Marketing - new skill sets required? Editorial - lessons to learn?

In previous posts I've supported the claim that interruptive advertising is increasingly ineffective (and if anyone wants some solid evidence of how that translates online, come and check my google ad click-thru rates compared to the banners and buttons on the soon-to-be updated LRO.com).

I've also backed the idea that engagement marketing is the way ahead.

And that raises a number of questions, not least among them is the new skills marketeers will need, to be successful at engagement marketing.

And that's kind of where Communities Dominate Brands (see recommended blogs), leaves it.

But I think the lessons waiting to be learned in marketing can equally apply in editorial style and, in particular, tone.

I'll quote a bit of what CDB has to say about the shift in skill sets required in marketing, and see what you think - how much of it could also be applied to what we do/think/plan/deliver editorially?:

"A revolution in marketing skills

"What does it take to succeed in interruptive advertising? To be visible and heard, loud and eccentric, creative and brave, to crowd out the competition, gain attention of the audience - even annoy.
"This breeds an arrogance of "We know what is best, we won the awards, we have the training, we have the track record."
"This means many rogue marketeers break rules, live by their own rules, force their opinions upon others.
"What does it take to succeed in engagement marketing?
"To be humble, to listen, to empathise, to care, to be innovative, to be flexibile and adaptive, to live by other people's standards and rules. Subjecting one's own ego and ideas to the opinions and desires of the community: "They know best."
"To repeatedly readjust the existing and "own" ideas to the feedback of the community. My idea was not perfect, of course it should be revised again and again until my contribution disappears."
Communities Dominate Brands

YouTube - a whole new world of FREE classified ads?

Stumbled on this today:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fge5zJRzvO8
While loads of media and creative types have been tripping over themselves to create free video ads (or marketing of some kind or other) on YouTube, now we're starting to see video classified ads from what appear to be small time US car dealers.
Actually, on closer inspection a small media company looks like it's selling this service to the small car dealers. Smart.
Perhaps this is actually closer to user generated content extending to the ads now?

Pause for thought.

They are placing this ad in front of a focused (via search) market, for free.
They can show/tell you much more than he could in a £30 classified ad in his local paper or specialist mag.
It's been viewed 200 times in approx three weeks.
So, the big question is, what kind of response do they get. I've sent a message to see if he'll share. And if he does, I will.

Of course, if you know your way around html even slightly, it's long been possible to place a video ad on an eBay auction item. But it sure ain't free.

YouGov report on youth use of mobile phones

YouGov has done us the service of gathering loads of useful stuff about how kids are using phones all in one place: http://www.yougov.com/archives/pdf/CPW060101004_2.pdf?jID=2&aId=2174&sID=6&UID

Check out the emerging trends - yet more evidence of Generation C (see previous post, Sep 06) arriving in the UK before our very eyes - and how social networks are shifting to the mobile phone as a preferred platform (see alpha user vs target reader post, Sep 06)

Add your thoughts on it:

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Media companies. Engage with yourselves!

Interruptive advertising, of the kind we most graphically see on TV, but which also populate our magazines (and fill our coffers) is offering rapidly dwindling RoI for a whole host of reasons.
The most critical is that people are fed up with the tone, hype, bullshit of ads - and are collectively switching off from them.

That has a message for the way we present editorial copy too - but that's another story.

What I want to discuss here is the 'new engagement marketing tools' (and whether or not you think they are actually new or just new variations on old themes ain't that important) and how publishers have to strive to offer these to advertisers.

Engagement marketing tools
( listed by Communities Dominate Brands - see recommended blogs)
1. Entertainment, info-tainment, Edu-tainment initiatives
2. Information Service brands for edited choice*
3. Audience activation via SMS text messaging, IM etc
4. Participation in discussions threads via blos, chat etc
5. Gaming, including sponsored gaming and adver-games
6. Real time community information
7. Previews offered to the community
8. Embedded sponsorship rather than 'passive' sponsorship
9. Managing multiple communication channels to that each target member is reached by his/her preferred channel
10. Activate through influencers and 'Alpha Users' **
11. Good will through volunteer evangelists
12. Word of mouth, viral marketing and 'buzz' to promote.

*Good news for consumer channels?
** See blog entry on Alpha Users vs Target readers below.

And if we don't get cracking and establish an expertise and a lead in this stuff - is there a risk that advertisers will just bypass us and our channels - and do this stuff for themselves? Direct to communities they find or help build? Almost certainly.

So ask yourself, what is your company doing to focus (really focus, not just set up a ghetto) to move this forward? How are you placing engaging communities at centre stage?

And how are you engaging with your customers, users or even your own colleagues? If you can't crack the community thing within the company, are you really ready to go external with it?

Does your company have a blog where all its customers are welcome to contribute ideas?
Boeing does - it's getting them to design aeroplanes.
Ford does. They are creating evangelists from having good conversations with consumers.

Maybe all publishers should have a blog where your communities are invited to tell you what they actually want from you? CreateYourPerfectMag.blogspot.com or MyIdealMobileContent etc?

If a community can design an aircraft, perhaps we could trust them to have some great ideas about media content/direction?

Sorry, that's a bit long and lots of different ideas perhaps. Your comments, as always, welcome. Your contributions, likewise (see top of page).