Marketing in Rambles: Welcome 2008, we’ve been expecting you

I’m always amused at how surprised people are that yet another year has arrived. “I can’t believe its 2008 already” or “This year just snuck up on me”. My response to such frivolous commentary usually refers them to the task bar on their computer screen, where they will find the time and if they double click on this, they will find a calendar. Amazing this technology isn’t it? There is nothing surprising about how a calendar works: every year after December 31st, the 1st of January of the next year appears the very next day without fail so why is that people are surprised then by this anomaly?

So indeed, welcome 2008, I at least have been expecting you. In fact I have been planning for your arrival since sometime in the middle of 2007. This is also the year of the Rat which doesn’t sound nearly as auspicious as the year of the tiger or the dragon but still somewhat appropriate as I will be moving back to London in 2008 where apparently you are never more than a few metres away from a rat. Either way, I will have my own dragons to slay in 2008 which include a wedding, a honeymoon, moving abroad, finding a job, learning to Paraglide and talking at a marketing conference for the first time. Hard to tell which dragon there is the bigger!

Now I’ve never professed to be some sort of marketing guru that can predict what 2008 holds for the industry and would never be foolish enough to attempt this as the rate at which technology is influencing the industry means that all we can expect, as the old folks say, is the unexpected.

So instead of a list of things that will happen in marketing this year, here is my list of things that will probably happen or to be more accurate, this is my list of things that I would like to happen in the year of the rat:

- Social media marketing and advertising goes mainstream and shows it’s worth or lack of worth for that matter. I don’t mind which way it goes but as long as it goes somewhere and the hype dies down a bit so we can just get on with it.

- Podcasts go mainstream. Just as there is no doubt that server/hard drive based television and movie services (where the viewer chooses what they watch and when) will dominate the TV market, so will podcasts revolutionize the radio industry offering the same joys of variety, choice and targeting. Every time I turn on the radio in the middle of a 15 minute advert marathon followed by five minutes of over-opinionated, under-humorous Deejays and S Club 7 triple plays, I kiss my MP3 player and thank it for all the Podcasts and music wonder it contains within.

- 2008 will undoubtedly be a big year for the Internal Communications job market. The value of the function is now undoubted across pretty much all national and multi-national companies and this year will see them scrambling for the cream of the comms. I already see the heightened activity in my job alerts.

- Facebook will survive the Google Open Social onslaught / hype. I say this purely because people who generally don’t spend much time on the net (and of course those who do) are on Facebook and nowhere else. This is simply because it is low maintenance and easy to use and all their friends are on it. These people are also not very tech savvy so they couldn’t give a damn about open social and all its platforms, even if we tell them it is a good thing.

- Go green or go home. Consumers seem to be now actively seeking out companies that are green and not pretending to be so. The fact that interest is starting to grow in South Africa and there are even a few early adopters around, is a solid indicator that the rest of the world is in rapid uptake phase already. Yes SA always lags behind by about three or four years and quite often misses the window of opportunity because of this. But hey in Africa, the time is African!

If you are such a consumer and if you aren’t, jump on the bandwagon mate, it’s the best one going around at the moment, check out www.evo.com where you can find all sorts of eco friendly suppliers and products such as solar powered bicycles!

All out Assault on Facebook!

I love tag clouds, they give you an at-a-glance kind of overview of what’s hot on the Blogosphere at the moment. Two words that are out and out favourites activity wise over the past few days are ‘Open Social’ and ‘Facebook’.

Battle Front 1

It seems that the first real competition for Facebook is about to arrive in the form of Open Social, a conglomerate of social networking organisations including LinkedIn and most importantly Google as it is with Google that this gallery of goons becomes a super force strong enough to take on Facebook head on.

Who’s going to win this battle? Web guru, Vinny Lingham is confident that the super force of Open Social will kick Facebook into the outer galaxies of hyperspace, I’m not so confident however. Although the fundamental concept of open source is that it will be available across multiple platforms, which is how it should be, I am not sure how many people will be willing to leave the white picket fences of Facebook for any other platform. You see for me, the beauty of Facebook was that it brought people that avoided the Internet like a hook worm in their foot back online or online for the first time, kind of like what Harry Potter did for children’s books. 90% of my friends probably fall into this category and I predict they will stick with Facebook regardless of how good Open Social will be, kind of like how 90% of Americans have never left their own state cause they know it well and they are comfortable there. So if all my friends are on Facebook only, I won’t be moving either.

Want to know more about Open Social? Read this post by Marc Andreessen

Battle Front 2

All the hype around Facebook often detracts from the fact that the octogenarian of the social networking scene, Myspace, is still around and in fact still has a lot more members than Facebook so, in essence, more influence.

In this article, My Space is said to have raised it shaky hand from beneath the social networking pile and announced that a platform for the development of applications on MySpace is around the corner which according to Paul Gillin, New Media consultant, is a direct response to (I say attack on) Facebook. He continues: “MySpace is simply taking a good idea and adapting it... for them, it is a no brainer."

Who will win this one? My money is on Facebook. MySpace pages are ugly and cluttered enough already and now they want to add applications which as a general rule are ugly and cluttered.

Battle Front 3

In this article by Tom Hespos, Imedia Connection, questions whether Microsoft’s purchase of Facebook was for the right reasons (as a channel for its banner ads) and quite frankly, worth it.

There is a lot of general discussion from industry commentators, questioning how effective Facebook really is as a marketing tool and whether any major company has managed to prove that they increased bottom lines by advertising / activity on Facebook. I have however no doubt that if you are the right kind of fashionable / aspirational brand, that Facebook is a great place to grow your brand presence within niche markets. The Redbull Roshambull application comes to mind immediately.

All in all, I am still loyal to Facebook as I believe it does the basic things well. It is also the platform that woke me up to the potential of social networking. I think it has the potential to survive these attacks but it will all depend on how they respond and improve. They can start with RSS feeds on their group comments.