well folks this morning i attended an excellent marketing institute breakfast. the food was good but the speaker was significantly better – Justin Milne of bigpond fame delivered an excellent lecture on departure points that we are currently experiencing and will continue to experience and their impacts on us ‘umble marketers.
the 3 drivers of these departure points according to Justin are
1. The G.E.C. or as our illustrious leader the Ruddman would say – the recession – and a big harrumph to him
2. climate
3. technology/media
now i was taking notes , the inner geek in me explained in full right there and then, and i can tell you i have half a page on the GEC and climate and 5 pages on technology /media. which, suited me fine, i love that area and its clearly a friend of Justin’s too.
The GEC was producing the departure point of greater government input into the economy and infrastructure and it was noted the very minor quip he had at the govt for its broadband initiative.. he finished this section with a comment that he believes it will be a many years before we see a long boom again.
climate was dealt with in that we are all considering the ECO issue with our actions. we will not change dramatically because lets face it the earth will not blow up tomorrow if we do nothing today and we are probably not going to be around to face the heat when it gets worse, both metaphorically and actually. however, we are exhibiting signals that we will pay a premium for what appears to be a greener option and that we are overall consuming less. recycling is in as are vege patches in the backyard and not to mention one of my faves, the rebirth of the community farms.
technology, as i said got a fair hearing. kicking off with an excel;lent video clip that produced so many ridiculously large stats about the world today vs 20 years ago, etc… that my apathetic neuron kinda went yeah, that’s big but i’m a bit over it. the saviour to the clip was the awesome fat boy slim audio track. i reckon that we could send him to the middle east to smooth things over with a mixing deck. anyways, i digress…
Justin touched on the newspapers and how they are crumbling. it was not the same old paper bashing though and i must admit to really enjoying this part ion particular. there was a bit of bigpond shout out happening but not too much. and lets face it the stats of bigpond being ten times the nearest competitor in the provision of news to mobile phones is impressive and surely denotes a paradigm shift. free to air networks copped it between the eyes especially with the super fast broadband that is just around the corner now – times 2 with both telstra and the govt playing. ahh brinkmanship, telstra really had a Khrushchev moment on this one and the govt has come out smelling like those handsome Kennedy folk!
this was the point where he started to hone in on the ramifications for marketers. when tv’s can as easily broadcast Internet delivered video and tv as they can traditional tv (and all the major manufacturers have nearly got there) you start to compare real time feedback on Internet delivered adverts vs traditional tv adverts, with the ability to change the message based on the immediate response and it becomes pretty clear where the marketing dollar is heading. but. how ,many marketers are bona fide experts on the Internet advertising, the seo the sem the google adwords, etc… not many could really lay claim to being a true expert. and the reason why is the speed of change in this area. hells bells as a humble retailer with our shop in hawthorn i see things change regularly in our adwords account. i’m not knocking it, i love change and new stuff. it just means more resources are required to keep up and marketers need to keep up.
we then got into a reasonably long discourse on mobile phone adverts and to be honest, i understand that its gunna be huge at some point, but it didn’t really excite me that much as it is so small right now and the multitude of handsets are such a killer and the operating systems and the … you with me?
anyways the bottom line is that the advertisers are continually becoming more selective. there expectations are expanding exponentially, with life in general. they want to know about social media and all these buzz subjects. but. make sure you’re an expert because you feed them a half truth and you can be guaranteed that the advertiser will bounce it off their son or niece and realise the folly of your ways. so. blast from the past. the key to all these changes is maintain your authenticity. play to your strengths. if you don’t know something, then point them to the answer elsewhere. never before are our recommendations and assertions so open to scrutiny and undermining.
transparency folks. this is what i do and i do it bloody well. and, here are people that can help you with all the stuff that falls outside that category.
so for all the evolution and exponential growth, the bottom-line seems to be more of the same bit keep on learning. if you are not a learner with a voracious appetite, take a ticket and the next train to nowheresville will be here soon.
it truly was a great presentation and from the conversations it sparked around me it hit a chord. well done Justin and well done marketing institute. i look forward to the next brekkie with eager anticipation.
AS AN ADDENDUM TO THIS POST – I now have the full discussion paper from Justin’s presentation and would be happy to share it with you – email me at michael@adoncar.com.au
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