This morning I presented a version (in part) of Seth Godin’s thinking that he explores in “Sliced Bread and Other Marketing Delights”. The presentation examined possible reasons as to why advertising and marketing doesn’t seem to be as effective as it has been in the past. It also explored the rise of social media and how the power of “Permission Marketing” might be harnessed to get our message across to people who actually want to hear it rather than those actively don’t!

Following the presentation there were some interesting discussions, and whilst everyone acknowledged that the marketing they were doing wasn’t as successful as it had been in the past, they seemed to think that at some point in the future things would change back, and “normal service would be resumed” - but, like Cuba, we might have a VERY long wait!

I think the problem that we all face is that the internet and in particular Google, has changed the landscape to the extent that none of the old paradigms are necessarily true. And it is this directionless world of uncertainty in which we now operate. What we know is that the old order doesn’t hold water any more. What we don’t know, is what the new order looks like!

Organisations recognise that placing sub-standard ads, in sub-standard no longer yield results in the way that it used to, but they still chug-on regardless, afraid to throw away the rule book and do something which gives them a competitive advantage.

We all know that clients & prospects now have huge, and very little time. The last thing they want is more wallpaper that they can ignore.

Act now - before it's too late!

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A friend has just lent me a great book by Jeff Jarvis (he who almost killed DELL) - which points to trends in not just online communication to to business models in general. How we've been doing stuff up to now, just isn't going to work from now onwards and this book explains exactly what can and does happen when you cede control to your customers - and how you can't manage this process, but how you can roll with the punches.

A good read, and one that everyone who has an interest in business/communications/design should read.

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Well, just had a very interesting meeting with a chap who is a bit of a Blogging/Tweeting/Facing expert. The interesting thing is that social networking doesn't seem to obey many of the rules of conventional marketing and communications, and he outlined why.

I think that I have the beginnings of a plan for how we can produce an integrated strategy for an employee comms issue being faced by a client. This idea of social networking, and the self policing attributes of this seem to be an obvious solution for the varied problems the client is currently facing. High absenteeism, low morale/commitment and lack of understanding of the business.

The strategy will focus on researching the staff to understand their needs/preferences/understanding and to prove that the beliefs that the management have are in fact correct. Then working-out some key discussion points which we will distribute via the social framework we employ and will form the basis for the beginnings of a dialogue between the employees and the board.

The size/spread and variance on roles of the workforce means that we not only need a cost effective delivery mechanism, we need one which will not preclude anyone from having a voice.

I shall report back to let you know if it works, but any guidance for anyone would be most welcome!

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...well, here we are. 

I'm Adam Gray and all of my work is based in communications (design and Marketing rather than telephones & IP). I work with some great guys, and I think that my colleagues and I have some pretty smart ideas. We don't profess to have all of the answers, but, we can normally find a great way of making ourselves and our clients understood efficiently.

But, however much we know (or like to think we know) the world of marketing and communications is changing, and changing fast. Many of the old paradigms have been (or are being) swept away. The old channels of Advertsiing, DM, websites, brochures etc seem less and less relevant as time goes by. With Twitter (and all of its plugins), Facebook, LinkedIn, Digg, Plaxo, Blogspot, Google's many tools - and countless other social and networking applications there are a plethora of new ways of reaching-out to talk to people.

Add to this all of the different ways of accessing this Web, email, iPhone, Blackberry and Chumby to name but a few, the landscape is both crowded and confusing.

And, whilst some forward thinking clients and agencies are embracing these new opportunities, to the best of my knowledge there is no grand unifying theory about how these modules can be leveraged to maximum effect. Granted, there are loads of blogs and writers, loads of facebook communities and twibes, but everyone seems to have an opinion about some, but not all of these.

I hope that over the coming months people will use this blog to share their tips, experiences and resources so that we can all start to offer our clients a new way of talking to their clients.

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