OnlineSpin: Agencies Head To The Big Easy To Face Hard Topics

Last week Joe wrote "I'm Sold On Engagement." Rick Lavoie wrote in response, "Hey, Joe, you pose an important question. I don't think we can make our decision-making clients agree to an engagement metric unless it includes the potential for a 2-way dialog. The near future of online engagement will include conversational marketing and tracking platforms to an increasing degree and less digital advertising which is basically 1 way traditional advertising. The alternative, somewhat effective option is simple interactive engagements. I agree with you about what you said on clicks and impressions. Those days are numbered. We need to be spending our time planning, creating, and building real Conversational Marketing platforms and metric."

Tuesday, March 3, 2009 Agencies Head To The Big Easy To Face Hard Topics By Joe Marchese What is the future of the advertising agency model? The crisis that agencies face is coming to a climax, with an advertising industry beset by a global economic recession, combined with a sea change in the way media, and therefore marketing, reaches people. It is with this backdrop that industry executives head to New Orleans to discuss key issues and share ideas at the American Association of Advertising Agencies' Media Conference.    Even if you can't get to New Orleans, the topics discussed will likely hit close to home if you are reading this column. Panels at this year's 4A's include "Measuring the REAL Value of Internet Media" (1); "New Business Models and Monetization of Marketing Service Agency Ideas & Work" (2); and "Developing Ideas for the New Patterns of Media Consumption: The Creative View" (3); among many other key discussions. I will be participating on a panel near and dear to my heart on the final day, "Can Social Marketing Be Monetized Without Screwing Up the Consumer Experience?"(4) - which will be moderated by Josh Bernoff, of Forrester Research and "Groundswell" fame. The fact that I numbered each panel will be explained shortly, I promise. It is important to consider how interdependent all of the major themes listed above are. For example, social marketing not "screwing up" people's social media experience (4), will be highly dependent on developing creative ideas that work for new media (3). Successful new business models for agencies (2) will be determined by agencies' ability to get marketers into the social media landscape, both through great creative and integrated social media efforts (3+4). And it will be impossible to monetize social marketing (4), allocate resources for new media creative (3) or build agency business models that work (2), if marketers can't effectively measure the REAL value of Internet media (1). Meet Joe Marchese at OMMA Global! Joe Marchese will be there moderating a panel on Social Scramble: Who Will Lead Clients to Their Social Future? on March 24 at 2:30 PM. Top executives will be there. Will you? Register today and save. While it always helps to break challenges down to manageable chunks, it can sometimes help to think about how they fit into the bigger picture. When creatives know how their assets will impact media-buying efforts -- and both know how creative and media roles will evolve in the new media world to create sustainable business model -- it allows people to be proactive. No matter which area you operate in, understanding how things are changing overall will make you a better partner, client or employee. I'll be keeping everyone up to date with the best insights from the 4As conference in New Orleans on Twitter www.twitter.com/joemarchese. Leave your thoughts and comments here, or @ me on twitter so I can ask about the issue you care about while at the conference. Post your response to the public Online SPIN blog. See what others are saying on the Online SPIN blog. Joe Marchese is President of socialvibe. Online Spin for Tuesday, March 3, 2009: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=101389

You are receiving this newsletter at brian.bobo@gmail.com as part of your free membership with MediaPost. If this issue was forwarded to you and you would like to begin receiving a copy of your own, please visit our site - www.mediapost.com - and click on [subscribe] in the e-newsletter box. For advertising opportunities see our online media kit. If you'd rather not receive this newsletter in the future click here. We welcome and appreciate forwarding of our newsletters in their entirety or in part with proper attribution. (c) 2009 MediaPost Communications, 1140 Broadway, 4th Floor, New York, NY 10001