The Art of Conversation: Building Great Brands in the Digital Age

We heard a great collection of diverse talent describe how they build great brands in today’s keynote session, moderated by Boyd Peterson, SVP Consumer Research, Yankee Group Research.

To begin, each panelist was given an opportunity to present a brief perspective.  Panelists included Robert Leverone,  VP Television, Dow Jones, Tor Myhren,  Executive Creative Director, EVP Leo Burnett Detroit, Marc Landsberg,  President, Arc Worldwide and Suzie Reider, Head of Advertising Sales, YouTube.com. 

Given the announcement this morning that Rupert Murdoch finally coughed up enough money to sway the Bancroft family to sell Dow Jones, it was fortunate having Robert Leverone on the panel.  Robert told us how he created the Dow Jones Digital Network, despite huge skepticism and shrill critiques from everyone else at Dow Jones.  This came off a little pretentious, but the integration and capabilities of the various Dow Jones sites presented a persuasive story and profitable case study.

I liked Tor Myhren’s choice of Pontiac as a GM case study “because they have the smallest budget.”  They’ve done some cool things over the years that were highly memorable, like give away cars on Oprah and used “The Apprentice” to create a brochure.  The yawning deficiency in his presentation came with what appeared to be an extravagant investment into the Second Life creation called “Motorati Island.”  The island features race tracks, discos, concerts and clothing stores to attract gear-heads.  It’s great to experiment, especially with client support, but the scope of this project seemed excessive without any mention of ROI.

Marc Landsberg asked how many in the audience had sent text messages since the session began and a fair number confessed, indicating a constantly connected culture.  Showing how to leverage that connectivity to sell, he presented the “Shrek Global Interactive Experience” as an example of “responsible youth marketing.”  The impressive animation and interactivity was not the most compelling component of this case study as the sales statistics for McDonald’s captured my attention even more.  The Shrek Happy Meal promotion proved it to be one of the best selling ideas in McDonald’s history.

Suzie Reider reminded us that YouTube is the 8th largest site in the U.S. today, where “hundreds of millions of videos are viewed everyday.”  Since many of the videos that appear on YouTube are actually brand advertising (like Pontiac), Suzie explained that we are closer to a “conversation” between consumer and brand than we know.  I’m skeptical.  The #1 video being watched on YouTube today is “Wedding crashed by idiot rebelling for Mom,” so it’s difficult for me to believe that Youtubers are ever going to buy Pontiacs after watching TV commercials posted there (one had 4,709 views which is poor for Youtube but more than I expected). 

At this point, Boyd asked the question required by the name of this session, “Do consumers really want to have conversations with brands?” Tor Myhren responded well with “If you asked 100 consumers if they wanted to have a conversation with their brands, 100 of them would say no.  They just want to be entertained.” This is what we all know is true, but have a very hard time executing.  Marc Landsberg offered great advice to any marketer aspiring to create a social network experience for their customers, “Before you consider adopting social media, go to http://del.icio.us/  or http://www.digg.com/ or http://www.tagworld.com/ and experience what it’s like to blog and create content because you can’t really do it unless you understand it.”  Amen.

Maybe consumers will say no if they are asked whether they want to have a conversation with their brands. However, they actually do have a good conversation with their brands when they are entertained.

By baGGirl on 2008 10 27

I would like to thank you for sharing your thoughts. You have given lot of good new messages,it was a good read

By Rathna on 2008 10 29

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