These are only the early stages, part of an evolutionary process that often comes step by step. But those steps are happening and happening and soon we’ll look back and be amazed how far we’ve traveled. Then before we know it again, we’ll be stepping again and look back again and we’ll be amazed how much we’ve come from that first time we looked back.

Yes, organizations are going to have to harness social media in ways that they can benefit from, to reach ROI. This means trying to create some sort of structure for it without “siloizing” it. Very difficult indeed.

I’ve tried to lay out what I see social media as. Not from a specific definitional standpoint, but from a several miles up point of view.

Interested in your feedback…

Social media can be a practice within itself

Social media’s possibilities extend beyond any traditional established practice (advertising, PR, sales, etc.) to the point that it can be a practice within itself. It can be spread across many departments and, thus, will often need practitioners who can implement coordinated efforts within an organization. The strategic methods used will often have enough attributes on a stand alone basis that it shouldn’t come underneath the heading of another specific department. I’d put social media on the same par as advertising and PR. Full service social media firms have sprouted up such as Abraham Harrison to meet today’s needs.

Social media can be a service

Because social media is still in its nascent stages, clients and potential clients don’t always need comprehensive solution packages. They may need to know how to set up a blog and how to get traffic for it. Simple as that. Helping a company to start a blog is a service. So is creating a podcast. Many clients look to cherry pick services to satisfy their needs. For some in social media, providing a non-coordinated menu of services is where it’s at. While social media agencies are an emerging industry, there’s not widespread demand quite yet, leaving many practitioners as service providers.

Social media is strategy based

A company decides to let go of some (but not all) control of its marketing communications message. It views its customers and users on a somewhat equal level and not as blocks of ears to be shouted at and throats to have messages shoved down.

Another company uses blogs to work with customers to improve products or come up with new ones.

These are strategic changes that are being implemented. Social media can change the nature of an organization because it changes the way an organization looks at itself and its relationships with its stakeholders.

Therefore the strategy behind social media empowers change like nothing else can.

Social media is tactically based

The many tools of social media can be designed to manage a problem or a series of problems. That’s not something that necessarily changes an organization. It’s can implemented based strictly upon need.

This can cause a lot of frustration amongst social media strategists as we see a lot of potential opportunities for business not being fulfilled. For others, applying tactics itself is an opportunity. A foot in the door.

Social media is technology based

Social media can involve a host of technologies that are often complicated to learn and understand. Setting up RSS feeds, monitoring online conversations, designing a blog for better SEM, putting together a widget. It takes technical know how to implement much of these. And that’s a reason why so many ad agencies and especially PR firms have been resistant in adopting social media.

But the technology is constantly changing, adapting, growing, as is the myriad of ways they can be used for clients. It often takes someone who is comfortable with technology to succeed.

Social Media is theory based

Authenticity. Transparency. Community. Engagement. Listening. Give up some of your control. All constantly espoused by social media strategists. These are theories that often go against the grain of traditional thought. More on engagement and less on contrived messaged, push on people. This blog post is theoretical. The theories formulate the methodologies that are behind the practices and the services.

These theories are why so many of us blog and offer our opinions and commentaries. It’s why we read one another’s blogs, friend one another on Facebook and follow one another on Twitter.

Social media is rule based

Aren’t authentic or transparent? Watch out! You’re gonna get nailed by someone in the blogosphere and it will cost you. An instant case study as to how NOT do something. The rules of the game were collectively created and enforced.

We’ve seen traditional agencies, large and small, ignore these rules and push ahead with fake blogs and such. Ask the folks at Edelman and Zipatoni.

Social media is anti-bureaucratic

This may be one of the most important points of all. Because its capabilities go beyond the silos of the current corporate communications, because the public arena can embrace it as their own, because it is always changing, and because it involves giving up a serious amount of self control, social media bucks the bureaucratic structure within organizations while it fundamentally changes the relationship between the organization and its stakeholders.

Online as a whole can shift between advertising and PR, causing disruption. Social media adds to this by bringing in customers, users, and in some cases, communities into the mix. It resists authority when the authority becomes too controlling. And authority usually wants control.

Organizational bureaucracies will be changing soon enough because of social media.

Social media can be vertical – part 1

Again, I see social media as being often a separate animal from traditional PR and advertising. For that matter, online advertising itself first created that difference. Social media extends that difference. It has its own methodologies that are totally separate from offline advertising. The divisions here may not be silo based; but often the pool of knowledge for success in the social media arena can’t be found in traditional types.

Simply sticking it under a particular division within an organization can cause stifled growth as it will be badly nurtured by people with a particular preconceived mindset.

Social media can be vertical – part 2

It’s vertical in another manner as well. And this is more of a prediction than a statement of the current conditions, but we will soon see more and more specialized firms pop up that will be geared toward certain segments of the population. Just as there are agencies that are geared toward the Latino market and PR firms that are geared toward the GLBT communities, we’ll see social media agencies that have developed the expertise in reaching out to certain segments of the population. All you have to do is listen to the many mommy bloggers that complain about their constantly getting hit by pitches from agencies that have no clue on what it’s like being a mom.

Social media can be horizontal – part 1

From what we all hear, social media will have implications in advertising, public relations, sales, customer service, human resources, investor relations etc. It will take an enterprise wide strategy to implement all of that. And it will take an actual social media strategist who understands all of those departments and who understands the technologies behind social media to devise a plan for that enterprise. He or she will have to be strong enough to lead the way and manage a lot of personalities, but gentle enough to let each department blossom.

Social media can be horizontal – part 2

Outside organizations, agencies such as Abraham Harrison and others will continue to emerge and become successful because they will stay on the forefront of all that is happening and how it should be applied. Companies won’t have the internal expertise nor will they have the time nor the personnel to implement cross functional social media strategies.

So, just as we see ad agencies and PR firms today, we’ll continue to see social media agencies. There will definitely be a need for them.

Social media is push

Yes, social media still allows you to deliver marketing messages. It can be the conversation starter. A blog can be push as can a podcast. Maybe this is obvious but I’ve heard so much talk about sitting back an listening I wanted to add this. Yes, social media can be overtly promotional. It just has to be done right.

Social media is pull

Yes, listening is important. Then engaging is important. Done right it creates trust. Trust is pull. Pull is good. Social media is good.

Social Media can be web presence centric and dispersed at the same time

No need to dis the hub of a website. Core elements of an organization’s social media efforts can emanate from but then be dispersed throughout blogs, Flickr, YouTube, etc.

Social media can be created from within

This is obvious.

Social media can be created and enhanced by others

The greatest threat. The biggest fear. The challenging factor that causes many an enterprise to resist, to delay implementations. But those on the outside aren’t waiting.

So to me, social media is so multi-dimensional that it can’t be easily defined in one definition, explained in a singular context, bottled up in a particular department.

I just read two AdAge articles back to back.  One was “80 Billion? Online Display Advertising is Being Overhyped”.  I don’t agree with it as it seems a reactionary piece that contradicts itself.  It talks about how online display is all the rage now (which it isn’t).  And then points out how major brands still resist because they don’t see online as a branding medium.

The second was by David Armano, blogger at Logic + Emotion, who here has written “Why Digital Marketing Needs a Reboot”.  David points out how many of the early online advertising minds – the ones who looked at the traditional ad agencies with askance – are now becoming the ones that successful new media marketers roll their eyes at.  He calls them “tradigitalists”.  He says being a tradigitalist means

“using traditional marketing methods in the digital space. For example, creating an advertising campaign and “extending it digitally” usually ends up as a checklist. Micro-site? Check. Online banners? Check. Social media? Check. Mobile? Check.”

He’s right of course.  Although I’m pro micro-site and banner, too many tradigitalists stop right there.

It makes me wonder about today’s digitalists.  The ones that are adopting social media strategies.  When will they get stuck in their old methods?

I’m in the process of pitching a potential client. From what I see, if this works out, it will be an excellent opportunity. They’re a marketing service provider that offers the traditional services to their client base. The methods they use are still very much needed, they aren’t out of date, and they won’t be out of date any time soon. But in this era of digital marketing, those methodologies clearly aren’t enough. Not when the users of their clients products are more likely to look online for those very products.

That being said, there were several aspects of conversations I’ve had with potential clients that have showed me why online marketing has yet to receive the respect that it deserves. Budget allotments, questions about handling things internally, executive level buy-in, a determined need to find specific, immediate ROI.   While I realize that the whole concept of online is still emerging, I nevertheless find this somewhat amazing. Most people today have integrated the internet into their lives, and have done so for many years. In fact, most of us use it for communication, or entertainment for research. But, still, there’s that initial resistance in many people in business.  It’s not only a reluctance to not only endeavor into this no longer new arena, but to also to take the very steps to learn about it.

So I’ve put together a few reasons why I think this is the case. Each may serve as an “objection” that will need to be overcome. Whether on a one-to-one level upon pitching a potential client. Or on an industry-wide basis.

Lack of Vision

When companies can’t see beyond their basic core services, when they don’t understand – or worse, when they don’t take the time to understand industry trends, they show an alarming lack of vision. And it’s a lack of vision that could kill their business. It goes back to that “where should we be in five years?” question. They don’t understand that they have to answer it constantly.

I’ve seen decision makers in some fields effectively make choices to not learn anything new. And it’s not just because they lack an understanding that they need to change, but they never display the curiosity to learn. The very curiosity that acts as the impetus in creating a vision that will create change.

I’ve noticed this in the political arena. In between elections, I’d be attending conferences that would discuss the use of the internet in political campaigns. They’d be attended by mostly relatively young people, all of whom were politically sharp and internet savvy. Come election time, they wouldn’t get a seat at the table.  The more seasoned members would praise them as being “upcomers” and they’d describe themselves to being “out of the loop” when it comes to “all this technology stuff”, but they’d always make sure that these young people they’re supposedly impressed with be kept in the back room with a microscopic budget and no say in any formulation of strategy.

The Disconnect 

The mentality seems to be, at best, that the upcoming changes (if they’re aware of them) don’t apply to them. Somehow they feel as if they’re separate from the rest of the business world.

The mentality is “Sure I do the majority of my business correspondence via email, and I just bought a book on Amazon for my brother-in-law, and my co-worker’s now engaged to a guy she met on Match.com, and I’m planning a vacation by looking at Hotels.com, and I have to check my bank account status today online, and I’m gonna read that story in the Post that my friend forwarded to me, and I should donate online today to Obama/McCain, and ooh, here’s an Evite to go to thank event by the river, and I’ve got to update and add some photos to my Facebook page, and I should read that restaurant review online, and I’ll just go to the client website to get information, and that was an inspirations quote I was emailed today, and then there was that hilarious video on YouTube, and here at work, I need to place an order through that online catalog, and I want to check out the site for that vet that I need to take Scruffy to, and I should order a film from Netflix.”

Then they think, “But I don’t see how the internet affects my business.  It’s not tangible to what I do.”
Lack of Priority

If one thinks in terms of traditional methods, then one is going to make traditional decisions.  If online is the constant afterthought, the add-on at the end, the low priority, then it’s never going to move up.  Again, if decision makers don’t take a step back to learn and see the entire picture, then it will never happen.  Or when it finally does happen, we get…

We Can Do It Ourselves

There’s a trend in business to day to bring in every aspect of markeing communications in house. That’s quite common here in the DC area with all of the associations and tech companies. Many of these organizations turn to the “folks in IT” to create the new site that to replace the old one sorely needs an update. This is the extension of the trend of having one’s nephew create something on his spare time and then put it up on the web. The result is often marginal improvements that add nothing to the brand or user experience. And by not examining beyond the confines of the offiice walls, they never see “what’s out there”.

An extra degree of separation

I don’t know if that’s the right term for all of what I’ll explain, but I see a lot of the traditional ad agencies and PR firms – the ones that are the first ones many potential clients go to – know so little about the fundamentals of online marketing – let alone the specialty of social media – that they muck up many marketing efforts.  Flash on homepages of websites, making them slow to download and invisible to search engines.  Things like that.  Blogs that post puff pieces and reworked press releases.

The problem is that those ad agencies and PR firms have the ear of the client, first and foremost. The marketing company hasn’t taken the time to learn new strategies, technologies, and methodologie while the client doesn’t know enough about to tell the difference.  The marketing company blocks new concepts from being brought up out of their own ignorance and territorialism.  The client says, fine, you guys are the experts.

The online folks are often then one degree of separation beyond this.  All too often the ear we have is that of the marketing company who may see us as a threat.

Soon, I’ll talk about what many in the online arena do wrong.

Guess, I’m just frustrated.  In a bad mood.

A slowing economy usually means that companies cut back on their advertising dollars.  The wisdom of this is debatable, but the inevitability of it is almost assured.

But times are changing somewhat.  In a survey conducted by Advertising Perceptions, we find that the long term traditional advertising outlets are the ones that ad execs – be they in house decision makers or agency professionals – see as being the ones that are likely to experience a decrease in ad spending over the next six months.  Meanwhile, online and mobile are not likely to take any substantial hits.

This is pleasant news for those of us in the online arena.

The survey asked 1811 marketers – 40% from the marketing side, 60% from the agency side – if the share of spend per advertising would increase, stay the same, or decrease.  National newspapaers and local newspapers took the biggest hit by far, with 44% and 40% of responders saying that they expected a decrease in spend, respectively.  Only 10% and 14% expected an increase for those categories.

This somewhat surprises me.  I would have thought the upcoming elections would mean more news media usage, regardless of the medium.  And while, yes, most of the growth in usage would be online, local coverage, in print, will still matter.

Guess not.  Newspapers are worse off than I thought.

The same can be said for broadcast 30% expecting a drop-off while only 14% expecting an increase; and radio, which is doing even worse.  Thirty three per cent expect less spend with seventeen per cent expecting an increase.

The real story here are the increases in online.  Seventy-two percent of those interviewed said they felt that online would see an increase in the next six months.  Only 4% saw a decrease.  That an 18 to 1 ratio.

In many industry verticals, online is not yet the automatic buy.  But it’s becoming the best buy.  The following numbers prove it.

Since we’ve been promoting Jerry White’s new book I Will Not Be Broken, I’ve been thinking of the opportunities that the book publishing industry is foregoing by not developing internet and social media marketing strategies.    This also means missing out on dollars.

The types of books I’m talking about are non-fiction, non-biographical books that cover political and social issues, business trends, diseases and medical conditions, personal triumphs and tragedies, and exposes.  The type of books whose subject matter is already being talked about at length online.

Authors should be encouraged to start their own blogs as they are writing the book.  Too much to handle?  No – they need not post every day.  Only when they see fit.  And they needed not rewrite their book on their blog.  All they have to do is write about their experiences in writing the book.

Chris Anderson, editor of Wired Magazine did this in writing The Long Tail.

But while I think that blogging during the pre-release period is vital, that’s more up to the blogger.  Publishing houses should be helping their clients develop blogging strategies, be the creation of a book blog or blogger outreach.

Pick a topic.  Global warming.  The U.S. Supreme Court.  Autism.  Steroids in sports.  Create Google alerts for certain terms.  Use Technorati to find blogs and bloggers that write on the same subjects. Publishing houses should have programs set up helping their clients get involved pre- and post-launch of a book.

This way the blogger will get to know the online communities that must be reached out to BEFORE a book is completed.  This was an author will not only familiarize themselves with the potentially hundreds of people out there that are the leading online voices…but those same voices will get to know the author as well.  And they will be all the more willing to receive a book to review.

Every day, post launch, an author should receive a synopsis of what is being said on the internet about the subject matter of their book – and the book itself.  The author can then engage bloggers in conversation and extend their influence.

I’ve recently talked to few publishing houses and authors.  Most publishers have no internet marketing budget.  No capability. No understanding of what to do.   Most authors have no clue on how an integrated online marketing plan can benefit them.  And if they do, they can’t find a publishing house that can help them.

Considering that Jeff Bezos was TIME Magazine’s Person of the Year back in 1999, that’s a shame.  And an opportunity.

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.

“Agencies don’t get it” was the clear response that marketers gave to TMS Media Intelligence/Cymphony in the research firm’s survey of sixty client side marketing professionals. Adweek’s Brian Morrissey has a nice little article on this. It got me thinking about some things and I’ll cut an paste.

“Clients are placing more emphasis on mastering social media but find their agencies ill equipped to help them succeed in that space”

This means clients are ahead of the curve and that agencies have not taken the time to come up to speed to learn beyond the basics of social media. Upper level management has not taken the time to integrate capabilities into their offerings and organizations. That’s because agencies

“typically treat social channels like blogs as traditional media…their ideas are not backed up by practical skills in the area..agencies have little of their own experience using social networks or video-sharing sites for themselves.“

This has been a major problem that’s been going on for a long time. Whenever I talk to high level agency people, they seem to treat social media as something that they’ve gotta start getting into or they dabble in, applying those traditional tactics and thinking that they’ve got everything covered. Don’t establish a practice – no, we’ll shove it off to the young people and tell them what to do. Tradtional agencies don’t seem to understand that social media is a different animal. It’s not a subset of what they already do.

Why don’t they get that? The answer comes quick:

“They are mostly driven by their compensation models which are made for closed media.”

This let to survey findings showing that marketers viewed agencies as simply not having the skills and culture to develop the type of strategies that are needed for today’s social media. But,

“They put up a good presentation about what social media is, but when you get to implementing campaigns, the day-to-day management skills are not meeting the marketers’ expectations.”

This never ceases to amaze me. I’ve seen surveys, discussions, and reports like this for years now. I can only conclude that agencies look at social media the same way so many others look at marketing: Anyone can do it. We’ll do it. Use our young people. And make money for the top. Outdated. And potentially fatal.

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.

A & H cohort Saul Wainwright has reacted with skepticism and a touch of disdain to the recent Deloitte & Touche survey that declares that American consumers feel that television advertising has the effect on buying habits.

85 percent of consumers still find TV advertising to have the most impact on their buying habits, but online ads are second-best, with 65 percent of consumers saying they have the most impact, beating out magazines, at 63 percent.

He then goes on to point out that many Americans are joining social networks and that they seek out information online about product and services. They often turn to others online to get this information.

He asks, “TV Advertising still packs the biggest wallop?? Really?

My answer: ABSOFREAKINGLUTELY

Why should this be a surprise? And why is this always looked upon as a competition? It shouldn’t be because the most effective marketing strategies today usually call for an integrated approach.

Here’s some explanations as to why this survey is likely very accurate.

- As Saul himself points out, the fact that TV is ingrained in the mind of so many may make it an easy answer spew out. That leads to reason #2.

- TV is ingrained in the mind of so many. It is very much part of many people’s lives. Sure, they’re watching it less and less. But they’re more likely to own a TV before they own a computer. And yes, they’re still likely to own a computer. And be online.

- The days of passive media digestion is NOT over. It’s still here. It will continue to be here. It’s just not the ONLY game in town.

- TV can give people ‘inadvertent exposure” to products, services, events. People don’t have to be looking for it to find it.

- When it comes to local, many smaller localized companies have yet to develop an online strategy. But they may run a spot on cable.

- Not everyone is under 40 or online enthusiasts. Yep, there’s a lot of people out there that check their email every couple of weeks. If that.

- and perhaps most importantly, those online conversations aren’t advertising. They, more often than not, aren’t marketing. They are organic conversations. That’s why they work!

To me, the most compelling figure up there is not the 85 percent that say TV. It’s the 65 percent that say online ads. If one puts together that 65% and then adds in the concept of genuine social media, you’ll see a true profile of the online world and where it really stands.

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.

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.