The Cliff and the Cloud - Michael Kassan

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In Washington, politicians have been fighting—mostly with each other, unfortunately—to keep all of us from falling off a fiscal cliff.

It's a pivotal moment in which two very different views of what is best for the long-term growth of the country have collided, and the ultimate result—which we have only now begun to glimpse—will most likely be a compromise born of uncertainty, the most dangerous compromise of all.

In marketing and media, however, the reverse is (fortunately) true. We aren't poised to fall off a cliff but rather to ascend into the cloud. Like any technological advance, the cloud—now essentially a synonym for the Internet—offers both promise and peril. But there is a qualitative difference to this latest digital transformation.

As we gather this week in Las Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show, the technology that "wows" will be an equal mix of hardware and software. Only a few years ago, memory used to be a metric of primary concern – now it is data streaming speeds. The action now, then, is shifting away from devices and towards services.

Cloud-based consumption has created an untethered world in which consumers can do anything anywhere at any time on any device. But so can marketers. They can and are using the cloud to gather information they can leverage. And activate.

Every marketing decision, after all, is based on an insight, sometimes several insights. But the realities of accumulating and analyzing data make the search for insight a costly and often frustrating slog. No matter what the data is or how much of it exists – just like political negotiations in Washington – some compromise due to uncertainty is required.

But in the cloud, art and science do not conflict, they co-mingle. Creativity is liberated in a powerful new way.

And the cloud is not just about a campaign. It's about re-thinking how we do business and where we deploy resources.

That's why at CES this year, the Brand Matters Keynote is titled "Marketing in the Cloud" and features a fireside chat with Marc Benioff, Chairman and CEO of Salesforce.com, as well as a panel featuring top executives from the world's biggest brands including American Express, AT&T, The Coca Cola Company, and Unilever.

We'll be discussing how the cloud allows both a technological and an organizational shift towards innovation and, as many functions are outsourced, in-house resources are freed to explore, experiment, and innovate.

And isn't that, after all, the true promise of a digital ecosystem?

Endless opportunities to create new ways of interacting, communicating, living and working.

An environment where collaboration trumps compromise.

For more information on the Brand Matters Keynote at CES

Date: Wednesday, January 9th

Time: 11 a.m.

Location: Las Vegas Hilton

Moderated by Michael Kassan of MediaLink, the Brand Matters Keynote focuses on "Marketing in the Cloud". Kicking off with a fireside chat featuring Marc Benioff, CEO of salesforce.com, the session will then feature a panel discussion featuring top marketers from the world's biggest brands including American Express, AT&T, The Coca Cola Company, and Unilever .

About Brand Matters

MediaLink has partnered with the Consumer Electronics Association to develop, Brand Matters, a new program for the 2013 International CES. Designed to provide the marketing and advertising community a customized CES experience, Brand Matters provides essential insights into the changing technologies, platforms, and touch points that will be critical to the future of advertising and media.

This program will allow executives to navigate the most influential technology, and now media, trade show in the world through exhibits, conference sessions and events critical to the media, marketing and advertising communities. Brand Matters is an event bringing together the communicators and innovators who are changing technology and reshaping the world of brand marketing.

Your consumers are already here. And now, so are you.…

Michael E. Kassan is Chairman and CEO of MediaLink, LLC, a leading Los Angeles and New York City-based 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 michael@medialinkllc.com

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