bring on the dancing horses

If only 'twere so simple. Old marketing tactics dressed up with the social tools of the web and hey presto - the siver bullet, the best of both worlds.

Short-termist tacky promotions via Facebook and Twitter - not unlike those furniture stores in constant 'sale' mode - courting any old eyeballs, are almost like the new pop-up ads, a ubiquitous numbers game with shiny objects to boost fan numbers, followers and anyone who is up for a freebie/discount.

The real value in interactions with customers is using every touchpoint as opportunity to build and sustain loyalty, not just bribery, manipulation or making a quick hit sale.

So bring on the social media gimmicks - the dancing horses -but are they headless and all alone?

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how to get ahead in social media marketing in one simple step

I'm sure you've been there, sat in some 'what is social media?' presentation and the 'expert' starts with; either the one that goes 'if facebook was a country, blah blah...'
or 'hands up who's on [insert your social tool of choice here].

That's enough now, please.

My heart sinks when faced with 124 slides of examples of this or that social media campaign (90% of which are usually trad gimmickery in shiny object clothing, anyway).

For some reason it seems to be the media agencies that are particulary adept at this...

The time has come to start start setting examples rather than looking at examples*.

And, I'm compelled to say, this talk of the 'future of advertising' is another cop out.
By talking about the future that just gives the lazy and risk averse another reason to not start yet.

I'm more interested in the right now of advertising, we're not on the cusp of anything we're smack bang in the middle.

Let's not see what happens, let's make stuff happen.

*Thanks to Umair Haque who's off the cuff remark I'm adopting as a mantra.

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mott the hoople syndrome

Older readers may remember the mighty Mott. Emerging in the late 60's with a power r'n'b style and later morphing into bovver glamsters under the mentorage of one David Bowie esquire, Mott faded somewhat around '73/'74 in an unfortunate tangle of cliche and gratuitous self-reflexivity.

This gave it's name to, a condition known as Mott The Hoople Syndrome.

The syndrome described the point when the subject of Mott's oeuvre became simply that of being in Mott The Hoople.

Sadly this also equates to the bulk of what we see in the postmodern advertising space.
Brands talking about themselves, and to themselves.

Like the Bette Midler character in Beaches.

'That's enough about me...let's talk about you.
What do YOU think about me?'

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gimmix

A prospective client revealed to me in a discussion recently how a Facebook promotion they had run was an astounding success.

The promotion had managed to gather 10,000+ email addresses of people who expressed an interest in winning a FREE [product X], thus proving that social media marketing really 'works'.

What this marketer seems to have disregarded is that I could have walked up and down Oxford Street for a few hours with a sandwich board saying 'Get a FREE thing' and probably have gathered the same amount of data for a fraction of the cost.

Is there really that much value in collecting thousands of email addresses of opportunists who just want free stuff?

Sadly, this is becoming the benchmark for much 'social media' marketing.

The same old, same old gimmicky stuff trying to capture momentary attention of non-customers in order to pour those eyeballs into the top of the funnel and see what trickles out the other end.

Money and time that could be much better spent offering rewards to ACTUAL customers and convert them from passively loyal potential switchers into fans and evangelists.

Gimmix. Cushions that fart.

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