*Presidential Campaigns Guide Businesses in Terms of New Media: The 2008 presidential campaign serves as the harbinger of change in marketing strategies and the use of new
media, as well as understanding how social networking can be adapted for building, marketing and, in some cases, defending a brand, according to a new paper from Deloitte
Consulting LLP. The paper's authors, David Smith and Rob Underwood, offer these insights for companies to consider based on the campaign to-date:
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You've lost control of the message. Your carefully crafted commercials, news releases and Web sites are fair game for revisionists. Engage these new media influencers
by categorizing their blogs, social networking sites and chat rooms as advocates, neutrals or hostiles. Nurture advocates with useful information while taking action to move
neutrals in a positive direction. Consider creating your own revisionist acts. Creativity counts and can win points.
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For better or worse, YouTube is egalitarian. No matter how much you spend on production, there's no guarantee your YouTube ad will be any more popular than other videos
that address your brand. Slick and professional are not the hallmark of most popular YouTube videos. Before using YouTube as an advertising medium directly, consider if someone
else is already doing a more effective and catchy job.
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Not responding is no longer an option. Attacks cannot be ignored. The campaign has shown what happens when a group is slow to respond or fails to retaliate at all--the
attacker wins the day. New media has greatly expanded the sources of threats and the speed at which attacks spread.
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Your organizational structure may be an impediment. Upend a monolithic marketing organization and replace it with smaller units to enhance market-sensing capabilities and
nurture instincts. Create the ability to act and react faster. Re-define the notion of "smart hires" based on the new structure, and build teams that balance mature experience
with youthful new-media instincts to achieve depth and significantly improve results.
Source: Deloitte Consulting LLP
*Branded Entertainment Marketing: Research released in early March by PQ Media shows spending on branded entertainment marketing reached a record high of $22.3 billion in 2007,
having nearly doubled in size during the last five years. The reason, the research suggests, is brand marketers who are increasingly shifting budgets from traditional advertising
to alternative marketing strategies, including event sponsorship and marketing, product placement, "advergaming" and "webisodes."
Among the other findings relevant to communications and branding professionals:
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Marketing strategies that integrate products into venues with high levels of engagement and interactivity represent approximately 8 cents of every marketing services
dollar spent in 2007;
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Spending on event sponsorship and marketing, the largest segment of branded entertainment, rose 12.2% to $19.18 billion in 2007. Event sponsorship and event marketing
attract new customers by using face-to-face engagement; and,
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Paid product placement spending grew 33.7% to $2.90 billion in 2007, and at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 40.8%, from 2002 to 2007.
Source: PQ Media
*Flexibility Good for Business: Business execs seem to agree that flexibility is a strategic solution for workplace issues, but many still provide these benefits on a case-by-
case business. A study by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Corporate Voices for Working Families and Harris Interactive supports this, revealing these additional findings:
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More than 75% of surveyed business executives define flexible work strategies as an alternate time or location arrangement; for instance, a nonstandard 40-hour workweek
or working from home;
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The respondents report by a ratio of 9-to-1 that flexible works strategies have a positive effect on reaching business goals; and,
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Very few of the businesses represented in the survey offer flexible work strategies as a recruiting tool, and none view flexibility as a way to save money.
Source: Corporate Voices for Working Families PRN