With the success of Apple based on its category-creating innovations like the iPod, iPhone and iPad, companies are focusing more heavily on developing their own innovations. A recent article in The Wall Street Journal reported the following statistics on the growth of innovation:

• A search of annual and quarterly reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission shows companies mentioned some form of the word “innovation” 33,528 times last year, which was a 64% increase from five years before that.
• More than 250 books with “innovation” in the title have been published in the last three months, most of them dealing with business, according to a search of Amazon.com
• Four in 10 executives say their company now has a chief innovation officer, according to a recent study of the phenomenon released last month by Capgemini Consulting.

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Just a few short years ago, the effectiveness of a company’s web presence was dictated solely by the strength and prevalence of its website. But as companies across the globe have begun embracing social media, an interesting phenomenon has occurred over the past year. In some cases, company Facebook fan pages have received more unique visitors than the company’s corporate website counterpart. See the specific example from a Webtrends whitepaper titled, “The Effect of Social Networks and the Mobile Web on Website Traffic and the Inevitable Rise of Facebook Commerce”:

[Webtrends] analyzed the website traffic of Fortune 100 websites based on ‘unique visits.’ The study revealed that 68% of the top 100 companies were experiencing a negative growth in unique visits over the past year, with an average drop of 23%.

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Today’s rapidly shifting marketing and media landscape means that client and agency professionals must be more integrated than ever before. We can no longer think of ourselves as marketing managers, account managers, media planners, art directors, copywriters or research managers.  We are all buyers, sellers and enablers of media and must work together to achieve a successful campaign. 

Here is what I have recently witnessed within the industry. The lines between public relations and social media are blurring. Account managers need to be well-versed in analyzing technical data, interpreting those results and translating those results into strategic recommendations. Media professionals need to understand the brand strategy and all of the media options available today including social, online and mobile campaigns as well as established channels like broadcast and print. Likewise, creative and production teams are learning new technology and software programs in order to keep pace as well as how to translate TV or print concepts to online and mobile. And everyone needs to have in-depth expertise within a client’s business.

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Last month we we had a post titled Marketing Lessons from Games and Sports. In it we discussed the necessity of thinking through our marketing moves, including asking what will our competition – the other “player(s) – do in response?

Nike’s new Tiger Woods commercial featuring the voice of his late father (timed for the opening of the 2010 Masters) is another good case study for that post, but with a twist. In that post, we referenced the potential response of the the competition, but in today’s social media world, you and the competition aren’t the only players in the communications game. The rest of the world – customers and non-customers alike – are also players. So, it is just as important to consider what these other “players” will do.

As it turns out Nike put out an ad showing a silent Woods staring at the camera while the disembodied voice of his deceased father asks if he learned anything. Separate from the question as to whether this ad was effective in its direct communication, I wonder whether Nike thought through the next moves of the other players, specifically the universe of consumers. Immediately after the ad aired, in addition to negative comments throughout the internet, video parodies of it started appearing. Nike might say that they hoped for this (generating buzz), but I’m not so sure that they hoped for all of it; otherwise, why are they now making youtube pull the commercial parodies, invoking copyright infringement?

Below is an original posting of one of the parodies on youtube.

Domus is a marketing communications agency based in Philadelphia offering advertising, public relations, digital, and social media marketing expertise in an integrated approach based on sound, classic principles of marketing. For more information, visit us at http://www.domusinc.com.

In our last post, we compared the Verizon / AT&T battle over their wireless networks to the recent Manny Pacquio / Migel Cotto fight, with Verizon playing the role of Pacquio (who demolished Cotto). Well, the bell has rung in the next round and a battered Cotto (AT&T), makes a feeble effort at regaining the upper hand.

There’s just no comparison between the two sets of ads. Verizon’s “There’s a Map for That” ads are so simple, so biting, and so memorable – truly classic. But AT&T’s ad (above) just doesn’t have any punch. Great marketing works; poor marketing doesn’t.

Domus is a full-service advertising, PR, and internet marketing agency based in Philadelphia. For more about us, please visit our web site at http://www.domusinc.com.