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November 30, 2008

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Good post, Deb. I think AdAge did a little better in today's piece on trying to add value through branded widgets. http://adage.com/article?article_id=132778

I guess I should have sent you an email about this one so that your inbox wasn't so binary.

At least sometimes, I'm an individualistic purist. Many ads interrupt me, take up space and time with wasteful irrelevant distractions, otherwise take away from my experience. Do not want. Today one of my gripes is that ads in the tabs open in my browser windows have runaway flash code needlessly chewing up cycles and pushing my notebooks's fan to high. I can't easily figure out which tab is causing the problem, but I'll have to find a convenient time to restart my browswer to fix it. I thought about running an adblocker for this fact alone.

At the same time, I'm a business and marketing person who knows the magical power of a relevant, entertaining and informing message in the right place at the right time. Heck, I even like those as an individual. I'm at least amused and entertained by many of the ads that contextually pop up next to my gmail. I love the making a party of watching superbowl ads, and sometimes share ads with friends via YouTube.

In general, I'm all for more marketing and less advertising. To make an analogy of Google, more organic results and less reliance on PPC (though the two work together wonderfully with organic as the 80% and ppc as 20%).

Besides Facebook finding better ways to present more relevant ads, it will have to continue to find more opportunities to monitize brand involvement with experiences that don't look like traditional ads. Whether those happen in Facebook applications, events, word-of-mouth discussions (if there is something about your brand or content it creates that is worthy of discussing), etc.

Having also read the AdAge article (and being one of those who immediately emailed you ) I have to say that Ted does make some good points, but frankly he also sounds like someone whose head is in the sand about some things ... He's missing the point *entirely* that the world of advertising is NO LONGER about banner ads and such... it's about truly integrated experiences ... think product placement and focus groups ....

The truth is that the consumer always has been in charge. After all, there was no gun to their head making them purchase one thing or another. Today, however, that control is both implicit and explicit ... and amplified. The brands that "get it" will survive and thrive. Good on P&G for taking the plunge and having someone like you around! It portends well for them - provided they heed your advice.

Exactly! Well put Deb.

Great post Deb!

Hi Deb,

Brilliant insight on becoming Binary, Social Media is all about the connections and relationships developed. Kudos

Thanks all for the feedback...figuring out how to scale non-binary solutions is indeed where the interesting work begins!

Killer (as usual)

Had a discussion about the facebook comment earlier this week and it reinforced my belief that it is ALL integrated. Tactics (brand, direct, TV, print, Digital, Social, Radio, Events, PR) that aren't in synch, that aren't working together, aren't communicating "from the same sheet of music" won't have the same punch, the same effectiveness, or the same ability to connect with the users - its common sense.

Digital (and in my mind, Social) is the "red thread" that can connect different tactics and give the user an "open door" to a brand (and vice-versa). We need to get out of campaign and experiment and one-off mindset (like banner ad-yes//no). Bravo Debs!

Thanks Sean - I like the red thread analogy...and of course you know I think that tactics are way down the food chain..;)


Cheers,
D

Deborah Schultz
Technology changes, humans don't

[email protected]
http://www.deborahschultz.com
cell: 917-848-1016 (PST)

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