The first was a report from Forrester projecting interactive marketing spend in 2016, which they estimate will reach $77 billion. While the headline focused on the fact that interactive media will catch-up to television media spend by that date, an equally interesting set of figures provide a glimpse into a very different digital media world in 4 years. The report predicts that search’s share of digital media spend will shrink, as marketers disproportionately increase their investments in more sophisticated display media and really rev up their mobile media spend.

The second was an AdAge Digital piece on how veteran digital shops (most of which started in the late 90′s) were changing (and expanding) their business models. The article focused on the big search agencies – iCrossing, 360i, and iProspect – and how they’re diversifying into other areas of digital advertising. Obviously they’re looking at the same data as Forrester, and as they look to grow, they are seeing greener pastures in areas such as digital content, display advertising, and online video.

The article also talks about how shops like AKQA are expanding their focus from digital design and development into digital media (search, display, etc).

Two trends I see for the future:

• Less room for and a resulting fewer number of specialist digital shops (i.e. the search marketing agencies, or the digital content shops)
• The growing prominence of a new breed of large, integrated digital agencies, accentuated by an increased difficulty for big traditional agencies to keep up with the pace of change in digital

FastCompany.com has a nice story on the new platform coming out next week called Online Campaign Ratings, or OCR for short.

In one sense, OCR sounds like a major improvement over the Nielsen box, a measurement tool I have always questioned (BTW, how many people do you know with a Nielsen box? How about people using Facebook?). There is no doubt that adding demographic data to digital media planning and tracking tools will be extremely valuable. And yes, translating the Web measurement into a metric that “old school” media planners understand will likely help move some small amount of large branding media budgets from TV to the Web (specifically digital video).

However, the folks over at Digiday are asking if applying a traditional media measurement tool is actually a good thing for the world of digital media? This is a very valid question, and one I think about a lot. Specifically, is the GRP the best way to measure media reach, or the best available tool to measure traditional media at the time it was developed?

The question we need to be asking is whether the online GRP, or OCR in this case, will make digital media planning more effective for advertisers and improve the business of digital publishing?

In the article, Shar refers to another recent Forrester report that boldly recommends that companies should reduce their paid ad budgets by 10%, investing those resources in customer engagement – in the form of owned media like content, apps and earned media such as social media programs / outreach.

I think this is right on and a great starting point for companies and marketers looking to evolve with the changing media and consumer landscape. I firmly believe that companies should be moving away from an emphasis on paid media (which is generally “one-way” in nature) to owned and earned media. However, I am not naive and realize that it will take time to shift organizations used to doing things a certain way for a long time (i.e. focusing on big paid ad campaigns) to shift to a more balanced model where owned and earned media are equals at the table.

In many ways, for this to happen, companies need to begin evolving their marketing departments and those working in them. As I regularly tell our clients who work in marketing, they are increasingly in the content business. Creating content (and managing communities, etc.) requires very different skillsets than writing marketing briefs, reviewing ad copy and approving media plans.

Revolutionary change doesn’t happen overnight, particularly at large corporations. But change in 10% increments is a great starting point for the type of evolution that is necessary within marketing organizations.

Thanks to Facebook, I’m now like that friend that everyone has – the one that remembers everyone’s birthdays. Whenever I log into Facebook I get those oh-so-handy reminders of my xxx friends current and upcoming birthdays.

Even better, I can just write “Happy Birthday” on their wall and be done with this. No more feeling guilty about not buying a birthday card at the supermarket (not that I ever did that before, again, except for my significant other, mom, etc.).

But again, I know a lot of people who would send birthday cards to everyone (especially to all the kids in the family). Will there be any people like this in the future when millennials grow up?

That’s a fascinating question – one that will determine the future of an entire industry. While thinking about this, I did a search and came across an article about Hallmark and their bullishness in light of these big social media-driven changes. The article mentions that Hallmark is definitely incorporating technology into their business model, but paper greeting cards sales continue to be the biggest source of revenue for the company.

My take is two-fold:

1) the people who remember everyone’s birthdays and send cards to everyone will not go away (if anything, they’ll grow with tools like Facebook to help remind them of all their friends’ birthday) – their behavior simply evolve based on technology.

2) the greeting card “product” will need to evolve to remain relevant to new consumer behavior and modes of communication

Seems like a perfect opening for a new disruptive product/service to address the core value proposition / benefit derived from paper greeting cards.

If you haven’t heard, Twitter announced on Monday 4/12 that they will be rolling out their first paid advertising platform to begin monetizing their mammoth micromedia platform. The service is being called “Promoted Tweets”, and will initially be launched as promotional tweets that show up on Twitter.com search results. It’s the first step in a multi-stage roll-out, so there is definitely more to come, including the possibility of “Promoted Tweets” becoming a free tweet, as described by the NYTimes.com.

This is an exciting development to say the least. But don’t think that “Promoted Tweets” or whatever it evolves into will be the next Google AdWords. In fact, according to Augie Ray of Forrester, there are many risks associated with inapproriate use of paid Twitter ads, including public backlash against perceived “bully pulpit” tactics by brands.

Augie summarizes what this all means for the commercial use of Twitter by astutely noting that “this may be paid media, but it is a few drops of paid media in a sea of earned media.”

On the other hand, I think about the incredible complexity of the digital strategy world and the trend towards specialization and wonder if merging the Planner and Digital Strategist is feasible? For instance, with the rise of unique digital areas of specialty / expertise such as information architecture, user experience planning, analytics and social media, the role of digital strategist appears to to be too much of a simplification and generalist position out of sync with the rapid changes in digital communications?

What do you think?

Check it out here: http://www.thinkmulticultural.com/2009/11/05/twitter-land-grab/

David interviewed agency principal Jim Copacino, and one of his quotes was brilliant:

“The Burger King ‘Subservient Chicken’ phenomenon opened my eyes to the possibility and power of interactive digital communications. For me, it snapped everything into focus—technology, community, experience, engagement. The fact that it was a brilliant digital interpretation of the 30-year-old ‘Have It Your Way’ positioning vividly illustrated the difference between 20^th and 21^st century communications.”

As an agency that is always working with offline, traditional “lead” agencies that usually drive the positioning for our clients’ brands, we have consistently struggled to get those partners to understand how to interpret the brand positioning digitally – how to interpret and express the brand positioning leveraging technology, community, and experience with the goal of achieving that elusive goal of engagement.

Jim Copacino has simply and elegantly articulated the challenge and opportunity of digital communications, something that is organic to digital agencies, but unfortunately still very foreign to most traditional agencies.

The “difference between 20^th and 21^st century communications” – sage!

Jose Villa

The campaign, sponsored by L.A. County Department of Public Health, was almost a year in the making, and forced our agency to rethink everything we thought we knew about advertising and cause marketing.

I just published an article for MediaPost’s EngageTeens column on the approach that led to the creation of We’re Fed Up… you can read it here.

Jose Villa

I figured this would happen. Our industry, although no one would ever admit it, is all about following the leader and the latest cool new trend. In the case of agency Web sites, that cool new trend was started by Modernista’s uber-social Web site concept, and then solidified by Crispin Porter + Bogusky’s beta site. Now everyone is ditching Flash for a crazy WordPress template or a pimped out Twitter feed.

As my mom always used to say “todos los extremos son malos” / “all things in excess are bad.” I hope decision-makers and creatives at agencies around the world think about this before greenlighting their new Facebook Fan Page only Web site or Wikipedia sandbox site.

Remember to balance and prioritize all the things your Web site needs to do. Although showing off your social media chops might seem like the end-all-be-all right now, don’t forget that your Web site needs to give prospective clients, employees, etc. basic information about what you do, who you do it for, and where to send RFPs! Sometimes, a Ning social network is not the best vehicle to accomlish some of those very basic requirements.

Jose Villa