Warning: this is quite a long post about marketing. If you’re interested, get a big cup of coffee and a comfortable seat
I was fortunate enough to be invited to the Scandinavian Interactive Media Event, SIME Helsinki for short. You can follow the real-time notes of the attendees in Twitter.While there was no streaming of it, I did take quite a few notes I’ll share with you below.
Introduction – Business as unusual (Ola Ahlvarsson)
- Evolution of digital from Windows 98 & Wolfenstein 3D to MacOS & blogs to… the Matrix 😉
- Facebook is the big opium of the people, growing faster than any web service ver.
- Google branching its business into physical, mobile
- Rise of apps
- Traditional media mixing with new platforms: BBC on the PS3
- Listening is more important than ever
- Vision-based augmented reality emerging as a trend
- Cloud computing
- Cheap iteration
- Easier access to international markets
- Internet of things: robotic internet
- Old industries (books, records) totally disrupted, but content is more alive than ever in the digital world
- Games going social (sharing gameplay clips an emerging activity)
- Branding is dead, or isn’t it? Originality more appreciated than ever.
- Owned, bought, earned media model intro.
- B2B going B2C
Measurement panel
- What to measure, what not to measure, how they combine: good discussion but inconclusive.
Voddler presentation:
- Free movies online.
- Disruption on three fronts: Business model, film industry, technology.
Rovio presentation
- Discussion of the Angry Birds case. Best sold app ever, growing to other platforms as well.
- Best quote of the whole conference:
Because we’re from Finland, we’re so good at branding and marketing.
Social Media panel
- Intra-organisation Social Media opportunities
- Forget tools (Facebook, Twitter), identify goals and practices first.
- Think which ecosystem you want to target: reach out where your audience is.
- Don’t lie, you can’t shine shit.
- Know how to engage your audience and channel the energy of your fans.
- Claim your space
Performance-based marketing
- Automatically retargeted banners.
- Relevance is king: ka-ching!
- Getting numbers are not a problem, making sense of them is.
Blocket (Tori.fi)
- Classifieds & Marketplaces
- Expanding globally by challenging Ebay. Growing also in Finland.
- Measurement based on community interaction.
- Relevance to community is king (again).
Contagious magazine trends
- Campaigns need to be useful, relevant or entertaining
- Entertaining: Durex campaign vs. Old Spice: one-time virals vs. engagement with the campaign reaction (responding to user suggestions)
- Useful: Carlsberg where’s the party. Find & Share.
- Useful: Best Buy customer care via Twitter. They archive the request for help for further reference.
- Relevant: Dentsu iButterfly (augmented reality coupons)
- Relevant: Ikea Facebook photo tagging
- Convergenc: Remember what you develop is for real people. Be brave and willing to make mistakes to learn from them.
Mobile marketing panel
- From ringtones to apps & video ads.
- Mobile CRM shall not equal spamming.
- Ingredients for mobile take off are there, ready to get going.
- Mobile gives timing and location to the relationship.
- Mobile is intimate.
Qualcomm innovations
- 5 billion wireless subscribers worldwide.
- 1 billion are 3G users, will be 2.8 billion by 2014.
- Chips developed on two dimensions: integration and/or size.
- New displays: reflective technology with low power consumption and great viewing.
- Health sensors: pulse, blood pressure, glucometre, ECG, temperature, posture.
- Visual-based augmented reality: games, toys, promotions.
Hitlantis
- 70% of teenagers would rather go without sex than music.
- Bring together music & lovers.
- New bands sign in, get listeners and fans.
Social media workshop
- Social media is a diffuse, container term
- Engaging with as many people as possible… really?
- Mass communication coming to an end.
- Quality, not quantity communications
- Number of communication messages everyday increasing times 10.
- Internalise social media practices in your organisation.
- Keep on developing, things never get out of beta.
- Participate, don’t just enable if possible.
- Sociology know-how important.
- Aggregate & summarize (widgets, RSS, etc)
- Package but allow unpackaging.
- Data is owned by users, make it portable.
- Absolute clarity for licenses and permissions is vital.
- Monetisation is possible & can be planned for: make it free first, charge for additional services later. Made me think of the growth of SMS in the Philippines.
- Segment product on different layers: Spotify basic vs. premium
- Presence / status update important, becomes social currency.
- The combination of social media and mobile has the potential of becoming very powerful, especially with its links to location (& even more, proximity).
- Recommendations for companies getting started:
- Start with content calendar.
- Basic listening tools (Tweetdeck, Google Alerts).
- Authenticity crucial: you have to be close to the essence of your brand/service proposition.
- Customer care can be a great way of getting started if you do a good job. Look at it as cost vs. opportunity.
- Don’t do external-facing communications if too stiff, but internal blogging/comms are also a great opportunity.
- Don’t experiment, commit to do it well.
Marketing communications workshop: From one-night stands to meaningful relationships in marketing
- The full talk from Hasan & Partners. Please make sure to check it first before reading the rest.
- Heineken Milan Champions League case: One night stand using earned & paid media
- Gatorade replay: Huge ROI, much more than a one night stand. Concept can be scaled up or down, and continue even if the brand is no longer behind it.
- Livestrong, Nike Chalkbout: Post-digital executions. It’s all about you (reminds me of that Time cover)
Wrap-up and Conclusions
- Change is not a choice, it’s a necessity.
- All marketing is performance based.
- Social media must be entertaining, useful and/or relevant.
- Finns can make world-beating services if their vision is big enough.
- E-health will be close to your heart 😉 .
- Innovation is definitely accelerating.
- Creativity in communication is more important than ever.
- The ones who can connect the dots will win!