Let’s face it, the advertising culture has pervaded our world for the last eight decades — but it’s starting to meet its match. Not in one single channel, but in a combination of entities like the web, email, social media and direct marketing. (It’s ironic that traditional advertisers are flocking to shows like Mad Men and other imitators given there’s such great product placement available — can you say ‘comfortably numb’?)
At the same time, I refuse to join the lazy group of people who say traditional advertising is dead — it’s not, it will simply serve a larger purpose. There will always be large consumer-facing brands who need to (and can afford to) market past any intermediate channels, and take an ‘anthem’ message to the people. Some will do it to brand-build and sway corporate buyers (see the Cisco ad below) and some will attempt to influence public opinion in their favor (see the Exxon ad below). But make no mistake, they will all pay dearly.
So what does this mean for every other company that can’t spend millions to produce and air these beautiful creations?
It calls for a lower, faster set of integrated channels that have the potential to add up to more than their natural sum. And the most recent piece of this puzzle is a social media strategy. While considering the true business impact of Facebook, Twitter and other smaller sites, many marketing people won’t also consider how these new channels should affect their current web and email efforts.
Here are five key questions to ask your marketing folks:
- Other than ‘being cool’, why should we commit people time to social media?
- Do we have a credible position and message for social media?
- Are you (and your group) prepared to author 8-10 daily Twitter posts and manage replies?
- How do our customers want to hear from us?
- How does social media coexist/enhance with our current MarComm strategy?
But perhaps the most interesting business decision to make is around channel cost. The traditional advertising machine consumes $100 bills by the millisecond. If your budgets have been slashed over the last 12 months (like most have) perhaps it’s time to reconsider how that money is spent. Take a more direct response view of what ads you can afford (if leads are your currency) and move aggressively into direct-to-customer communications like email and social media. Hint: you can get 2-3 social media ambassadors for the cost of one NY creative director 
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Tags: advertising, brand, integrated channels, social media
