Your recognition of the unfair demonisation of ‘interruption’ is really astute. And also, my favourite point, interaction is not the same as engagement.

My current mantra for comms has two points: Be holistic. Be generous.

Keep re reading this.
Made it compulsory reading in the planning department at Saatchi.
How good its it?
Fucking brilliant that’s how good.

R

The part about decisions/reasons regarding media usage is good, “… they spend time on the real web that people love to connect and share.”

This is interesting, “… the major implication of people having far more control of their time and media is that people are generally not interested to spend their precious time on marketing communications – passive or interactive.”

Not sure about that.

Look at CP+B’s Burger King work: Spot TV is entertaining, Subservient Chicken was fab, Whopper Sacrifice was strong, and so on. Many other examples, including gettheglass.com, HBO Voyeur, Diesel Heides, and the list goes on.

People want control, yes, but that doesn’t mean that they won’t spend time with (fun, entertaining and interesting) things done by brands or with their interesting products.

In fact, people people make conscious decisions to spend *tons* of time interacting, watching and talking about brands and products. Look at WOM research into the % of daily conversation that people spend talking about products and brands. It is staggering. In addition to using it, you talk about and interact with Twitter and bunches of other brands right here on this blog. I bet you do that offline as well, though I hope not toooo much. Other people (on/offline) talk about Wii Fit or Nike+ or Innocent Drinks, or Ducati motorcycles or whatever. They don’t just use these products/brands, they interact with them and sometimes they’re so passionate that they evangelize about them.

Completely agree about the need to think differently. I think that’s what’s going on here on your blog.

As for the recommendations …

1) Free Twitter for mobile: Good idea, but there are plenty of apps that just use standard data plans to skirt this. And they’re nicer. iPhone app(s) are lovely, and I just tried TwitterBerry. (God help me.) Also good. All free. Consumers will adopt what works best and leave the brands who don’t get it in the dust.

2) Well, Muxtape is back, mate. Yes!
http://www.rocketboom.com/rb_09_jan_29/

3) Twitter Labs (or generally speaking, sponsored innovation) is a very strong idea. I’d stay on top of that if I were you. Good stuff. Dell’s Social Media for Small business is pretty good: http://www.facebook.com/dellsocialmedia

Have an excellent weekend,
~G~

1. Lost in my very own hyperbole and self-righteousness I forgot to mention that i’m still a digirati in heart and soul…

2. the point i was trying to make is that while marketing/advertising is broken and loosing it’s relevancy and effectiveness, i’m not sure that digital advertising as we know it today is the cure to marketing problems. the vast majority of digital agencies taught clients to think about the web as simply another channel or medium and thus so far digital has offered mainly ghettos of limited utility in the form of flash microsites.

most digital agencies are fixated on what they know to make – websites and banners just as ad agnecies are fixated on what their craft – TV / press / radio ads.

my main point is that the mass migration from TV to the web doesn’t offer marketeers more advertising opportunities. people don’t watch tv because they spend time, as you said, on youtube, twitter, facebook etc. – they spend time on the real web that people love to connect and share. your point regarding control is absolutely spot on but for me, the major implication of people having far more control of their time and media is that people are generally not interested to spend their precious time on marketing communications – passive or interactive.

and whether we like it or not, one hideous spot on coronation street still offers lazy marketeers far better results than 5 award winning digital stunts combined.

3. brands and agencies should really start to think differently – in the social web the best hope is to be social. to be generous and enrich the experiences of what people are doing.

how is it possible that no mobile provider has grabbed the opportunity to offer free twitter text updates yet?

how is it that not a single brand looked at the sad closure of muxtape and said – right, we hate to this briliant thing shut down so we’re sponsoring muxtape for a year and paying all royalties until all legal issues will be solved

how come that not a single brand has organised a sponsored Twitter Labs ongoing project?

TBC…

Who said anything about digital being “superior to advertising”? Ok ok, Iain has his “10 reasons” deck that he trots out now and again, and that’s funny and people laugh, but I think you’re missing the point. It isn’t about superiority. It is about parity. It is about everyone sitting at the same table. It is about less “matching luggage” and more collective thinking and collaboration. It is about people in agencies and marketing organizations who “get it” and don’t fight it. Some agencies are lucky. Everyone sings “Kum Ba Yah” (or at least a Kings of Leon cover of it) around a campfire with their clients. Ideas rule and everyone is channel neutral by default. Unfortunately for most marketers and advertisers, that’s the exception not the rule. Go ask folks who have spent any significant amount of time doing digital in a WPP agency, for example, and you’ll see what I mean.

Regarding the semantic shift myth, as you put it, I think you’ve picked the wrong 2 words. If this is about semantics, then that’s important. When you juxtapose disruption to *control* (instead of engagement, 2007 nominee for buzzword of the year) things make much more sense.

Sure, the digital is inherently engaging, involving, active, multi-directional and social by nature. And those things help differentiate digital media from others. But it is *control*, not engagement, that singularly best defines what digital represents, if limited to one word. How many people control the web? How many people control TV? Or radio? Or the newspapers? How much control do people have over the web? How much to people value that control?

I agree that less and less people make channel distinctions when it comes to advertising and that “magic is magic” … but come on… Would you say you’ve seen more or less magical things in digital media than in newspapers? When was the last magic radio ad you heard? What were the truly magical ads in the Super Bowl this year? Do you still listen to radio? Do you you read newspapers and magazines? Less and less people do, and those are conscious distinctions and choices they are making.

And as for the widget economy, well, we get nice buzzwords and every year in every media, right? Try buzzword bingo in your next newbiz meeting. Always fun.

It is categorically false to say that digital has been exempt from being asked about ROI and sales. FFS, it is media predicated and built on data. The clever use of data, when combined with beautiful ideas and critical mass generates traceable sales. Fact. It is the most measurable, traceable, individually identifiable medium ever created. In the right hands, it is a marketers wet dream.

Saying it is all about magic and joy in one breathe and insisting that it has to sell more shit is, by the way, a bit over the top don’t cha think? The flexibility of most modern media allow different strokes for different folks. Marketers play and do the iPint or Chicken or whatever. They also do on-pack promotions and text-to-win campaigns. Branding and sales. There is nothing wrong with doing both, even if they’re not in the same ad.

The bit about all this being “fueled by enthusiastic yet overhyped, hyperboled conversation that is blinded by self righteousness and the false consensus effect” is a classic. How did most retailers do in Q4 2009? How did Amazon.com do? How’s Google doing compared to the NYTimes and WPP? How many more people are watching YouTube? How many more are uploading? How many are using social networks? I won’t do your homework for you, but I seriously suggest that if you’re going to make unabashed and what could be seen as uninformed statements like the one you’ve made here, you provide some evidence/

See, here’s the thing: People use digital channels as much as TV, yet your everyday ad agency or marketing director spends a shitload less time thinking about it and a fraction of the budget on it. In the UK, I think it was something like 22% of the total media spend was on TV and 12% spent online (in this case, I believe it was only looking at the web). Yet, the same number of people use the web as watch TV. And they spend more time on the web than watching TV. And the figures are more dramatic the younger you go. I’m not trying to make this all about cash, but advertising is a business, and money talks.

This is, without a doubt, the longest reply I’ve every written. Thank you again for inspiring thought and debate about the way we do what we do. Brilliant!!!

~G~

I suppose it’s still going to take time for advertising to adapt to utilising a new and constantly evolving medium correctly – as there are precious few who are doing it at the moment.

It’s the “early-adopters-the-future-belong-to-us” snobs who think they’ve got the answer – too early to judge ‘em I think

OK, rant over!!