Wandering through the old streets of Cannes, the various ads and teasers are about online. Digital, you know, and social media. #canneslions ’11 is going to be Social. For sure.
Sipping cool drinks, awaiting the official start of the event, conversation goes on about the future. The future of advertising, communication, news, influencing. The future of some very influencing industries. And, apparently, between industrial quantities of Pastis and Pernod, it has been decided that the future is going to be digital. And social. For sure.
I, for one, think that this is missing the point entirely. I agree with The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University: the real future of advertising, communication, media buying and news lies exactly where it was in the past: in the ability to deliver a compelling message to a selected audience.
Having insights (metrics, data, intelligence…) on the communities that harbor your target audience enables you to plot a suitable connection plan, fueled by conversation topics and appealing content.
It does not matter if that community is on – or offline. A good strategy is built around the connecting points, encompassing online and offline, making sure to reach the community in the least intrusive way. Stop bringing the people to the mountain… move the mountain.
If you reach out to communities… do not forget you reach out to people, not to numbers, or dots on a chart… reaching out to people is pretty social in my book, it always was.
The key to success is still the ability to benefit from insights, to have the right empathy to feel the community, and to cleverly select the right mix of influencing channels.
Some old games never change. They are just dressed differently.