I wondered how long before I saw someone pull these together in a single entity. I picked this posting by Jamie Grenney off Google Alerts. Others out there?

To me Social Media is a great set of tools and techiques to get Customer Engagement and start the conversation. Instead of Marketing spending big budgets and relying on Focus Groups or User Satisfaction Surveys or HR working on employee engagement programmes why not use 365/24 (days/hours) tools? Having spent a large part of my career in marketing and internal employee communications and then consulting in CRM deployment I can see how organisations are desperate to engage the customer, build a relationship and develop a brand personality and voice as well as engage and motivate employees. 

There has been a raft of announcements recently by IBM (Lotus), Microsoft and others on the integration of social media tools in their software products. Implementations designed to make deployment across a company IT infrastructure easier.

The next 12 - 24 months are going to be very interesting.

Interesting article in the 1to1 Weekly newsletter from Peppers & Rogers Group (PRG).

PRG were the thought leaders and authors of a number of ‘must read’ books on 1to1 Marketing in the 1990’s. They are now part of Carlson Marketing – one of the top  marketing agencies in the world.

In the article PRG say marketers struggle to interact effectively with customers. They say e-mail marketing is failing to be used properly to fully develop interactivity with customers. They refer to a Forrester Research paper that quotes 95%+ of businesses and people using e-mails as a communication tool. Although so widely accepted 75% state they receive too many e-mails and 72% say they delete them without reading.

Why such a high deletion rate? The broadcast nature of much e-mail. Using socio-demographic profiling, adding credit card and financial information plus life style information helps form a better picture of the ‘target’ allows the message to be refined. Transactional information can also help. Think of Amazon and how they use ‘you bought this and so may like this’ targeted messages. However despite such in depth analytics this is still a form of mass customisation. A 10k mailer may have 10 variations but the target is still one of 1k or whatever the scaled number is. E-marketers are looking for permission to stay in contact until a response and sale is made rather than get feedback or develop a relationship.

So how does this play compared to podcasting? The best podcasts use audience feedback to start a dialogue and influence content. An audience is also self-selecting. They can subscribe or ‘play now’ and choose when and where to access them. I am amazed at the number of podcasters who have audiences in the thousands yet many marketing agencies do not seem to understand the power and economics of it.

Let’s look at some details:

An e-mail or direct mail campaign will generate leads in the range of 2% or 5%. Some will be higher thanks to clever targeting and generate maybe 2 – 3 times these numbers.

Let’s assume a 10% response rate. To get 10k responses you would have to e-mail or ‘snail mail’ of 100k. Renting 100k e-mail addresses would cost probably £15k+ and likely 10% would not get delivered anyway.

To create an audio podcast would cost less than £1.5k. So for the same price as a 100k+ one off e-mail campaign you could create a series of 10 podcasts. Now what size of audience can you build over those 10 programmes? What sort of conversation would develop and what sort of relationship over a sustained campaign?

Disclosure statement: When I was at Tektronix in the mid-1990’s responsible for marketing in Europe, RRG were consulting with us on implementing a 1to1 customer strategy. In 1999/2000 I worked with PRG Europe on a number of joint client projects implementing CRM strategies and programmes when I worked for the largest ICT focussed marketing agencies in Europe.

Late yesterday we took a call from one of our clients. They wanted us to take some aerial footage aircraft to aircraft today. As to be expected in the UK the weather conspired against us. Here on the South Coast it was lovely and sunny. But one of the aircraft was in the Midlands and was grounded due to fog!

Just like in the WWII movies of fighter pilots we had the camera operator on standby, sitting waiting for the phone call to 'action stations'. All ready to grab his kit and dash to the local airport and get airborne. Every time the phone rang he got 'twichy' wondering if it was the call. He spent a lot of the morning checking and rechecking the camera and kit and working out shooting angles and scenarios. This brief is a challenge as the client wants video and stills. We are unsure just how much space will exist on the aircraft to do the filming so the camera operator has taken everything just in case. The main thing is that he has charged all the batteries as there is no mains up there!

Watch this space....

Heather Gorringe of Wiggly Wigglers in a comment to one on my recent post summed up the power of podcasts for her:

"Apart from our listeners it has enabled us to get valuable pr and we are just partnering with a couple of major organisations to make a section of our podcast relevant for them. This will mean that once again podcasting allows a small business to pack a really big clout!"

Those major organisations have seen the power that social media tools - blogging and podcasting - can bring to highly targeted marketing or 'narrowcasting'. Why spend a fortune 'broadcast' advertising to large sections of the population who could not care less? Target an already an engaged audience who are well qualified and likely to be receptive to your message. 

Hugh McLeod talks about the global micro-brand. In effect the ability of small local businesses to 'punch above their weight', to make an impact globally for a fraction of the budget used by big corporations to do the same. But with one important difference. Heather is an authentic voice. She has not been 'filtered' by a Corporate Marketing or the PR agency. Her personal passion for her subject and enthusism shine through. She does actually 'narrowcast' from her sofa on her farm. It works for her because of the product and service she is promoting. Others may choose to take a different approach to having a conversation.

At the recent European Podcasting Summit a number of speakers stressed the importance of engaging the audience in active conversations. This can be done by via e-mail, comments on a blog, podcast dial-in and even User Generated Content (UGC). If you check out Wiggly Wigglers you will see just how interactive Heather and her team is being. A model for us all I think....

Transparency statement: Whilst I have worms in my garden none have been supplied by Wiggly Wigglers.

I recently presented at a Chartered Institute of Marketing workshop. Here is the e-mail I sent to all the delegates.

 Just to let you know I had not forgotten you all. Geraldine wanted to have the presentation loaded on the website so it can be accessed by everyone. If you have problems I am happy to e-mail a copy directly.

 I thought you would be interested in the following information I picked up at the European Podcasting Summit last week. Blogging and podcasting are both growing fast with up to 15% of people reading/listening. (I actually think this is an under-estimation as all mainstream media including BBC radio and TV now offer podcasts and blogs). In the US about 1/3rd of major companies use blogs internally to help inter-team and management communication. About 10% of US Fortune 500 CEO’s blog publicly as do the companies themselves. This is equally true for B2B and B2C companies. In Europe this tends to be lower. My reading is that France and the Nordics are moving fastest in Europe with the UK catching up.  

The power of Social Media also applies to science! At the Summit we heard from the Australian science research institute (CSIRO) that a video of intelligent fabrics by a professor posted on YouTube caused so much traffic that their web site crashed multiple times. Global main stream media was alerted and followed the story up by all flying to Australia causing them to have to go into ‘crisis management mode’ and hire a team of people to help manage it. Check it out at csiro (please note this is the post-event version not as originally posted on YouTube). The result was a number of major brands picked up on this and offered multi million $ worldwide licensing contracts to exploit the invention. Without YouTube it would have happened but not at the speed and global level. That is the power of social media to brands and business.

 At the session with you some people raised the question that I was only offering B2C as examples. I am sorry I had hoped my examples spanned a range of products and services. The underlining message I wanted to convey was whatever your size, your industry or market focus for your product or service consider using social media if you want:

•  A closer relationship with customers that includes ‘active conversation’.
• To get a ‘sling shot’ effect through super-connectors (CISRO above)
• To appeal to all ages and sectors of society (don’t tell me BBC Radio 4, Times Online and Guardian Unlimited are targeting the youth market!) – globally!

 Blogs, audio and video podcasts are just tools and the internet a delivery platform. Get the content right and you will get an audience. When selling to anyone you want to start a conversation and build a relationship. You can and should do it the ‘traditional way’ – face-to-face. But why not go global if you can? You cannot talk to everyone directly – there are not enough hours in the day. Even the CIM event needs a lot of organising and management so you cannot do those every week. Now just imagine if we had set up a camera or audio recorder and recorded our session together. We could have made it available (in full or edited highlights) as a podcast either free or for a small fee. Rather than a one off why not a series of ‘MasterClasses’? Would that help promote the CIM or its CPD programme? Now imagine I posted the link to my blog or mentioned in our monthly newsletter what would that do for traffic? What if you each did the same? What if some of those people you passed the link and details onto did the same with their contacts? What if someone out there is a super-connector? What would happen then?

 A final thought. All this is FREE. You get very little pass on with adverts or direct mail. Social Media has an inbuilt ‘viral’ hook – you send a link just as I did in the mail above. Our best campaign for a client is now running at less that 25p (and reducing by the month!) a LISTEN. That is people who have actual clicked to listen to the podcast. Do you know exactly how many people have actually read your press advert or a direct mail AND taken action? How much did that costs? I know when I was marketing for Tektronix I had the following cost-per-lead metrics for ROI averaged across Europe (based upon 1995 prices): You maybe better or worse than this but I want to cross compare to podcast/blog ROI.

·         PR - £65

·         Advertising - £45

·         Trade Show (not including staffing costs) - £32

·         Seminar and events (not including staffing costs) - £26

·         User Group Events (not including staffing costs and held in company offices so no room rental) - £22

·         Direct mail - £16

·         Customer Newsletters (not including staff costs for writing/editing) - £2.15 per edition (based upon 15k English language circulation and mix of pan-European postage rates)*

 * We did not carry any form of promotion but listed office addresses to get more info. It was impossible to track as the sales offices never qualified what stimulated the call.

 As we sold indirectly (via dealers and distributors) I could not measure actual cost per sale. My commission and bonus depended on increasing leads each quarter and reducing cost per lead. A tough challenge but that is US Corporate culture.

 Now look at podcasts and blogs. You have the initial set-up costs (design of page format or music and voice-overs), production cost per programme and then the time to produce (all the above activities take time too) but after that it’s all free except for hosting. No postage. No space costs. No media page buying. You still have to drive and build an audience but that is why Small World Theory is so important. Remember those stories of raves or parties when the parents were away that went wild? Somehow the word got out and the world descended on them! Just like CSIRO! That is the sling-shot effect. That is the power of Social Media.

One final thought. Comments and feedback are good. That is what is at the core of a relationship. For a great way to use social media and engage an audience check out Blendtec. The guys had a product – a blender – and decided to show its power and performance by blending usual things like mobile phones. They filmed it and stuck it on YouTube. It became very popular and people made suggestions as to what else to try. They did. You will see their web site now is built around this and attracts main stream media who in turn drive even more traffic. A lot of people say they are being stupid, dangerous etc. That just adds to the PR bandwagon.

The last observation. Hugh MacLeod is at it again with his Threshers voucher. £15m last time. What do you think this time? Check it out and maybe take advantage of the Social Media/Viral/WOM experiment yourself ...Look at his stats.....see the peaks.....

So Hugh McLeod is having another go at a WOM campaign. The pre-Christmas one netted a cool £15m in extra sales. What will this one do? Will it fail because people are not so interested now rather than at Christmas? No mentioned by Hugh of a specific target but I guess any sales revenue in excess of campaign cost is a good ROI and of course WOM is cheap - very cheap.

A great post from Debbie Weil pointing out a US AdWeek publication on why blogging has not the set the world alight. To be honest I am totally baffled. Maybe its just me or maybe it was the industry I was in?

Now a bit of self disclosure. For many years I was in marketing - first in office application software and then in colour printers. I spent 3 years as Director of Corporate Communications of a major US Corporation charged with a mission to get our brand awareness to the highest levels possible but at the same time 'manage' the Division GMs and President. As the official spokesperson in Europe I had to watch what I said especially when dealing with the business press and financial analysts. I spent my life - and large chunks of budget -  trying to promote the business and trade press stories, get them to press conferences and meet senior management. We wined and dined them. Gave them so many t-shirts, caps and executive toys that they probably made a fortune re-selling them on e-Bay. All with one objective - to get some coverage.

Every month we got a clipping report which was analysed for rating of the coverage. Good, neutral or bad. We looked at column inches and tried to cross compare to our competitors. We also paid for our competitors coverage to be analysed.

In my last company all 3 Business Divisions spent money on customer satisfaction reports. We used external consultants to do call centre monitoring and an annual survey on customer satisfaction. We had User Groups. We published magazines and newsletters. We had ShowCase Technology events and attended over 40 trade shows a year across Europe. We always ran Focus Groups to get feedback and input before campaigns. When we re-branded we spent a fortune testing all types of creative concepts. Senior management went on customer visits as did the Presdent of Europe.

We desperately wanted to talk to customers and understand their needs, markets and applications. For us it was critical to get the feedback into the product design teams to stay ahead of the competition.

I have asked myself would I have used blogs? I would answer yes every time. Even though AdWeek listed many reasons against blogs to me it is simple. A blog is a personal CRM tool. Every CEO and their senior management team should have a blog. Sure you are going to get 'hecklers' but we are not talking about a political party conference where everything is controlled and stage managed. Customers who care enough to write about your product or service not working are 'gold dust'. For everyone that has the 'bottle' to complain there are 10 maybe even 20 who do not. They are an extension of your market research team. Giving you honest and heart felt feedback. Accept good and bad as both are equally as valuable.

A blog is a tool to start a conversation with customers. PR still has a role but briefing a PR agency to craft a press release that then gets put into a distribution system and then goes to many press some who take it as, some who extract a few points and print and others who critically analyse it is a long winded way of delivering information. Even when the journalist has done the story you have to rely on the media to publish it hopefully in the way you want. The customer has to read what was written by the journalist and interpret what was meant.

You can now blog and engage the customer in conversation directly.

I know this is old news but I have been in shock for a week or so.

So Blue Peter (UK children's TV programme) has been found to have cheated on a competition telephone phone in. Somehow we expect it from politicians, business people and others but this was for many of us a painful discovery. A sort of 'Is nothing sacred moment?'.

It reminds me of the time when you first realise your Mum or Dad are not infallible. That Santa Clause is not real. That the Tooth Fairy is infact your parents. Your world is turned upside down.

That is the sort of relationships many organisations and brands want with their customers. Maintain the magic and everything is fine. A slip and the spell is broken. What is a real issue is that what can take years to build can be broken in a short time.

Just spent the last days two at the European Podcasting Summit in London (19th and 20th March) organised by Anita Yaa Agyeman and her team.

It was a well organised event (by First Conferences) with a great mix of new and traditional media types plus independent podcasters and corporate marketing people. With such a mix you get a variety of views but what I love about the industry is that it is still so new and exciting that everyone is happy to help everyone else. A passion for the subject that transcends potential business rivalry.

It reminds me of the early days of the PC industry. It was full of people who had a vision of a different way to use computers. The energy and enthusiasm was infectious. We were all sharing a vision and a mission. Even those of us working for Lotus (1-2-3 and Notes) actually spoke to the guys from Microsoft. We even worked on of a couple collaborative projects together. As it became big business it maybe lost a lot of that raw passion and energy. That will happen with podcasting some time in the future but in the meantime it will be great fun.

What I did hear and see were end users keen to start to experiment but keep it internal first rather than learn in public. Large companies have the brand to worry about. Risk avoidance is important so would involved Corporate and Legal oversight. What they wanted to hear were ‘authentic’ case studies presented by real people and not agencies. One of the most fun contributions was from Heather Gorringe of Wiggly Wrigglers. She was wonderful. Full of energy and passion. She has a great website, blogs regularly and within days of hearing her first podcast in 2005 started her own. Almost 2 years down the line she attracts 20k people to her weekly podcast and has successfully taken her company international – all the way from her farm in rural Herefordshire.  

One other thing that did strike me was just how hard traditional media agencies who spoke at the conference are at understanding what podcasting and social media is all about and what they have to do to completely adapt. They have invested massively in infrastructure and processes to support communication via traditional print and broadcast media. Social media – blogging, audio and video podcasting - does not need so many multiple levels. Even if traditional agencies can learn to work creatively in the new medium (they are smart people so they will either buy-in specialist agencies or talent) the current cost structures just do not work. The traditional agencies are used to working on large budgets. Social media uses the internet, WOM and viral to deliver. There are no commissions and rebates available on something that is free.  

Does make you wonder about the power (or value) of presenting. Loic Lemeur is in the US this week at a conference and he made a blog entry about Bill Clinton who had just heard speak.

Bill Clinton made over $6m per year on public speaking from 2001 until 2005.

When in office his salary was $400k per year but he also had allowances of over a $1m for personal and White House expenses.

Looking at Wikipedia they state that "the First U.S. Congress voted to pay George Washington a salary of $25,000 a year (about $531,000 in 2005 terms) — a significant sum in 1798. Washington, already a wealthy man, refused to accept his salary. Theodore Roosevelt spent his entire $50,000 salary on entertaining guests at the White House. (Morris: The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt) Similarly, John F. Kennedy donated his salary to charities." (Source Wikipedia: - 9th March 2007)

Now Channel 5 has been found to have used studio staff posing as winners on premium rate competitions....!

Source: TimesOnline

Is it really a surprise that in their rush to replace declining advertising revenues broadcasters have not really been totally clear about what viewers were actually paying for or what they were getting? Premium rate telephone call services can be a big earner especially when added to popular series. It seems not everyone at the broadcasters actually understood what was happening and they are now moving fast find out what happened. Things like lines kept open although the competition had closed so netting more cash. Pretend winners being made-up when no one had won in case calls reduced as people became demotivated as they thought the questions were too hard. Incredibly obscure answers to questions. My personal favorite - I heard it on a radio report yesterday. Question - what common objects do women have in their handbags? Answer - Rawlplugs!

(A transparency statement: I have never been employed by Rawlplug or any of their operating companies. The mention of this company was purely in the interests of illustrating this story. I have used a number of their products in household DIY projects. To my knowledge my ex-wife and daughter do not carry this or any similar products in their handbags.)

Services have been suspended and investigations launched as reported in The Register to find out the facts.

Manipulation of voting or influencing choice is not new. I remember a few years ago the 'payola' scandal hit radio stations where records were paid not because they had been requested or specially selected on merit alone (as the audience thought) but because of a payment being made. Paid for content is not an issue - as long as it is identified as such. Print media is full of advertorial. Written to look similar to an article it is in fact an advert that has been paid for. It should clearly carry text to identify it as such.

A number of recent blogs and reviews have been shown to be misleading as reported by Jack Schofield in the Guradian Unlimited. Businesses have been caught writing positive reviews for themselves and posing as others. Some PR agencies have been working for clients without disclosing the content they have been generating has been paid for. When found out the blogosphere - and others - has exploded with indignation and damage has been done to the brand reputation.

Shortly this will be illegal. The snappily named EU Directive 2005/29/EC will be have to be implemented into UK legislation shortly. Among other things this will outlaw any practice of false positive reviews and allow other business people and local consumer authorities to take legal action. In the UK we already have trade description and unfair business practice legislation. When enacted this new legislation may be even more comprehensive in its application.

However it is implemented those web sites that have glowing reviews of products and services that been self generated or paid for by the business and do not declare this fact will be illegal.

Jim Estill, CEO of SYNEXX posted a blog on -  My Top Ten Reasons Not to Blog:

1 - Legal
2 - Time
3 - ROI
4 - Privacy

5 - Anonymous ‘flames’
6 – Information overload
7 - Pressure to keep posting
8 - Taxing creativity to keep posting
9 - As with any technology, things do not always work perfectly
10 - Wastes other people's time.

Taking the role of a CEO and taking each in turn.

1. Lawyers – they always advise against anything they consider is a risk. Remember it was a legal requirement that people walked in front of cars with a red flag when they were first developed as there was a risk of death at the high speeds?

2. Time - blogging certain does take time. But what if you could take 20 minutes and get your message across to hundreds of employees and customers directly? Is that not a good investment of time? I meet hundreds of senior executives who moan that customers and employees ‘just understand the strategy’. Wow! Now you have a tool to ‘talk’ directly to people. Use it!

3. ROI – maybe a challenge to quantify but not impossible. If you spend 20 minutes communicating with someone and they understand your message and then take the action (or inaction) you are wanting them to take then it is a good ROI providing their action is more valuable than the time you spent. I have pulled up many senior managers when I ask them what their objective is of a presentation they are planning to make. The response ‘To update people’. The next question ‘To do what?’ and ‘what will this mean for you that is different from now’? An action should have a clear and measurable outcome. What do you want to change, achieve or stop by your communication? Will a blog help ‘touch’ more people and serve your objective? Maybe it’s to create a platform for communicating strategy or helping people understand your objectives or to get feedback from the market place. A CEO blog is a brilliant two way communication tool too. A ‘raw’ feed to the employees or market. Remember most CEO’s are like the Queen. She never sees anywhere without a fresh coat of paint and cleanly swept streets. What reports does the CEO get that have not been specially prepared? Blogs opens a ‘two-way’ dialogue for the CEO to the ‘real world’.

4. Privacy. CEO’s pay and perks are published in the annual accounts. Their performance is questioned by analysts and shareholders. If they avoid public meetings their motives are questioned. Equally if they court media coverage many will view them with suspicion. People – employees, business associates, shareholders, financiers and others want to understand what makes the CEO tick. They are a leader. Why try and hide? I don’t need to know what make of shampoo they use. Some may – why do sports people get paid millions to endorse products? Bottom line – if CEOs want privacy then don’t take the job!

5. Anonymous commentators – flame away. If the comments are unfair you will win sympathy from non-negative people. If they are fair comment then who cares who said them – just fix the issue. Don’t argue. Everyone is entitled to an opinion. If you do not agree – say so and say why. Don’t let negative sentiment stay festering. Address issues on the blogosphere’ head-on’. Don’t play the ostrich.

6. Does the world need more information – maybe or maybe not! After all I think it was an official in the US Patent Office who said in 1900 ‘Everything that needs to be invented has been done so now. There is no need for more patents’. Information and knowledge is the life blood of any organisation. Tim Berners-Lee invented the concept of the WWW to help academics share information across different geographies and incompatible networks. Information and knowledge and its application is at the heart of any competitive advantage. Many years ago scientists and other thought leaders worked in isolation and ignorance of each others work. Now imagine what heights the human race can reach if multiple original thinkers like Newton or Einstein could connect with each other and blog.

7. An obligation to keep posting – well maybe. But only in the same way that having made the Kick-Off speech as CEO you have said everything that you need for say for the year. Now go home and let the team do everything. Just show up at the next Annual meeting and repeat. The reality – an orchestra needs a conductor. A CEO needs to refine and adjust the message and keep delivering – frequently. As the market and company moves on it needs fine tuning. The employees need a visible leader – using every communication tool at hand.

8. Tax creativity to keep blogging – guess I said it above. If you communicate your current thoughts, ideas etc a CEO will have far too much to say. Why have all those meetings they attend? What decisions are being made? Why not share what keeps the CEO active during the day? Are you not interested in feedback and comments from members of the audience?

9. Technology gremlins – sad but true.

10.  Waste other peoples time – you cannot be the judge of that only the audience can. A comedian will know if the audience likes them – do they get applause or not? For a blogging CEO – are you getting comments? Are you getting a readership? How many have subscribed? When you meet customers and business partners and employees what do they say about your blog? Do they like it? What feedback and engagement do you get?

Bob Smeaton has a fascinating post about art and graphics design of music album covers. Check out Hypergallery.

I wonder if this whole area of design and art is under threat. With music donwloads via iTunes and the like plus CDs being the most regular way people now buy their music what place does album cover design have. I still have my collection of LP's. For me the cover was an important part of the experience of buying and owning the music. I would not say I ever bought an album just because of its cover but it certainly had an influence. Book manufacturers certainly know that a change of cover can help boost sales!

On a seperate note. Strange how paths cross and how a 'community' of contacts and mutually shared interests, job experiences and backgrounds  interplay.

Bob and I met through a mutual friend - Keith Collins. Keith had taken over my old role at Tektronix (colour printer manufacturer) and I had met him a few times at social events. Keith used Bob's agency, Signals, for digital marketing while at Tektronix. Keith introduced me to Bob at a social event and we got talking. Bob used to work as an agency supplier for another old company of mine, Lotus (of 1-2-3 and Notes fame), and we knew lots of mutual contacts. We also realised that back in the 1970s and early 1980s we had probably been at the same music concerts! Now Signals is doing work for Sharedband, Keiths new company and we have just helped Bob's team out by doing some voice-over work for them.

Strange how things work out!

A really interesting analysis of internet search activities by LeeAnn Prescott of HitWise on the recent Apple iPhone and Microsoft Vista product launches.

In the week immediately after each products launch an analysis of the internet search engine ‘hits’ makes interesting reading. Apple ranked at 55th most searched. Microsoft ranked at 322th. On ‘hit ranking’ alone Apple has a success on its hands while Microsoft has some marketing to do to get its message across. Now we are not comparing the same product or market segment but one thing that could be impacting the relative ranking is community and ‘WOM’ (word of mouth) marketing. Apple has a small share of the PC market but that community is very active. It has a massive share of the Mp3 player market and so any new telecoms product will attract attention especially as it is in demand by iPod users. By leveraging that ‘user base’ Apple is able to drive awareness up without necessary having to use big marketing budgets or do ‘blanket’ campaigns. Microsoft has a different relationship with its user base. It’s traditional been sold primarily to the corporate IT department. This is a systems infrastructure sale not a creative agency semi-life style sale. Over the last few years Microsoft has been trying hard to engage more at the emotional and personal level especially in the SME space. Interestingly in the last few days Microsoft have announced that in future they will be focussing on the digital media space rather than traditional media. Let’s see what happens but they have a long way to go before they have the social network and community spirit that Apple enjoys. On the other hand do they really care? Look at their success anyway. I think the Vista ‘WOW’ campaign may well become a future ‘case study’ – one of the last ‘old style’ spend a fortune and ‘bulldoze’ success. Social media and community WOM have a much better ROI.

On a personal note.....

I remember when my marketing Department at the company I was working for at the time (early 1990s) standardised on MacBooks in line with US HQ policy. Suddenly we felt like we had become Public Enemy Number 1. It seemed like an unholy alliance of sales, operations and senior management wanted us ‘punished’. Our technical support was withdrawn, horrible threats were made of being ‘incompatible’ and so unable to have access to central reports and databases. We defended our decision and in doing so became part of the Apple community – a group under siege and all the stronger and more passionate for it. In a way we had dared to be different. If you think back to Apple’s 1984 SuperBowl advert this has been their strategy for years. (Even Apples latest ad – yes they do them – plays on this). After 18 months or so we capitulated but not before we had got a good enough insight into the graphic arts and design market to be a success in marketing our products.

It is interesting to see how social media sites such as YouTune and Wikepedia are growing in importance. Hitwise have been tracking how people access information. It shows that traditional search engines are still the most popular but Web 2 or Social Media sites figure very strongly too.

When you add this to findings detailed in the Edelman PR research report into trust you see that much traditional media is declining as a source of unbiaised information. It seems that the 'cosy' relationship traditional media has had (or more importantly readers have perceived it has had) with policians and certain business organisation has effected peoples understanding of transparency and neutrality. People are looking for an authentic voice ot source.

This presents a challenge for marketeers as well as an opportunity. The challenge is that the 'safe' choice of media for PR and advertising campaigns have gone. Declining influence and lower reach negatively impact the ROI. Where are all the readers and audiences going? The young already read and watch television less than previous generations. They use the internet for sources of information. What is interesting is to look and see who are the highest percentage of people access the Number 10 e-Petition. 30 year olds? No the biggest group are those aged 45+