Advertising Age’s David Klein on why marketers don’t need media, and more thoughts…

By Rajesh on November 17, 2009

I spent a good part of the day at a bunch of exchange4media initiatives, starting with the Pitch CMO Summit , followed by an Impact One-on-one between Advertising Age’s Publishing and Editorial Director David Klein and Madison World’s Chairman and MD Sam Balsara.
Later in the evening Pitch magazine felicitated 25 top marketers (actually 28) in an award ceremony.
I was able to spend some time with Sam about the social media journey in India. He had some brilliant suggestions but the key takeaway for me was that ‘we’ – active participants in the social media space – are focusing a lot of energy on trying to ‘convert the converted’, whereas the task may lie elsewhere.
I was also able to spend a useful few minutes with David.
Do read the proceedings of the day’s happenings on exchange4media. I am sharing below some extremely valuable assessment/ tips on the digital space (in the US) that David shared with the audience, before the one-on-one.

  1. Marketers as media owners – via the databases, online communities they own, giving them the power/ opportunity to circumvent mainstream media companies
  2. Radical transparency – angry customers can impact brands – we are talking hard hits on stock exchange – case in point the United Breaks Guitars which impacted United Airlines’ stock. Similarly positive impact through customer endorsements
  3. Global Meritocracy – both bad, and, good work will find its way across continents. Cases in point Burger King’s controversial Goddess Lakshmi Ad; Piano Stairs by Volkswagen, respectively
  4. Crowd-sourcing
  5. Social Media and the feedback loop – click here if you are not clear about this
  6. Vendor relationship management – not a big trend yet, but as part of social business, collaborative/ social technologies are bringing many stakeholders together
  7. Location based marketing
  8. The rise of the creative technologist- creative minds who understand/ can leverage technology will be in demand

I agree with David on all counts. What about you?
For those of you who still haven’t seen the Piano Stairs video, here you go :) – enjoy.

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  • Hi Ashwani - thanks for dropping by and for the comment. It turned out to be one of the most useful days on many-many counts. Agree with you about creative minds, coupled with skills of astute observation being the most successful in using social media for their brands, or otherwise.
    Keep writing.
    Rajesh
  • Hey Rajesh,
    This is an interesting post. I too, agree with David. Creative minds who are aware and have expert knowledge about the social media channels can leaverage these channels the most and the brands that they are promoting.
  • v.k. Shukla
    Thank you very much for these valuable informations
  • Nidhi - I was just 'attending' - didn't win anything :) - all winners are big advertisers.
  • thanks for all the links, look forward to going through them.
    semi-related: there's some talk about adobe tying up with metrics. so not only will creatives be able to leverage technology, they'll have a better idea of what works and what doesn't (and where on the page etc).
    congrats on the pitch award ceremony!
  • Thank you for sharing this. Now that you mention it, yes "converting the converted" is a trap that most, infact all are falling into. Aren't we reaching out to mostly those who are already out there, which might be a good strategy to start with but will hit the ceiling soon..
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