On one of the LinkediN forums there is an active debate going on about the logic behind Pepsi’s move to pull out of the SuperBowl ad and dedicate efforts and resources to a Social Media driven campaign instead.

I copy ad-lib, my take on it below, trying to explain what SM is and what it is being confused with:

* The problem I see with traditional marketers and advertisers is that they are looking at this whole SM thing myopically, that is why the resistance, and it seems to go against what has already been established for all these 100 years as the definition of “media”. SM is not media in the traditional marketing/advertising sense… SM is “part” of a new media platform called Digital Media.

* What pepsi is doing is actually SWITCHING platforms from traditional media (video billboard at Superbowl) to Digital Media!

* Digital Media is a beast to understand, but here’s a simpler way of looking at it. It seems complicated to comprehend because never before in the history of advertising has a Media platform been so versatile – It can reside as a tangible entity (such as a video billboard driven by Digital content), it can be intangible such as floating out on the internet “cloud” ..ready to become tangible again in the hands of a user with a smart phone.

You see the chameleon like possibilty of advertising this way? Social Media is just a “Skin” ..one of the “skins” for presenting Digital Media advertising.

It goes deeper, Yes it is about creating a buzz, with the SM route that Pepsi is taking, they have the capability of turning EVERY blackberry and smart phone “billboard” in the hands of consumers into a miniature SB digital screen.

the only thing they are doin is not paying the “premium” of renting physical space on the main SB billboard.

Someone said earlier in this thread (on LinkediN )….”Conversations. I know this comes out of CRM to imply interactivity. But, there really isn’t much conversing going on. As one example, in Twitter, the average user has posted ONCE in their entire time on Twitter. That makes it a broadcast medium. How many times does the average Facebook “friend” of a commercial FB profile send TO that friend? I’ll be it’s similar to Twitter (with a few exceptions). “……..

The beauty of these Digital media “skins”, FB, Twitter, SM as a whole is that you don’t need to “keep” on broadcasting.. That’s the old advertising mentality… that it will die out. In Digital Media advertising, once is enough, per person… it carries on as this is the only media platform in the past 100 years that has the capability of making the Audience the advertiser . It is a huge peer-to-peer network. Even if they posted once (that’s exactly how i started) the platform is there to return to, within a week, a month. or a year . NOT so with traditional media platforms. It gets rented out and the “slot” is taken.

Finally the biggest thing about SM / Digital advertising… to replicate, i.e do a re-run in traditional media, it will mean re-budgeting the whole damn thing, buying media space etc…

In Social Media or digital media.. it’s a “Re-Tweet” to go viral again.

On one of the LinkediN forums there is an active debate going on about the logic behind Pepsi's move to pull out of the SuperBowl ad and dedicate efforts and resources to a Social Media driven campaign instead.

I copy ad-lib, my take on it below, trying to explain what SM is and what it is being confused with:

* The problem I see with traditional marketers and advertisers is that they are looking at this whole SM thing myopically, that is why the resistance, and it seems to go against what has already been established for all these 100 years as the definition of “media”. SM is not media in the traditional marketing/advertising sense… SM is “part” of a new media platform called Digital Media.

* What pepsi is doing is actually SWITCHING platforms from traditional media (video billboard at Superbowl) to Digital Media!

* Digital Media is a beast to understand, but here's a simpler way of looking at it. It seems complicated to comprehend because never before in the history of advertising has a Media platform been so versatile – It can reside as a tangible entity (such as a video billboard driven by Digital content), it can be intangible such as floating out on the internet “cloud” ..ready to become tangible again in the hands of a user with a smart phone.

You see the chameleon like possibilty of advertising this way? Social Media is just a “Skin” ..one of the “skins” for presenting Digital Media advertising.

It goes deeper, Yes it is about creating a buzz, with the SM route that Pepsi is taking, they have the capability of turning EVERY blackberry and smart phone “billboard” in the hands of consumers into a miniature SB digital screen.

the only thing they are doin is not paying the “premium” of renting physical space on the main SB billboard.

Someone said earlier said in this thread ….”Conversations. I know this comes out of CRM to imply interactivity. But, there really isn't much conversing going on. As one example, in Twitter, the average user has posted ONCE in their entire time on Twitter. That makes it a broadcast medium. How many times does the average Facebook “friend” of a commercial FB profile send TO that friend? I'll be it's similar to Twitter (with a few exceptions). “……..

The beauty of these Digital media “skins”, FB, Twitter, SM as a whole is that you don't need to “keep” on broadcasting.. That's the old advertising mentality… that it will die out. In Digital Media advertising, once is enough, per person… it carries on as this is the only media platform in the past 100 years that has the capability of making the Audience the advertiser . It is a huge peer-to-peer network. Even if they posted once (that's exactly how i started) the platform is there to return to, within a week, a month. or a year . NOT so with traditional media platforms. It gets rented out and the “slot” is taken.

Finally the biggest thing about SM / Digital advertising… to replicate, i.e do a re-run in traditional media, it will mean re-budgeting the whole damn thing, buying media space etc…

In Social Media or digital media.. it's a “Re-Tweet” to go viral again.

* edit ******* lol, Brian, I think we posted at almost the same time!

Kind Regards
Clyde

Thanks for sharing valuable insights.