I am at the ESOMAR 3D Conference in Boston. Mike Cooke opened by reminding us that this conference has charted the evolution of new methods in MR since the Panels Conference in Budapest in 2005. It is THE place to be to catch up on what's happening now. I've attended all but one and chaired three, so I am really pleased to be here.
The first speaker and keynoter was Tony Chapman from Capital C in Canada. He talked about the critical nature of engagement in marketing. Marketing has always been about breaking through the clutter, but the clutter in the modern world keeps growing exponentially. Breaking through is harder than ever. The challenge for MR is to help clients understand how to do it and that comes down to figuring out what stories to tell. He argued that there are seven basic stories and the objective is to figure out how to insert the brand into one of those seven stories. In the process, MR companies need to migrate from the role of provider to enabler, which comes down to finding ways to change the conversation via story that rings true to individual consumers. My reaction to the talk was that it was very well done and great fun to listen to (almost inspiring), but I was not sure how to put it to work.
Next up was Richard Nicholls from Future Foundation. He began by showing some global data to indicate while "the smartphone revolution" and mobile commerce still have a very long way to go in terms of penetration, social networking is a true global phenomenon — over 60% in many countries. His talk focused on three trends he sees in their ongoing global data collection:
The hyperactive self. These are people who use technology to maximize their behavior (e.g. finding the right product at the right price). There is a danger, however, that we over invest our time in this sort of thing and end up being less efficient rather than more efficient. He calls this overmaximizing.
The second trend is what he calls the preformative self — using social media to tell stories about our everyday lives as a way to enhance our personal status. Self-validation. (The folks at the blogger table are rejecting this point of view out of hand.)
Finally, there is the smart networker. Some of us are finally realizing that too much sharing is a bad thing and we are adjusting to manage our online presence more effectively. There are several manifestations of this such as untagging photos, restricting who can see your online posts, and thinking more about what kind of image we want to present to potential suppliers.
Next up was Illya Lichtenstein from MixRank. They have been crunching data from major websites to get a sense of what technologies brands and advertisers are using and their effectiveness. They have found that the best indicator of conversion (buying) is the social media button on an online ad – the Like button or the Twitter icon. But conversion is preceded by engagement and linking the two is extremely difficult. There is lots of data for marketers to look at, but making sense in terms of what works and what doesn't is extremely difficult. His survey data show that two-thirds of marketers say they don't understand how to make the data at their disposable actionable. They know that social media plays a role in persuading people to buy, but can't measure or really understand that link so they can act on it. To state the obvious, that's a real opportunity for MR.
Break time.