For some reason, December gets your mind working in this manner. Thinking about what went by, thinking about what’s coming up. Though this is something you can potentially do any time of the year, there are these December triggers.

You’ll take this kind of a stock for yourself, and then perhaps larger issues, like the world at large!!

So I got afflicted too. And rather than look backward (more of an analysis and research task), I choose to look ahead. Crystal ball gazing on where the digital space in India is going, in 2012.

The good part about this effort is that you can only prove me wrong, after 12 months, by which time, if I have gone horribly wrong, you’ll not remember, and if I have struck gold with my predictions, I will ensure that you don’t forget that ‘I told you so’! So it is a win-win for me, and hence, here goes.. my 10 predictions for the digital space in India, in 2012:

1. E-commerce or more specifically, online retail of goods, will continue to show fabulous growth: the hockey stick curve has started, perhaps 12 months back. This will continue on a sharp, upward trajectory, right through 2012. The growth is on account of various factors:

• Internet user base growth
• Better bandwidths
• Mobile penetration
• More focused online stores doing awesome job of merchandising, logistics, etc.
• COD and other easy payment options

But besides all of these, I believe that there is one very significant factor here. I believe that a new consumer generation has come into the marketplace at this time, and they are shopping online. And they are digital natives. And not digital migrants. Like the folks who shopped before.

Those who are 20-21 now, on their first jobs, earning their first salaries, and having disposable incomes, these guys never wrote letters, only emailed. They used computers at schools and shared homework with their friends on email. For them, texting and tweeting are like air and water. They were just there. They did not migrate into these from some other planet of letters or faxes! So for this new consumer generation, shopping online’s also as natural a step.

It is my belief that the coming of this new generation has been the biggest contributor in this significant upward swing in online retail. And that being the case, this will only continue to grow, in 2012.

Because Flipkart and Infibeam and few others, are investing so well into logistics and other fundamentals, they will continue to establish themselves as leaders here. But the space is very very young still. These are no permanent leadership positions. You could see challenges, especially in specific categories, emerge in 2012. Perhaps a different brand for lifestyle products, another for household items, something else for motherhood, and a different one for kids maybe.. watch the space. It is about to change!

Amazon should be entering India for sure, in 2012. And even while they are building their own team, and deny rumors of acquisition plans, they WILL acquire. But it may not be Flipkart. Flipkart on the other hand, will use the large sums of money it has raised to make 1-2 niche acquisitions of its own. And most certainly, amongst the rest of the pack, some consolidation will happen. Perhaps driven by the common VC investor!

India’s retail majors will NOT acquire yet. They will continue to be in huge debt burden, and FDI will only reduce their debt, but the economy will not allow them to venture into online retail via acquisition routes, especially at a time, when VCs have driven up the valuation of online retail, and they will not sell cheap. At least not so soon!

2. The Group Buying / Daily Deals space will crack: Yes, while e-commerce / online retail will be hot, some of the ventures which have pretended to be e-retail, but were actually deals’ sites only, will have challenges to face. I have been a verbal critic of the group buying model. I have been a believer that group buying is good for certain categories only, and for certain times (like for liquidating perishable / excess inventory), but the direction that the industry took, and the way everything was being sold at deep discounts, was a dangerous trend. And not sustainable, in any case. And the valuations that these sites have commanded have been a function of numbers, that are unsustainable too. So we will see the model crack. We will see some Deals Snap, and some Groups On fire.

3. Media Buy Spends for digital will increase: Well, the marketers have been talking the talk for a while now. Check out one marketing conference after another, and all they want to talk about is, how digital is becoming big and exciting. And yet, on the ground, the talk has not been walked. Enough. And we still see fat cheques written out to television, and loose change dropping the digital way. Multiple things are happening that will make for big shifts here.

First of all, a lot of marketing is getting integrated now. So while the bulk money may be spent on traditional media, because a contest or some call to action is integrated into digital, there is digital spend too (perhaps an application on Facebook, say). Then again, due to the slow economy, larger mainline budgets may be hard to come by. And yet, the brand has to reach the consumer, and at a lower outlay, digital may be the way for a brand to do so. And the marketer can finally walk his talk then, no matter if it was forced to him, due to his budget constraints.

One way or the other, digital agencies will see increased billings as a consequence.

4. Marketing will get more integrated: We are already seeing a lot of this. Like a TVC having a call to action that goes to a Facebook link. Or when bloggers are invited to brand events, along with press, and there is amplification of the communication sought to happen on social media spaces too. Some of these are already here. 2012 will see a lot more of these happening, and in fact, integrated marketing will become commonplace.

So if there is an iconic TVC campaign, and you have run out your television media budgets, you could create a set of sequele, to continue to ride the popularity, on YouTube maybe. Or where more and more flash mobs are seen (God help us.. !) just to create content that a brand may expect (“hope”?) to viral thereafter. Live tweeting of your on-ground event, a story that begins on Twitter and takes wings on mainline media, etc. are all examples of media merging. So from media spaces like television, print, digital, social, mobile, to Above-the-line, Below-the-line, etc. all combining, are realities that we will see more in 2012.

As Nikesh Arora of Google said, there is no online or offline, now there in just the one line!!

5. Brand Pages on Facebook will have to fight clutter: A Facebook page for my business, then one for my housing society, and then one for my Walking Group, and one also for my pet dog, and oh, one for my bonsai plant, etc. etc. Just because these are so easy to make, there will be tons of brand pages on Facebook. Everyone and their uncle will have one. And names will be misleading. Confusing. And brands that got excited by a Facebook presence, will now realize that the presence is only a starting point, and means nothing by itself.

Creativity will be at a huge premium, and brand pages that stand out for creativity, a unique approach, will emerge victorious.

6. Google+ will get an honorable mention in history: After Orkut, Wave, Buzz, Google+ was yet another effort by Google, to get into Social Networking. Perhaps Google’s best effort till date. Got a lot of initial buzz, many diehard Google fans swore by it, were happy to see competition to a dominating giant. But after a few months, we are already seeing a larger registered user base for G+ (curiosity got people to register) but very little traction in terms of usage. Yes, some of the geeks are there, and love their own private network. There are also some interesting features, like Hangouts, for example.

But it is no challenge to Facebook. Not now, and unlikely to get there. And because people only have so much time in a day, their ‘social media hours’ will most likely go to Facebook and LinkedIn, and not shift to G+ anytime soon. And that’s the reality, like it or not.

So while the fizz has already gone down, 2012 will see Google+ take its rightful place in history, as another commendable effort in the space, by Google. But an effort that was at best, a good also-ran!

7. Social Media embarrassments will happen: Inspired by Anand Mahindra and Ratan Tata, CEOs and other top management are getting tempted by Twitter. Except that they don’t always spend so much time to ‘get’ the medium. And they could make costly mistakes! Likewise there would be others in the organization, who could make some boo-boos. There are organizations who like to keep their social media efforts lean and mean in costs. “An intern could take care of this”, they figure. And they hand over their brand worth thousands of crores to that intern. And yes, they’d save a few thousand bucks each month. Except the intern could also mess up one day. Or for that matter, the social media agency could make a mistake too.

We have not heard so far, terribly embarrassing situations, but I suspect one will happen, in 2012. And the sooner we have it, the better, so that it draws everyone’s attention, and everyone gets a little more careful from that point onwards! Nothing like an incident to make people acknowledge the risk! Oh, and by the way, I hope that the embarrassment is not with any of OUR clients.. lol. I don’t mind learning this with someone ELSE’s experience, rather than mine!!

8. Online Reputation Management will be part of a brand’s budgets: People will cuss brands on social media. Why? Because brands are there, and because social media is there! And cribbing and cussing is so easy to do. Then there will be some mean competitors who think it is easy to use fake accounts and malign a competitor’s brand. OR a disgruntled employee wanting to run down his ex-company. Only because he reckons that he can do it, and get away with it.

So all this was already happening, and so how will 2012 be different? Well, for one, more people will discover how easy it is to malign brands. Secondly, as the base of users increases, and more people use the web and take decisions based on the inputs got from these media, the impact of such negativisms about a brand, will be larger.

For few brands it could be loss of market share. For others it could mean a loss of market cap! And for yet others, it could mean the filing of legal suits and / or a large PR budget to clean up the mess.

The later in the reputation loss that repair is initiated, the more difficult and more expensive it gets. Which is where Online Reputation Management (ORM) comes in. While ORM will also NOT prevent from bad news showing up for a brand, ORM will detect, and enable a fix faster, before more damage has happened.

With that consideration, I’d expect more and more companies to make ORM a nORM in their business!

9. A killer case study will happen, on Social Media, in India: While India has got some brands with very large Facebook fan bases, and there have been some moderate YouTube views, we have not yet seen a thunderous success, like an Old Spice or a Blendtech or something of that level. I think we have come close now. The year 2012 should see a few large Social Media successes in India as well. It will give a well deserved respect for Social Media, amongst marketers.

And yes, in this aspect, I would hope that it is one of our client campaigns, which makes the cut ‘from good to great’

10. We should see some M&A in the agency space: We have many agencies in digital and social media spaces, that are either boutique or small enough, and not part of any big agency group. Between all of these smaller and independent agencies, they manage a large part of the digital and social media businesses. And ad and PR agencies, much bigger than these independent agencies, often do not get a share of that business.

As explained in an earlier prediction, the spends on digital wil increase, and there will be more number of integrated campaigns, too, where the mainline agency and the respective digital agency would probably work together.

It would be time where the larger agencies start thinking of ‘owning’ this piece, and not just renting it. And while ‘build’ is always an option for them, some will look at a ‘buy’. Here is where before end of 2012, we will see some M&A activity amongst the agencies.

We may also see some smaller agencies consolidating in parallel, which wil add steam to the M&A movement in the industry.

So those are my ten predictions. What do you think?

Agree with few, disagree with others? You have any other predictions? Share them as comments. Love to do the discussion.

Meanwhile, here’s wishing everyone in the digital industry, and then everyone else also, a Very Happy and Prosperous 2012.

What do you think? Are advertisers and ad agencies not “walking their talk”??

By the way, I refer to the following blog post that I had don earlier, on the subject of views of Nitin Paranajpe (CEO and MD of Hindustan Unilever Ltd): http://blog.socialwavelength.com/2011/07/thought-provoking-words-from-nitin-paranjpe-ceo-and-md-of-hindustan-unilever-ltd/

I had the pleasure of attending the Mumbai leg of Exchange4Media’s Conclave where Nitin Paranjpe, CEO and MD of Hindustan Unilever Ltd. was the keynote speaker.

Starting the day’s proceedings with a heavyweight speaker of this kind, set the tone for the day. His talk was thought provoking and virtually posed a challenge, for all of the attendees present, to think if they were preparing adequately for the changing times, and the future that could be!

I was particularly pleased when in the first 5 minutes of his talk – which were in a way, also the first 5 minutes of the conclave – he started talking about how digital has started to grow, and how it can only get bigger now!

Digital and social media figured extensively in the keynote address, and which certainly pleased me, no end!

Paranjpe made it clear at the outset that he was going to throw some thoughts, potentially with an idea to provoke, to challenge, to make people think and consider. Some of his observations were speculative, and he emphasized the same, but the idea as per him was, to wonder how things would be, if those speculations came true. He also emphasized that he did not necessarily have answers, just questions. And that everyone would need to figure out their own answers really!

With this background, I am pleased to share some of his thoughts, with my comments interspersed, as per below:

1. One of the bold thoughts that Paranjpe threw was about how big digital could potentially get, in India? He mentioned that in the US, TV was still a lot bigger, but in the UK, digital had become bigger than TV, in media spend. Could such a scenario occur in India as well, he wondered?

* My thoughts: wow! Even to consider the possibility is mind boggling. Today digital is almost an afterthought for planners and marketers. And it is a small percentage of the spend, with bulk still going to TV. While we consider digital going to a double digit share – and that looks far away – considering an idea that it could possibly be bigger than TV, is certainly HUGE. If anyone else had said it, we’d have dismissed it summarily, but when Nitin Paranjpe speculates this, we have to stand up and think about the possibility!!

2. Paranjpe talked about possibilities that we had not envisaged and how things have got impacted on basis of the same. Be it mobile phones and their population in India, on the one hand, or the use of Digital Video Recorders. As CEO of one of India’s largest advertisers, it was candid of him to admit that most of the television that he himself sees, is on DVRs. And that he certainly fast-forwards the advertising there, except on account of his professional interest! Paranjpe was essentially referring to potential inflexion points. He wondered, if like mobile phones’ usage costs had come down dramatically, what if cost of DVRs came down from around INR 4,000/- to INR 400/-? How will life change then?

* My thoughts: indeed a staggering thought. If more and more television in India gets viewed via DVRs, what does that do to the big budgets allocated for TVCs?? Would there be a strong rethink then?

3. Nitin Paranjpe shared this amazing infographic, about what happens on the Internet in 60 seconds:

A fabulous graphic, this shows the totally dynamic and ever-changing world on the Internet.

* My thought: how many marketers are really prepared for this ever-changing world? If there was an eye opener, this graphic it is!

4. Like in case of DVRs, Paranjpe feared another possible inflexion point. Like the cost of mobile usage, he speculated, what would happen if broadband costs came down rapidly? Say, these became INR 200/- or even free? How will life change due to that?

* My thought: will anyone watch any TV at all? Would you get all the entertainment and news and everything else that you need, on broadband? When you want it? From allocation of media spend, to budgets for content creation, things will never be the same again!

5. Nitin Paranjpe emphasized the three new skills people need to learn and have: Engage, Engage, Engage.

* My thoughts: If this does not spell Social Media, what does?

(In fact, Paranjpe waxed eloquent about Social Media!)

6. An important point Paranjpe made was that consumers see a lot, but remember litte. On one of his visits to small town India, he asked a few people to remember some of their favorite ads of recent days. And they could not recall much at all. That in spite of the fact that television reaches everywhere. On further prodding, they mentioned that they remember the old Sridevi ad, for Lux!!

This is what he meant when he said that while consumers see a lot, there are few things they remember. And which is where the challenge for the marketer lies.

7. Another story that Paranjpe related, again from a village in India, was seeing a young woman there, use fabric softener. On asking, he was surprised to find that the girl completely understood the concept of softener, and it was not accidental use. That prompted Paranjpe to share a masterful insight – that thanks to television “aspirations have become homogenous, even though the means may be heterogenous”!!

Few other thoughts that Paranjpe shared included sharing how Cornetto had used crowdsourcing and social media. The fact that even their agency partners were also still getting an understanding of the new space, and they were learning together.

Paranjpe shared a very interesting personal challenge that he has taken up for himself. That this year, he intends to get familiar with the new media, and he is doing it the hard way. He has a 25-year old “mentor” who is taking him through the paces, including giving him homework and projects! Isn’t this fantastic??!

No wonder, Anurag Batra of Exchange4Media conveyed at the end of the talk that Paranjpe’s speech was better than many that he heard at Cannes recently!!

This post is the second part of a two part series on the challenges faced by the marketing world today.

In the previous post, I shared some thoughts around the changing marketing model, the need to relook the marketing budget allocations, and the changing role in an organization for marketing.

This second post is largely inspired by Umair Haque’s message that “Marketing Can Do Better“, again from the Harvard Business Review. And my question to that is, “can it?”.

Yes, theoretically, it can do better, but the challenges as highlighted by Umair, are so huge that it will take a marketer significant will and conviction, and then effort, to make the change, and then ‘do better’.

Umair starts with a strong paragraph, that should make any marketer squirm.. :

Why are so many marketing campaigns brand-destroyers and money-losers? Why is “branding” becoming a devalued asset, whose returns are dwindling (witness Google building the world’s mightiest brand with barely a penny of orthodox marketing expenditure)? Why do people and communities exact steeper and steeper discounts, price-cuts, and margin-crushing concessions from the beleaguered, besieged companies once known as the masters of the universe?

The half-life of companies is shrinking and the weary practice known as “marketing,” adding little to no real value, seems powerless to help.

The challenge is well and truly thrown at the marketers!

Are marketers really that helpless?

I completely agree on his points of steep discounts, promotions and margin-crushing concessions. I mean, take for example, brand managers rushing to the GroupOns and the LivingSocials and the SnapDeals to sell (nay, ‘give away’) their products at deep-deep discounts. I liken this move to a marketer throwing up his hands and saying, “Ok, I give up, I cannot sell, and so I will just distribute my products for free!”.

Okay, I do not mean selling anything on GroupOn is wrong. Perishable inventory surplus and things of that kind are fine. But selling branded products for next to nothing, is beyond my comprehension.

Umair also brings in this concept of how marketing has not adapted / changed in all these years, and how its just about “talking down” to the customer:

Marketing is still a militaristic, adversarial school of thought that’s largely about cramming “product” down the already overstuffed gullets of “consumers” by “targeting” “messages” jam-packed with illusory, imaginary benefits at them, in grand “campaigns” that make overblown promises (“See this beer? It’s going to land you the girl of your dreams!!”). I’d argue that marketing as we know it is, still, largely about talking down.

I see this all so often in the marketer’s obsession to “control” things, “control” what comes in the media, “control” communication. Because in that manner, he can decide what exactly the customer should hear, see and read. And he wants to tell the customer what is right for him (the customer). Yes, the whole idea of “talking down“.

Not realizing that the customer does not want it, is not taking it, and that the so-called “control” is a myth in today’s times anyway!

Umair goes on to introduce the concept of “listening up“, then. But in his inimitable style, he first warns what marketers should not conveniently consider to be a ‘listening up’ effort! Yes, marketers may be prone to apparently grab new concepts, if in its garb, they are able to run their favorite old agendas, still.

So here is what Umair warns, is NOT listening up:

Listening up doesn’t mean surveilling your customers, and then discovering slightly cleverer ways to trick them (yet again). Listening up doesn’t mean holding five thousand focus groups a year, and thenprice discriminating the daylights out of hapless customers. Listening up doesn’t mean delving into mines studded with billions of seams of “data” about “consumers.” Listening up definitely doesn’t mean techno-stalking people in creepy, weird, and slightly sinister ways.

I am sure marketers must be seeing a creepy sense of familiarity in the above words. The obsession with traditional means and old forms or marketing keep taking us back to the old ways and the old tricks!! So what DOES Umair refer to, as he talks of “listening up“??

Nothing ventured, nothing gained!

The statement is valid in all walks of life, and at this time, it seems relevant in the space of Social Media as well.

Okay, need to rewind and start at the beginning.

In our business of being a Social Media agency, we meet a lot of clients. Many of them are large brands with significant marketing budgets and advertising spends. Several of them initiate the discussion on Social Media from their end, while few discussions are initiated from our end as well.

At this point in time, most brands are convinced about looking at Social Media. Few are still hesitant, and few have made good inroads to be confident to place large bets. But most of them are in the middle of the road. They are approaching Social Media very gingerly.

Let us look at some typical scenarios:

1.    Brand is going for a new campaign, in mainline media: an expensive TVC, supported by print, perhaps OOH too. When we hear of these developments, we propose significant strategies around the campaign. Possibly including doing a teaser on social media, then taking the longer versions of the TVC on to social media (why be constrained with 15-30 seconds, when you are not paying by the second on YouTube – build a larger story board!), putting some behind-the-scenes clips (especially where celebrity brand ambassadors are involved), etc. We could even ask users on Social Media, to carry the storyboard further, maybe even propose a sequel for the advertisement.

Few brands have been venturing out with some of these strategies. Many just go ahead and create a Facebook page around the campaign (which is also abandoned, once the campaign is off-air), and many do nothing at all, on Social Media.

2.    Brand wants to get onto social media independent of any other campaign: convinced that this is a place not to be ignored, a brand wants to get there. Where smart ideas of potential high impact are shared, may of them like those, but want to get started with ‘just a facebook presence first’.

3.    And there are some brands who are set to go to Social Media, but are still hesitant, whether to go ‘as the brand’ or do some surrogate work. Since they fear that as soon as they step into the space, on their own name, they will be inundated with large number of complaints.

All of these are examples of brands playing it safe. Lets look at each of the cases.

If the brand has a new campaign out, in mainline media, it’s a great opportunity to leverage this with a decent Social Media extension. Crores are being spent on the TVC – on its creation, and then on the media itself. At a fraction of that cost, the brand can get users on Social Media, engaged with the brand, by smart placement of the campaign story.

Why then, does the brand hesitate? It is inherently a fear of the unknown. The brand is not sure what they are getting into. Will the users rip apart the campaign? What if it creates negative response? What if questions are asked that we cannot easily respond to?

The fact is that these questions are asked anyway. Advertising is one of the biggest discussed topics on Social Media. If a brand is confident about the campaign, then there should not be hesitation in facing the consumer in a direct interaction over it. And in doing so, give yourself the opportunity of creating good mileage on account of the same.

Coming to the case of creating a social media presence, why opt for the safe and boring ‘only facebook page’ presence? The creation of the Old Spice man, with the large number of videos and the interaction, was clearly a brave act. What if it was rejected? But it was not. And went on to become a stupendous success. Would Old Spice have achieved even a fraction of that visibility if it had stayed with a ‘safe and simple’ Facebook page?? As I said at the outset, ‘nothing ventured, nothing gained’.

And the brands that hesitate still, in putting their name out in the front, for fear of getting user flak, well, they are also losing an opportunity here.

If the service is demanding flak, the flak is coming, no matter if they are present on social media or not. Their presence, a confirmation of their ‘listening’ to the customer, their responses back to the customers, will generate a positive feel about the brand. Not being present is to let the users have a free hand, to allow the odd complaint to potentially snowball as users keep adding fuel to the fire, with no one giving the brand’s point of view.

I reckon we have reached the point where Social Media is now accepted by most brands as being real, but most of them still have a sense of apprehension about going all out, into that space.

And what distinguishes the few who have taken the bigger calls, and have been successful in so doing, is a sense of dare.

Be it P&G internationally or a Just Dial or Star Plus in India, it is indeed that bravado that differentiates these winners, from the many also-rans.

So dear brand owner, in social media, there is nothing to fear but fear itself! And as Seth Godin put it, “If you waiting for a case study in your business vertical, it is already too late to jump in”.

Go for it! Social Media is indeed, here and now!!

Almost a year ago, I had blogged about the challenges that Advertising Agencies face, while approaching Social Media. And one of the points that I shared at that time was the “campaign” oriented approach that agencies had, whereas Social Media demanded more of an ongoing management approach, rather than a burst of a campaign.

While a lot has changed in a year, including the level of understanding that Advertising Agencies have, about Social Media, the one thing that has perhaps only gone worse, is the increasing campaign-style approach, while making Social Media a part of the marketing mix, for brands.

I interacted with one such agency recently. It was heartening to hear that they had close to 20-25 Social Media activations for brands. Considering the type of brands, and assuming that these are all active at the time, I presumed that they had a large team managing Social Media, at their end. Or that they were outsourcing the execution to someone else.

First of all, they proudly mentioned that they did not outsource anything. Which was fine. But then they conveyed that their Social Media team was all of 6 persons. Which came as a surprise to me.

I did some digging around after the meeting, and I found that almost all of the brands that they had mentioned had had some good bursts when they went online for Social Media, but they were nearly inactive at this time. Except for the 4-5 which were currently active.

It so appeared that the brands did not care (or they did not realize what damage they were doing to their brands by creating a community and ignoring it later) and neither did the agency.

Many a significant FMCG brand in recent times, have gone on to television and in print, with their specific campaign oriented Facebook pages. Given that this visibility to Social Media is heartening, but if the page is left to die, when the campaign goes off air, it will be sad. And we have seen more cases of such abandonment for me to fear the same fate here as well!

And as against these approaches, consider the approaches of brands like Fastrack, Ching’s Secret, Just Dial or Pantaloons, for example, and you will see that these brands have kept their Social Media activations central to the brand, and not to a campaign, and they have nurtured their communities, with good, ongoing engagements, not just when an offline campaign was running. And these are the more long lasting approaches, after all.

So what made that agency I was referring to earlier, to take a campaign approach? The reasons as I can see can be one or more of the following:

1. The agency does not understand better. With a legacy of a campaign oriented approach, they continue to recommend the same thing, even in Social Media.
2. The agency understands the difference for sure, but going the ‘ongoing social media management’ way would demand them to grow their team size, by leaps and bounds, for every new client that goes on to Social Media (like our company, Social Wavelength has done, in fact). And adding heads into the agency is not so easy for them. Sometimes they need to justify every new head to add to the rolls, all the way to Singapore or New York or Chicago or Paris. It is an elaborate process, and someone in the system needs to stick his head out, and take responsibility to bring in revenues to justify the addition. All these are easier said than done. It is easier then, to recommend campaigns to clients, and get done. And manage with the team size that the agency carries.
3. The agency could of course, outsource to specialist social media outfits (like Social Wavelength or many others in the space now) and manage long term social media activities. However here again, there is a demand for effort and energy from the agency’s end. The few agencies that have created some excellent ongoing working relationships with us have put in serious efforts from their end. Like having a few people dedicated to work with us and with the client, and ensure that the agency adds value in the chain. When they take a certain responsibility of delivery on behalf of the brand, they have to be involved. In real-time, when the outsourced social media outfit puts out updates on behalf of the client brand, the agency is still carrying the responsibility of there being no goof-ups. This does not happen without effort from the agency’s end. Few agencies have the attitude or the commitment to social media, to invest that kind of time and effort on this. And so they do not outsource, they manage in-house, and with their small teams then, they end up doing only “short term social media campaigns” then!
4. Many times, the constraint is from client’s end. They are not willing to take long calls on Social Media, and want to experiment at a campaign level. And agencies agree to these suggestions (as they do, to a lot of client demands – after all, the client is signing the cheques!). And which is why we see the short bursts of campaign oriented social media. Unfortunately for the client too, this will not serve as good examples. When you think you are experimenting in social media, with such bursts, you are not really experimenting in social media, but rather you are using social media as one more media platform, to run your traditional marketing campaign. And these are NOT the same thing! What you learn – good or bad – about Social Media, from such an experiment, is not the right research for an ultimately, long term ongoing Social Media presence.
5. The final reason is that of budgets. An ongoing Social Media presence demands commitments to resources say, for the next one year. A campaign may on the other hand, ask only for commitments for 1-2 months. The latter is an easier decision for the brand to take, and for an agency to sell. But it is happening at the cost of not utilizing Social Media, for what it really stands for. And it can often cause more harm to the brand, when social media platforms are abandoned. I have seen many in recent days, where fan updates on a Facebook page include marketing messages of Viagra like pharma offers, competitor offers, or other home business promotions. And no one from the brand or the agency has felt it necessary to go and clean up the page!!

Recently we have also got an assignment from an agency, for a brand that wants to do a campaign oriented social media presence. We advised against. We shared the pitfalls of the approach. The client was not convinced. We are doing the Social Media activity, only for the campaign, much against what we stand for. However, we disowned our responsibility on the ultimate benefit for the brand. And we reckoned that while executing this “campaign”, we will make the case for an ongoing presence. So let’s see how that part pans out.

But for us, this is a rare one. But it is also indicative of the way many brands and agencies continue to take the quick fix approach. It is important to understand that this Is not how a good Social Media presence should be established. We continue to put our efforts to educate clients and agencies that we work with.

What are your views on this? Do you face similar challenges with brands / agencies? Do you even agree to the campaign vs ongoing management approach for Social Media? I a keen to read your views on the subject!

I have many good friends in the traditional advertising world. A few clients as well. And many prospects. And I have a lot of respect for their work. They are among the most creative folks I know in life.

So I want to assure that this post is not meant to be critical of them.

There is a perspective based on observation and experience, about how traditional advertising agencies are finding some aspects of Social Media to be challenging, and which is shared here.

As an opinion. And looking for other opinions, in fact!

Over the few months that we have been in business as a Social Media agency, we have pitched directly to clients as well as via advertising agencies. In doing so, we have had good experience interacting and working with both types of prospects.

Having seen this at close quarters, I observe few fundamental challenges, for advertising agencies to adapt to Social Media that easily:

1. There is a ‘campaign’ focus: Agencies have traditionally been involved in campaigns. Those that may demand a lot of hard work, high creativity, long hours, but which are finally one-off shots (whatever be the length of that one-off shot).

Social Media is not quite like that. Social Media is an ongoing process, something that needs to happen all day long, day-in-and-day-out. This is unfamiliar territory, in principal, for the agencies.

2. Intuitive and smart writing is required, need not be masterpieces: Agencies have the best creative talents, no doubt. Especially copywriters, who create that magic, with the use of few words that get on to billboards or on print ads or the script on the TV ad. They may work on several iterations before they get those 4 words right, but those 4 words then, are very right and work wonders in an advertisement.

Such excellent copywriting would work very well on social media. Except that it is unaffordable. And perhaps not required. Each tweet does not have to be the masterpiece copy that comes on ads. Each Facebook update does not have to be discussed and debated in a creative brainstorming session.

Social Media is about being ‘just right enough’ on the creative front, being more intuitive and natural, and being almost casual in your content. Whether it is on Facebook or on Twitter or other formats.

The extremely creative copywriter of the agency can do this, but her presence for each tweet or each FB update, will not be affordable then. And anything less might not do, or may not be available in the agency team!

3. There is huge effort in getting it right, and then getting it ‘out’. As mentioned earlier, agencies work hard to get the ad right, and for which long hours and very hard work is the norm. But it all culminates at the point, when the campaign is pushed out, after all the final approvals. And that’s it. After that the team can relax, as it is then, for the campaign to deliver. Or not.

In social media however, there is no one ‘out’. Social Media is about conversations. About dialogs. Once you put your message out, you will get responses. And you have to respond back. And it goes on. And each time, you need to put your best foot forward. And the ‘campaign’ does not really ‘end’ at all! This again is something to get used to, for agencies.

We have seen many a social media initiative of agencies falling into the ‘campaign’ slot. Most times, it also continues to be a ‘broadcast’ as against a conversation.

While we do not agree to it being called a ‘social media strategy’ then, we have ourselves worked with agencies on such initiatives. Considering at our end, that we are participating not in a true social media effort, but rather, in an advertising campaign, where a blog or a Facebook page or Twitter is serving as a media, and we are delivering the content for that advertisement.

This is really the type of Social Media involvement that we are seeing a lot of, from advertising agencies.

We hope that agencies get convinced about the “real” social media. The type which involves long term and ongoing engagement with your customers. The type that creates relationships and not just one-off branding or sale opportunities. Where the brand truly mingles with its customers, and becomes their very approachable friend.

Once agencies are convinced about this opportunity, and then they can convince their clients too, perhaps we can see a shift in the approach.

However it does appear to be a steep mountain to climb, from where we are at this time. There are a lot of old learnings to be given up, and new ones to be learned. And in that, amongst other things, the agency revenue models may also get challenged. And which is the biggest status quo that no one wants to disturb.

As long as the current situation prevails, agencies may keep doing advertising and using social media platforms as advertising media. While others, including agencies like ours, will strive to convince clients about an alternate approach. One which is the true social media.

Yes, I might have ruffled a few feathers here. And so I am open to be corrected.

Do you think agencies are changing faster than I give them credit for? Or is their current approach the right one anyway? Your opinions are welcome, in the comments below.