Marketing Dept. Makeover: Digital Era Division - Michael Kassan - MediaBizBloggers

New research shows that people over 50 years of age are the fastest growing group on social media Almost half now regularly Book and tweet and otherwise get with the program circa right now just like the 1824s marketers so ardently electronically wooThere39s a caveat though Grams still uses email to reach out and ping someone Email is now old mediaamp8212in every sense of the wordThis must be some kind of digital tipping point because in 1998 the Los Angeles Times asked me to talk about new advertising opportunities and I remarked that my 75 yearold mom was sending me emails all day long If I didn39t answer her quickly enough I had cyber guiltthe new age version of Jewish guiltBut then I read a story in Ad Age about the Blackberry Torch launch and how ATampampT Apple Verizon and others are spending lavishly on advertising in the smart phone shooting war and I was struck by how offhandedly the writer described Apple as having quotdroppedquot TV and outdoor in the campaign mixThat one did require a rereading But the writer wasn39t saying that those two platforms were not being used In contextamp8212a paragraph that summed up the major players39 smart phone marketing effortsamp8212it was clear that the line meant just the opposite that the duo were conspicuous elements in Apple39s current advertisingIn other words the reporter chose a gamer industry term to describe the elements in a media campaignAnd you know what struck me most about both of these close encounters with constant change How unsurprised I was that seniors tweet and ad reporters use digitalage slang to describe a campaign39s media mixThese are little signposts we pass figuratively and literally every day to remind us that we can39t stop evolving or we39ll be left behind Overwhelm stalks us allquotCMOs often ask me 39do I really need to care about Twitter39 quotobserves my partner Wenda Harris Millard MediaLink president quotbut that39s a proxy for 39what should I care about and to what degree39 quotIn fact how to structure a marketing organization to meet objectives in a flat integrated world may be the single greatest challenge clients agencies and media companies face today more critical even than what kind of content they produce and which channels they choose I asked Wenda who advises our client partners on how to restructure successfully if there were any guidelines we could lean upon as David Ogilvy famously said about research for illumination rather than supportShe says there are indeed Three to be exact Make digital a part of not apart from everything you do Believe it or not many marketing organizations are still siloed with separate entities handling digital efforts But digital is not a strategy It is a part of the very fabric of everything we doYes some organizations have integrated digital throughout their operations or put digital executives at the helmamp8212even the 4A39s has done it But it should not be an option It must be an imperative for every organization in the industry whether agency client or media company There is no single solution The challenge to operating successfully in a digital ecosystem is universal meeting the challenge is different for every entity There is no checkthebox planFor marketers media companies or agencies the desire to change is not enough Evaluate what your asset base is what is primary for you where your revenue comes from what your culture is and your legacyShould you transform in a one two or threestep process How much talent should you bring in What do your people need to train for Some have the kind of culture that can turn on a dime Some have just the opposite Do only what the company can absorb Stay loose Tight organizational structures are a thing of the past You don39t know where the next Twitter will occuramp8212but you know it will Flexibility and agility are essentialThese may sound basic but we know from experience how hard they are to implement Harder even then translating the latest Ad Age campaign story or figuring out what to do with the Friend requests you39re getting from all of Grandpa39s buddies at the retirement homeMichael E Kassan is Chairman and CEO of MediaLink LLC a leading Los Angeles and New York Citybased advisory and business development firm that provides critical counsel and direction on issues of marketing advertising media entertainment and digital technology Michael can be reached at michaelmedialinkllccomRead all Michael39s MediaBizBloggers commentaries at Michael Kassan MediaBizBloggersCheck us out on Facebook at MediaBizBloggerscomFollow our Twitter updates MediaBizBlogger

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Marketing Dept. Makeover: Digital Era Division - Michael Kassan - MediaBizBloggers

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