SXSW Report

Panel: Melissa Fallon – Davie Brown Entertainment, Chris Hanada – Retrofit Films, Milo Ventimiglia – DiVide Pictures, Wilson Cleveland – CJP Digital Media, Andrew Hampp – Ad Age

Media is increasingly fragmented and more and more people are turning to the web to get both information and entertainment.  One of the panelists noted that even TV executives mentioned that their kids don’t watch TV anymore, but instead view shows on the web.  Many brands are moving some money over to digital, particularly for online video.  However, the perception is that digital is cheap.  While many are willing to “work with what you’ve got” you can certainly do better work with better budgets.  The challenge with getting those budgets is is that there are few examples out there and many still think in terms of traditional media measurement.

“”Big brands tend to say, ‘give me something that’s never been done before… but I want you to give me examples of how it has successful in other places’,” said Melissa Fallon of Davie Brown Entertainment.

Since paid media is, paid, you are guaranteed eyeballs, but that’s not something that online video can deliver.  The real challenge is distribution and syndication.  Partner with your existing fan networks to let them share your message.  For example, a video series for IKEA was successful by getting the top 10 IKEA fan blogs to post and promote the online episodes (the blog that directed the most traffic got a spot in the season finale).  People aren’t going to seek out your show, you have to go to where they are and put it in the channels where they are.  However, you can also use paid media effectively to cross promote your web videos.

What is most effective is when you can pair a brand with a creative way to tell a story online.  Good content is good content, whether its on the web or on TV – content really is king.  The challenge is really determining what your brand is about and then finding a compelling way to tell that story.  In a way, Chief Marketing Officers need to be like producers and movie studio execs – they’re investing in something that they want to make sure it is successful.  Especially as brands begin building their own content – which is necessary, because no one understands their business or industry better than they do, and they should make sure their brand sentiment is the one that people see.

The challenge for big brands moving forward is that online video and storytelling is now accessible to anyone.  A small brand or unknown player in your industry has the same (if not easier access to) things like YouTube and other social media outlets – and if they’ve got a compelling story, they’ll get the recognition and set the bar in your industry.  For example, “The Temp Life” is a web series created in 2006 for Spherion.  Their challenge was they had trouble building loyalty among their temps.  Therefore, the webisodes highlight that the brand knows the jobs aren’t always great, but we can empathize with you.

Finally, big name talent has started to play in the online video and social media space.  The key is getting them involved and engaged with your story or project.  Right now, it’s not necessarily about the money for them, it’s about collaboration.  They’re doing it because it’s fun, its different, and they feel like they can be part of the creative process.  When a big name brand is attached, the actors also feel more comfortable that it’s not completely going to flop – there’s money and credibility behind it.

Discussion lead: Zachary Jean Paradis, from Sapient

Despite the complex title, it was really about the challenges of making sure your marketing message is consistent across a lot of different media outlets. The primary challenges involved “traditional” organization structures which focus on siloed bits of information or roles. Even with the best communication, it is quite a struggle to get these messages spread from the top-down. Adding to the challenge are the use of multiple agencies and multiple countries/locations.

In the realm of changing organization structure, someone from Walmart mentioned that they had recently combined all of their e-commerce efforts under a “global e-commerce” area to ensure they were consistent. Several groups talked about fluid environments – involving folks from many different areas – and creating “execution teams” or groups charged with implementing a particular campaign/messaging effort. These groups are incentivised based on their success at accomplishing a common goal, which, in theory, creates a multi-channel effort. While focusing on the overall success of the communications goal, it is still tremendously important to focus on channel revenue attribution (a fancy way of saying, “take a look at how much each media contributes to sales”). By doing this, you’ll be able to track how successful each channel is and provide the best ROI for your efforts. It’s important to keep the customer service/front line folks in the loop, as they’ll be key to letting you know what is really working – even helping to measure by asking the simple, “how did you hear about us,” or “what made you call.”

There were several groups – both on the agency side and the brand side – which talked a trend toward “customer experience” consultants.  Folks from Mother and Naked Communications,talked about a focus on understanding the needs of the customer and delivering a story and promise no matter what form this may take.  Someone from USAA reinforced this point, stating that they didn’t set forth to build the first iPhone app that lets customers deposit checks simply by taking a picture of it, but it came out of ideas to make the customer experience easier (How do they let military men/women who move around alot and may have limited access to the internet while on duty do business easier/better).  Brands need to closely monitor customer needs and deliver on their brand promise.  New tools, like Twitter, Yelp, etc. make it easier to find our what their frustrations are and where your brand may not be delivering consistently on its promise.

Finally, there’s a fine line between delivering your message across multiple channels and “spam.”  Be sure you’re not saturating the market with your message.