I get a lot of flak on almost every phrase that comes out of my mouth.  If we ever meet, trust me, I will run my mouth on the smallest and largest subjects.  Most of the time these tirades are driven by "things" or people that directly infect my life.  All of this, babble boils down to one...little comment I let go today: "Socail marketing is slowly killing brands."  This promptly opened up a literal shit storm from all of the people in our office.  I thought perhaps, I would share with you why there is an inherent need to understand, embrace, and kiss your brand goodbye.

Social media / marketing / spanking / loving, whatever you want to call it WILL and IS crumbling your brand.  Don't get me wrong, the actual act is not what is "softening" your brand, it is the people who participate.  Every, and you can take this to the bank, every time your brand is talked about it is being modified, changed, morphed, mutated, etc.  These people are talking every day about brands, but do you think they have gone through Brand X's crash course on it's image, history, lifestyle?  Yeah, doubt it.  Don't get me wrong, these modifications are usually good, however; they probably never line up with what your traditional marketing strategy desires (and really why should they).  You can grasp on to the brand all you want, although; at the end of the day, your brand is going to be represented by word of mouth, people, and certainly not you. 

You can try and put forth a ton of money, man power, time, and effort to block this leak but, why not embrace it?  Take the same people who are eroding your brand and turn them into advocates.  People, who simply can't stop talking about your brand because they realize how unbelievably great it is.  People, who are always talking about your brand no matter the situation.  Really, how unbelievably cool would this be for all you business owners / entrepreneurs out there?  Take your old ass brand image, tone, idea and close the door on that chapter, welcome to something different, way more fun, and 100% more effective.

Marketing, especially these days can be a fairly scary endeavorer with the rise of social media.  Not to mention, a good portion of people in my generation do not watch any form of television and loath listening to the radio.  We crave to consume our media, lets say TV, the way we want to and that leads us to the wonder that still is Hulu.  This maybe all well and good, but can you truly make money selling ads on a computer! *swoon*

Uninspiring marketers would be lost for words at this issue; however, I bet if they were to pull those Nielson things out of their ass they might sing to a different tune.  As a side note, who truly thinks the Nielson ratings are equal amounts of monopolistic bullshit?  Anywho, this Engadget article should shed some light on the idea of buying TV spots on the internet.  If things are more expensive online, because frankly they are shown to a much larger audience, then who is still on board with television being around for much more then a couple of years...max?  Oh yeah, Neilson, this is my "pre" goodbye.

If you happen to listen to me on the mUF podcast you know damn well how I feel about TV, but honestly, my attitude means nothing compared to that of Oprah.  That is right, Oprah is picking up shop and moving to her own network.  What is really happening, is she is consolidating and planning on putting a lot of her content online.  OOF!  How does that feel expensive cable and dish networks?  With all of our watching habits going online how in the world do we monetize the TV based web?  

Easy!  You create engaging and fun advertising because let's face it, you shouldn't be worrying about who you are going to piss off, worry about how you are going to sell brand X.  Second and probably foremost, you need to create a commercial that can be all of engaging accompanied with no sound.  That's right home slice, I know exactly how long the commercial is going to last and it is going to be on mute the whole way through.  Now what?  Well you have two cards you can play.  Make it so completely ridiculous that I un-mute it in a fit of curiosity or convey your message with no sound.  Ok marketers, what ya got?