Uneven Distribution.

Getting over ‘who owns social media?’

September 6th, 2010

There’s a been a bunch of talk in the last couple weeks around social media, in particular the ownership of it from both an agency and brand point of view. I get asked the ‘ownership’ question a lot. And my response has been the same for a long time now. The best people to manage a brand’s social media monitoring or activity is whoever is best set up to do it. And that really does change on a case by case basis.

I had a few people ask me what was up with my quote in the SMH on Friday, and even though Nina Hendy took a very small soundbite from a much longer conversation, I am completely convinced that the best place for day to day social activity is within the client’s brand team.

But that’s a lot different to the monitoring and insights side of things.

And this is where I see the comments on the Mumbrella post that followed the SMH article getting a bit too simplistic. What gets lost in this debate about who’s posting on a Facebook page and replying to tweets, is the immense amount of insight social media can offer a brand. We’ve recently introduced a suite of social products for MediaCom that take the snake-oil out of social, and the key element that gets clients interested is almost always the insights part of the offering. By having an ongoing social monitoring program, and by having people in the agency offering insight and analysis on this data, everyone benefits; TV, print, press, display, and yes even the guys doing the social media engagement (whether they’re inside or outside the agency).

What I’ve realised through this process is that almost everyone overlooks this value that social monitoring brings to the overall marketing picture. And I now watch with even more interest on how specialist social media agencies (or divisions within agencies, as UM announced today) plan on selling and monetising their services. Because the bulk of real value that a social offering brings to clients actually lies outside social media, so having a business dedicated to just social doesn’t seem like the goldmine many still believe it to be.

I hope we’re beyond the era of snake oil salesman in the social arena, and as a result I hope the conversation can move on from ‘who owns social media, agency or the client?’ to ‘how effectively are you integrating what you’re doing in social into every other part of the marketing mix?’.

Why Twitter’s Titanium matters.

July 7th, 2010

I decided to keep out of the whole ‘Twitter winning at Cannes‘ debate a couple weeks ago. But listening to the Mumbrella podcast yesterday, I couldn’t help but think we’re slightly missing the point.

The thing is, Titanium is meant to be the best idea in the world of advertising, marketing, and brands from the past year. And this year, Twelpforce won it.

The best way I’ve heard to judge ‘the best’ was that while gold might be an idea that makes you jealous because it wasn’t yours, Titanium is an idea that makes you humble. I like that, and I really believe it’s true (and not just for creative awards).

Nike+ does that. The Unicef Tap project does that. The Million Project does that. Obama for America does that.

So does Twelpforce make me humble? To be honest, it doesn’t. But it does makes me excited. I don’t have a problem with Twelpforce winning Titanium. The thing is, the discussion shouldn’t be around whether the judges were right to award it Titanium. The discussion should be around what this means. It’s a signifier that the advertising landscape has changed. And if we’re to believe the best minds in the idustry that are assembled into the judging panel, this is the idea that truly humbles them.

What an ace time to be in this job.

Because Twelpforce has nothing to do with a big idea. There’s no helicopters, no world-renowned director, no multi-million dollar budget. There’s simply a bunch of guys in an agency that saw what was happening on twitter, and sold it to their client.

So this year’s Cannes Titanium was a signal to the advertising world. The true talent and genius in your agency is not the awkward aspiring filmmaker who turns up at the agency at 11am, half an hour after getting out of bed. The talent is now found in the guys that can see opportunity in how people are communicating, and how to leverage it. And crucially, they can then sell that opportunity to clients. Make them comfortable, make them believe it, and execute it without backing down on anything.