Same old shit
Evidence, if evidence were needed, of the unassuming arrogance of the self-proclaimed ‘mainstream’ media can be found in an article published today. Take five minutes, read and then whiz back and we’ll mull over a few things.
OK? Good.
Setting aside the fact that this entire article is an excuse to advertise the Blogging4Business conference and that the conference itself is probably three years too late we are left with a number of claims that are just delicious.
The first (and favourite) quote comes from Matthew Yeomans:
“Even the mainstream media is having trouble keeping up with what is going on, so what chance does a corporate communications officer in a FTSE 100 or FTSE 250 company or an account director at a marketing services or PR agency have?”
What chance indeed? How can someone whose sole responsibility it is to gauge and oversee communication strategy possibly know more than the mainstream media? It seems incredible but thankfully Mr Yeomans is at hand to shut the stable door for us. And we have Anthony Mayfield who pipes up with the startling claim that:
“Everything is changing about how media works…”.
Amazing. This “media” thing must have been a static entity up until now. And the well of thought does not dry up there either:
“What living in an online world is all about is living in networks. I do not mean MySpace but living within networks of inter-related sites…”.
Networks eh? Gosh. That sounds impressive and a bit technical. Maybe I should hire an agency to consult on how to navigate networks. Thank god that Mr Mayfield’s agency is on hand to provide such a tool because only last week they launched a tool to track brands across these networks. Google are no doubt wishing they’d thought of the idea first.
Another quote for us to enjoy (Mr Mayfield is on a roll in this article – give him some Google points):
“People have built their entire careers on assumptions and learned models and strategies that have been successful and now the fundamentals of how it all works – how content is created and distributed – has changed and we are living through a revolution,” said Mr Mayfield. “I don’t think there is any hyperbole in that.”
That’s right. There is no hyperbole if we can ignore the meaning of the word. “Revolution”? Please. Since when has word of mouth (sorry, networks) been a revolutionary idea? This must surely be a sign of what could happen if schools were to stop teaching history.
The author feels the need to pull in some heavyweights now just in case the steaming opinions so far have not managed to choke the reader. Step to the front Mr Elliott from Jupiter Research who tells us:
“If you have a crap product it is a lot harder.”
Well. Jot that one down.
The answers to the ‘challenge’ of this “revolution” are a little mundane. The people behind the publicity for Spiderman 3 allow people to post the trailers on their own sites. At first I thought I’d read that people could create their own trailers but no, just embed the trailers on their pages. That’s novel.
At least Jupiter’s Mr Elliott tells us that:
“Creative use of social networks for brands and products that are good is relatively straightforward.”
Obviously. And hence the highlighting of the difficulties faced by crap products.
So, to sum up. Word of mouth and a clearly defined message is as important in the “new” world of online media as it was when you were hoping people would travel for miles to get to your market. If you have a good product, people will buy it and spread the word. If you have a crap product then people won’t buy it unless you manage to be really creative and convince them otherwise. In this new and revolutionary world we could coin a term: “selling ice to eskimos”. Oh, wait, no. That one is donkey’s years old.
