ad:tech Sydney’s marketing “love-in”
I read someone on Twitter describe this week’s ad:tech Sydney conference as a “love-in for marketers and ad agencies.” (Read ad:tech twitterings here.) It’s an interesting description that betrays an obvious slant towards the “other camp” which I heard one ad agency exec describe with a hint of derision as “all these social media consultants.”
As an aside, we’ve also got the “tech” part of this whole “ad:tech” meme. But that’s been conveniently sidelined in the battle of marketing ideologies. Maybe we just take technology (ie. the one giant computer called the internet) for granted now, since it’s use-case scenarios that matter.
So all this got me thinking. What is it about the mindset of agency-types, and the mindset of social media consultant-types (I tend to fall into the latter), that causes mild friction at events like ad:tech?
If I can be permitted to grossly simplify, agencies are commissioned by clients to conduct campaigns. Defined periods of time in which various media tools are exercised to generate sales on behalf of said client. No shock there, since advertising still keeps most of the media industry running.
Then we’ve got social media consultants, whose stock in trade is the intellectual property and experience they sell to clients for the purpose of engaging target stakeholder communities in conversations about brand, ideas, ideologies, and so on. The marketing angle can be less clear, or stated positively, more broadly defined.
It’s the classic conundrum where the disciplines of marketing, advertising, communications, PR and good-old editorial collide and get mashed up. The answers are not simple or easily quantified — unless of course you’re an agency charged with delivering quantifiable results to justify a very large invoice. Quantified results are where you make, or lose money. And by the way, that’s what this whole internet thing has promised the marketing community since the mid-1990s and we’re still trying to figure it out!
Anyway, while listening to keynotes and panel discussions yesterday, I got the impression agency types are very clearly focussed on the profit motive (surprise!). They might not be getting it right all the time, but their drive to find measurable results is clear. And you know what, I don’t think that’s bad.
However it does raise a challenge for content-focussed social media consultants (communities are giant content machines, after all). They must come up with some clearly agreed metrics and models that communicate to c-level executives just why the social media revolution matters to the bottom line. I’m the first to admit this is not an easy problem to solve.
But let’s face the harsh recession reality: if more of the social media consultants out there want to make more (or any) money from client engagements then it’s time we developed more solid, industry-wide accepted answers when companies demand reasonable levels of quantitative measurement.
Am I right?
Mark Jones is an enterprise technology strategist, speaker and journalist. mark@filteredmedia.com.au
