• Why Do You Think They Call It "Old" Spice
    Only one of the five college students participating in the “Social Generation” panel said they were familiar with Old Spice’s viral YouTube ad campaign. That seemed to surprise the one who has been following it, University of Nevada-Reno journalism senior Chelsea Otakan, who definitely seemed like more of a Madison Avenue insider than the rest of her undergraduate brethren. She actively uses Twitter, whereas most of the others either don’t use it, or use it only in an ancillary way. Otakan says she uses it as her primary communications platform, and uses Facebook only when people cannot contact her …
  • Forget the CMO, The Next Big Industry Title Will Be The CMTO
    That's what PepsiCo's Shiv Singh suggested during the Social Media Insider Summit. What does CMTO stand for? Chief marketing and technology officer, he said, adding, "Each time I catch up with my CMO, I ask her how much she is learning about marketing technology."
  • Madison Avenue's Next Big Media Model: "Impression Plus"
    That's what PepsiCo North America Director of Digital Shiv Singh championed this morning during his Social Media Insider Summit in Lake Tahoe. So what is it? Basically, instead of simply paying for the direct impressions generated by a display advertising buy, Singh says it should also incorporate the ancillary impressions generated by "shared" media, or what social media and PR pros call "earned" media. You know, the kind that consumers circulate among themselves via social media, retweeting, etc. "Imagine that, we're used to thinking in just the CPM or clickthrough rate model," Singh said, adding that he's now …
  • Here's A Refreshing Thought That Turns The Economics Of Media Upside Down
    Not surprisingly, it's coming from Pepsi Refresh. That's what Social Media Insider Summit opening keynoter Shiv Singh said this morning. Singh, who is director of digital at PepsiCo, and one of the main guys behind the Pepsi Refresh social media campaign, said he's found that it is turning the economics of media "upside down." "We get more traffic to refresh.com than to sites for which I buy media," Singh said, adding, "Think about it, all of a sudden my company's Web site is a more valuable property than some of the companies I buy display ad space from." …
  • Cola Wars: The Lake Tahoe Edition
    Tweets were flying over the cola brand presence - or lack thereof - at the Social Media Insider Summit here in Lake Tahoe. Apparently, the conference venue hotel, the Hyatt Regency, is a Pepsi service hotel. Which didn't suit the contingent from Coca Cola Co., and its agency Starcom MediaVest Group, especially MediaVest's Jonathan Halvorson, who turned from his regular role of Global Digital Director to a client service guy, searching, finding and then procuring some Cokes from a nearby package store. Lest you think there was a high level of acrimony during the summit, I did observe some …
  • Here's Something Ironic: "The Social Network" Is Not On THE Social Network
    Hooman Radfar, CEO and Co-Founder, Clearspring Technologies, was talking about "The Social Network," the movie, for which Clearspring worked on its media campaign, and happens to know that they were prohibited from advertising it on Facebook (a.k.a. THE Social Network). In other words, he quipped, "'The Social Network' is not on the social network." Teaser ad for "The Social Network" (the movie, not the platform).
  • Likes, Dislikes And Bacon
    "The Future of Social Media and Privacy" panel at the Social Media Insider Summit is making some interesting points about liking and disliking social media apps, especially Facebook's liking feature. The panelists debated whether consumers understand the implications of liking a product or brand, and the fact that it could open up a whole new channel of communications that they may never have actually intended by simply expressing their liking of it. "I like bacon," Hooman Radfar, CEO and Co-Founder, Clearspring Technologies, quipped, adding, "Does that mean I want bacon to call me?"
  • Every Time Mark Zuckerberg Opens His Mouth A Little Bit Of Trust Dies
    That's what Forrester Research's Augie Ray thinks has been happening each time the Facebook chief makes a comment about his personal beliefs about consumer privacy on social media. "I actually thing they have a perception issue here," Ray said about Zuckerberg's remarks that younger generations care less about online privacy than older generations did, and that they care more about sharing their identities online. Forrester's Augie Ray
  • The Communications Manifesto: "Public Engagement"
    That's the way veteran PR exec and social media guru Steve Rubel put it during the "PR" panel at the Social Media Insider Summit this morning. Rubel, who is senior vice president of insights at Edelman Digital, defined marketing communications as going through four phases. The first was "paid media," basically old school advertising on traditional, mainstream media. The second phase, he said, was "earned media," or traditional public relations. The third phase he said, is just beginning now, and is basically "direct channels" that are either "owned" or "rented" online by marketers to get their messages …
  • Great, Just What I Needed, One More Thing To Make Me Irrelevant
    That's what I took away from Jesse Engle's presentation this morning at the Social Media Insider Summit in Tahoe. Engle, who is general manager and co-founder of Co-Tweet, a company that is helping companies to fuel a presence on Twitter by creating employee-based Twitter accounts, explained how the process can help "humanize brands" by putting the face – or at least the Twitter handle – of real employees to real customers. That sounds like a pretty good thing, right? So why is it helping to make me irrelevant? Well, because Engle presented Co-Tweet's case during a session on social …
« Previous Entries