IanSchafer.com

Is The Future of Media F#cked?

I'm getting progressively more excited about my panel with Rob Norman (CEO, Group M), Nick Denton (Gawker), and Joe Marchese (Social Vibe) tomorrow evening at 6:30 (details here).

I realized that all of my thoughts on the media business can be summed up in one clip. Watch it. And let your mind be blown.

It's Time For Social Media Week. Are You Ready?

This morning I participated in the official press conference to kick off Social Media Week worldwide. I was joined by Paley Center for Media's Chief Operating Officer Christy Carpenter; Pip Marquez de la Plata, chief marketing officer of Meebo; Frank Cooper, PepsiCo's chief engagement officer.

Video of the event is available here (I show up about 29 minutes in):

Watch live streaming video from smw_newyork at livestream.com

And if you just want to read what I spoke, well, here you go:

As far many areconcerned, “social media” isn’t a medium. It’s a term that represents the increased connectivity that we share as humans not just to information, to brands, or to experiences, but to each other. It has brought us closer to the world around us, and made our local connections more meaningful. It is forcing governments to listen to their people once again, and forcing businesses to remember that they have customers with voices that can make more rational, informed decisions. It has raised expectations across the board, and now we’ve got to use our connected consciousness - and consciences - to live up to them.

The importance of these connections is what led me to found Deep Focus eight years ago, and in that time, we have evolved - and evolved with - media, naturally placing more of an emphasis on social interaction. As a business, we are undergoing a renaissance of sorts, where ongoing planning and real-time thinking has become more important - more valued - because so much of what drives a consumer’s purchase decision has spiraled so far out of marketers’ control. These decisions are now happening because of conversations - not just commercials. For brands, the depth of social interaction is just as important as the breadth of the reach and frequency of ad impressions. And we believe that delivering that depth of engagement - at scale - is not only the future of marketing services, but also the future of marketing. The future of marketing will be discussed throughout this week. Social Media Week.

The aim of Social Media Week is to draw attention to disruptive phenomena. It’s an opportunity for publishers, agencies, consumers, students, humans around the world to connect around the issues and technologies that are affecting a media and content landscape undergoing its biggest and most rapid evolution in its history. And while there has been a lot of fallout as a result, new, exciting opportunities are emerging that can enrich real lives, create real jobs, and live at the core of new, real business models. Great things happen when we organize, and the organization of this year’s Social Media Week will yield important thinking that improves the understanding of the changing environment around us.

I’m proud to be serving on Social Media Week’s Advisory Board, and of my team at Deep Focus for being an important part of various events throughout the week including the organization of an event on Thursday evening debating the possible life, death, or metamorphosis of the media business, as we know it. I’m looking forward to a week full of stimulating conversation, networking, and visions of the future. And the parties. Definitely the parties. Thank you.

And if you want to see me in person this week, here's where I'll be:

Apple Takeover of Wired.com

via vimeo.com

In case you missed it, Apple did a very cool takeover of Wired.com. It comes very close to overdoing it, but stops just short. It's an ad that makes you want to hit "replay". In fact, I did.

Death to the CPM?

In a guest post to TechCrunch, Shelby Bonnie, former CNET CEO, current WhiskeyMedia CEO, and all-around great guy talked about the end of the CPM:

OK, Advertising Week just ended… does anyone else feel like the online advertising industry is the orchestra, playing on while the Titanic is sinking? We have a problem, folks. And I, for one, think we should start to fix it by killing off the CPM, once and for all. I have been in the Internet media space for 16 years and will start by stating the obvious: The CPM has done more to stunt innovation and drag down quality products than any single thing on the Internet. Maybe it works in other mediums, but it sure as hell doesn’t work on the Internet. Having been both a small and big publisher (now small again), it’s been my experience that the collective focus on CPMs and counting eyeballs by marketers, agencies, and publishers has led to a whole mess of unintended consequences that have produced a series of “solutions” that work for none of those parties. And perhaps more importantly, it’s been terrible for users.

Click here for the rest of the blog post.

via TechCrunch

I couldn't agree with Shelby more. Unless you're talking about pure awareness driving, and you assume the display of an impression is actually doing something, why should we continue to buy using that as a measure of efficiency or effectiveness? If what we're trying to do with our digital advertising is engage -- and that's a big if (not seeing it happen enough) -- why wouldn't we buy based upon that efficiency?

I think the simple answer is that we're not holding ourselves accountable for engagement, and marketers aren't seeing that as the goal of their online advertising. That's near-sightedness, and a lack of understanding of where our place is in the decision funnel. Until we've got that understanding, we're going to be chasing impressions, rather than effect. Engagement (with brands, and with each other) is what drives people closer to a decision -- why not make that a goal of your ad spend? Treat engagement (you define what that means to you) as a key performance indicator, and you'll be closer to your marketing objectives than ever before.

Giving Media the Second Degree

Something I've been thinking a lot about lately is that the practice of interactive media planning and buying for brands, or rather, planning/buying with a goal of 'branding' (which would include lifting awareness/intent, shifting perceptions, etc.), has changed forever. The problem is, many marketers have not.

All of us that were trained to buy interactive media were trained to buy its first degree -- that is, an impression that was meant to be displayed to a consumer, whose goal it was to get that consumer to interact with it. It's the way traditional media did it, and the way interactive advertising began. As media planners and buyers, our branding goals were simple; deliver as many impressions to the right people as possible, lift awareness and intent (usually measured through some sort of panel-based branding study), and attain a higher-than-average clickthrough/interaction rate. It was enough to keep our bosses happy, and our jobs safe.

But the world is different now.

Historically, publications and TV programming, have come and gone. But consumers' consumption of it either remained the same, or increased. It was always a question of more, or less. As planners and buyers of this kind of media, we found the right impressions, and bought them, plain and simple. Then, the creative agency filled those impressions up with the right message delivered in the right way. There was only one degree of interaction with the consumer -- advertiser to eyeballs. And media buyers purchased that first degree.

But something happened with this internet thing. It's become as much of a platform as it was a content channel. It's as much of a communications medium as it is a creator of ad inventory. The depth of engagement has become as important as the breadth of reach.

We all know that social media, and more specifically, social networking, and even more specifically, Facebook and MySpace, have changed consumers. And consumers have changed the way they use digital media -- and the way they communicate. As marketers, we are learning that what gets said by consumers about our brands is as important as what we tell them. And with social media planning and buying, we know our goal now needs to be giving those consumers the tools, information, channels, and messaging that they need to form their own opinions (hopefully positive ones).

Because of this, it has become impossible to separate social media planning and buying from the creative process, and both from the technology and communications processes. Each moves so quickly, with so much velocity, so close to one another, that differentiation is often futile. And when done right, it doesn't take the form of binary (displayed or not displayed) impressions, but rather, conduits that facilitate interaction between people -- at a greater scale and around a particular piece of content or messaging that a simple on/off ad can not do. It's that second degree, the interaction between people, that social media planning should be influencing. Sure, it's possible can be done with typical display advertising, but more likely, it's a combination of creative, technology, placement, and communications being applied in a seamless way that presents a seamless experience to the consumer -- all driven by giving that consumer a reason to connect with someone else.

And I dare you to separate the creative from the technology from the communications strategy from the media and still make that happen consistently.

This medium changed everything.

**UPDATE**

And right on cue, The Financial Times published an article called 'Social networks threaten advertising growth' that basically echo my sentiments. Read it here.

Social Media for Social Good at the Ad Council.

I spoke today at the Ad Council's Partner Conference, where many of the causes the Ad Council supports get together to discuss the burning issues around raising awareness of their very important initiatives.

At this event, the focus was squarely, 100% on social media, and understandably so.

In doing my part to set the table for the day's discussion, I gave the following presentation where I talked about some significant research findings, best practices, and case studies including our recent major effort with the Ad Council, SHARE YOUR VOICE.

Enjoy!

Social Media for Social Good

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: social media)

Watch My Panel on The Self-Serve Revolution @ MIXX.

Curious as to what I said on my panel on the future of self-service and automation in online media?

Consider your curiosity a think of the past. This is actually an interesting topic, that could make for an interesting debate -- not just a panel.

Here's the panel, in it's entirety. Agree with my points? Disagree? Let me know in the comments...

Deep Focus Partners with The Ad Council to Launch the Exponential Action Network.

What you see above is one of the first widgets deployed as part of the Exponential Action Network, a major social media initiative we created in partnership with the Ad Council.

When we were invited to work with the Ad Council we were flattered, and inspired.

We wanted to reimagine the Ad Council in today's era. For decades, the Ad Council worked because of donated media by cable and broadcast networks. But what if the Ad Council was rebooted today? We live in a world where people aren't just consuming media -- they are creating media. And if media were people-powered (like so much of the web is) we could create a whole new distribution and interaction mechanism for PSAs and their associated causes.

But wait, there's more. What if people that were donating their own media could actually see how much of an impact their advocacy had on others? And what if we got millions and millions of impressions donated by the likes of Facebook, MySpace, imeem, Netvibes, Clearspring and others to promote it?

Thus, the Exponential Action Network was born.

Check out the press release here -- it pretty much says it all.

We're proud to be doing good, and we're proud to be working with the Ad Council. Support a cause and share your voice today!

Watch My Panel on Branded Experiences in Social Networks.

From the Social Ad Summit last week in NYC, watch this fascinating (yes, 'twas) panel on Branded Experiences in Social Networks, featuring:

Me
Don Steele, MTVN
Scott Monty, Ford
Deborah Korb, JP Morgan

There's some great insight here into what brands think of branded experiences in a social networking environment, what they're spending, and how they're spending it -- now, and in the future.

Live at NY Television and Film Festival.

Paul Kontonis @ For Your Imagination blogs it best:

It's real, it's live and its all on the line at the NYTVF's "Creativity Live" mass participatory brainstorm on Tuesday, September 16 at 2:30pm at the New World Stages in NYC. Bringing together the sharpest and most creative minds in digital media - Toby Daniels from MintDigital, Paul Kontonis from For Your Imagination and Ian Schafer from Deep Focus -  with a 150 strong audience, all will be given just one hour to develop three cross-platform entertainment concepts. Can it be done? After the event people will be able to go to the NYTVF website, where they can vote on the ideas they would like to see taken forward. This promises to be a really exciting event. See you there!

This should be LOTS of fun, so if you'll be at the NYTVF, check it out!