The Future of Advertising, PR and Social Media: Two Directions

Don't worry, I am not going to step into the full trap of pontificating on the future of our business. There are two important directions that I see advertising and pr headed in relation to social media.

The Many Small Ideas
Anyone in or around the ad business knows full well that clients and agency folks love "a big idea" - that clutter-busting concept that rises above the others in the brainstorm, the one that seems to spring multi-channel executions like a post-apocolyptic centipede. I am guessing that the "money your could be saving" at Geico was a big idea (actually the big idea is probably one-level up with that as a big-gish campaign concept).

Big ideas have been the traditonal response from advertising over the years to grabbing people's attention.

Social media doesn't lend itself to the big idea. As Mark Earl said in a recent AdAge video, "..it's really hard to predict what will be successful (in social media)...If it's hard to predict what would be successful, why on earth would you have one bet?"

Mark believes agencies will earn their value from developing services like Nike+. Doing the traditional advertising to extend the reach and awareness for Nike+ is basic. I would argue that Nike+, itself is a big idea. I woudl not guess that it is the product of many small ideas - the approach that actually did lead to the "Elf Yourself" campaign from OfficeMax.

The beauty fo Nike+ is the new service that the brands created. They were actually of-use to their customers. I love this. yet there is another way to go - the many small ideas.

In social media, iteritive evolution that is responsive to what people want is more valuable than a big brand idea cooked up in some idea factory. Many small ideas applied quickly. Try and see what folks respond to. Listen the entire time and even initiate a dialogue to see what they think. (Basic idea: form a social media advisory council from relevant customer/influencers active on the social Web). Agencies are not used to this type of nimble optimization. It is almost like a direct response approach but with a bot more heart (I am simply reacting t the tine I often hear from direct response marketers who speak about their work as an automated approach to cycling through "offers" to see what the people jump at - their is more to social media than that).

The Future of the Big Idea

The "Big Idea" of tomorrow may be the Nike+ approach - develop a useful service that helps people live their passion/interests. Another approach is the PR-driven big idea - the one that has reach and awareness built in via the "mediability" of the idea - how suitable it is to "earn media" both from traditional media and the new influencers expressing themselves throughout the Social Web.

I had a chance to work with Lars Bastholm, Chief Digital Creative Officer at Ogilvy, last week. he shared about his experience judging the Cannes Cyber Lions Awards. One of this year's winners was the Best Job in The World for Tourism Queensland. That campaign revolved around the global recruiting effort to find a caretaker for the Great Barrier Reef (kind of a Pacific 'The Shining' I am guessing). Huge PR and word of mouth concept with some advertising (including classifieds) driving reach and awareness.

That is the future of the big idea. Advertising-only ideas won't succeed in capturing people's attention. Our trust has shifted too far for that. Our attention become too precious. Those ideas that our friends email us about, tell us about or post about on their Facebook wall will breakthrough.