THOUGHT (aka Centric's Blog)

And welcome to “new new” media. Wander around our site, and you’ll find a completely new focus on the leading edge of interactive development. Sometimes the bleeding edge. We’re talking about things like virtual marketing in Second Life, social media marketing from YouTube to Mixi, mashups with Flickr and Google, and even international opportunities in Asia.

“Why would Centric do this?” you might be asking. After all, we came up through conventional marketing, brand-building, and interactive development, so why this new focus on the edge?

It’s simple. It’s because your greatest opportunity is there.

All the rules are changing. Everything we know is being swept away. Your customers’ voices, amplified by blogs, forums, and user-rated news, are drowning your loudest brand messages. Conventional media is losing its effectiveness–and, in some cases, actually disappearing. And there are emerging marketing opportunities in the virtual space that promise to bring even greater opportunity than the internet circa 1995. Your success in the next 5 years will require understanding these new opportunities, taking advantage of the relevant ones, and having the flexibility to accept even more change as it comes, faster and faster.

Consider this:

• Even as consumers spend 25-40% of their media time online, most companies only spend 3-8% of their budget there.
• In 16 months from its founding, YouTube equalled the reach and engagement of a major television network.
• Second Life could be the next MySpace–and the way you interview your next job candidates.
• B2B and B2C alike are struggling to incorporate social media such as user-generated content and user ratings in relevant ways–even as social media itself changes.
• Your biggest opportunity may not be in the United States–it may be in China.

Which is why we’ve taken the position of Agency of Change. We’ll help keep you in front. We’ll help you understand. And we’ll help you make the most of it. With the same plainspoken, direct approach that we’ve always used.

“So, does that mean you’re going to abandon conventional media altogether?” you ask. No. Not at all. Because everything is changing. Even as blogs eat newspapers, even as YouTube gets reach and engagement beyond network TV, conventional media has reach and engagement with certain demographics that can’t be ignored. But to plan conventional media without being aware of the magnitude of change, without being aware of other opportunities–that is madness.

Welcome to the new Centric. And welcome to the era of change.

If you’re a marketer, you’ve probably already heard about The HBR List, Harvard Business Review’s list of breakthrough ideas for 2007. And there are some great ideas there. But snuck in amongst the stunners is an astoundingly dumb idea. Today.

It’s called “Harry Potter Marketing,” and the gist is this: your brand matures with your customers. Instead of targeting your product at “women aged 25-35,” you target it at “Women born between 1970 and 1980.” The product, product messaging, and media mix all change to age with your target audience.

Now, if you’ve spent more than, say, a nanosecond in real-world marketing, you should have alarm bells jangling already. “Wait a minute, how the heck do I manage multiple age cohorts–maybe dozens or hundreds of them–over, say, a few decades?” you might say. Or you might be imagining the first meeting where your new CMO asks, “So let me get this straight–you’re actually moving the product AWAY from our current customer base?”

But wait. Let’s look at this dispassionately. Change can be a very, very good thing. The idea behind Harry Potter Marketing is that keeping customers is easier than finding new ones. And that’s a solid idea.

But.

And here’s the but. Have you ever worked in a marketing organization that is set up to execute 20-year plans? Let alone one with the management methodology, infrastructure, and discipline to evolve products based on assumptions, research, and feedback about what a current customer base needs as it ages?

Maybe this should be the model that we all shoot for, but in the age of the connected consumer, the conversation, the forum and the blog, I think that this model is a very, very tall order. One that is vulnerable the second a new CMO shows up and begins asking questions.

But but.

Tomorrow. Not too many years from now, human-equivalent computers will sit on desktops. Computers many hundreds of times more powerful than human minds will run corporate back-end systems. And at that point, Harry Potter Marketing may be manageable. Develop sophisticated aging algorithms into your plan, run it on the master marketing system, sit back and profit.

That is assuming, of course, this highly sophisticated software can anticipate the additional change that’ll be happening at the same time.

And that’s assuming we will be smart enough to listen.

In the last few months, we’ve noticed an interesting trend. People who want to work with us increasingly say, “Google my name, you’ll see what I’ve written/done/won.”

At the same time, companies we’re pitching are increasingly impressed when we run a quick Google search on my name. As one of them said: “Wow, with the amount of information on you out there, it’s not like you’re going to disappear on us.”

Hmm. Interesting thought. We just picked up a lot of credibility–not just because of what I’ve said on blogs, what I’ve written, what talks I’ve given–but by the mere fact that I’m findable. Which shouldn’t really be surprising. Findability and transparency are the hallmarks of someone who is participating in the new communications ecosystem; of someone who is comfortable being examined; of someone who believes in Creative Commons rather than copyright.

As William Gibson says: “In the age of the leak and the blog, of evidence extraction and link discovery, truths will either be out or outed, later if not sooner. This is something I bring to the attention of every diplomat, politician, and corporate leader: the future, eventually, will find you out.”

I’ll even venture to add: “Soon, you won’t even be invited to the table if you aren’t knowable. Companies looking to hire you will do a preliminary search, find a blank wall, shake their heads, and move on to persons or firms who are more transparent.”

So, if you’re still shaking your head at blogs, wondering how to manage the hotheads who might post in your user-generated content areas, worrying about how your brand message and vision can be expressed in a video podcast, I’d say: stop wondering, and worrying. Get out there. Be honest. Develop a personality. But above all, be visible. Be knowable.

Because that’s going to matter, more and more.

We were in a business meeting yesterday with a new partner, who we will be working with on a major international brand. And, at that meeting, we were dealt this line:

“We chose you because you are science fiction writers.”

Which may be the first time–ever–that a line like this has ever been used on an agency.

But, let’s think about this a little bit. We’re already living in the future. Maybe not the Jetsons future we imagined 60 years ago, with flying cars and jetpacks and humanoid household robots, but a different future. One with instant video communications and free voice chat all over the planet and user-built virtual worlds and cellphones with more computing power than the desktop computers of a few years ago.

And we’re only beginning to unlock the potential of all these new technologies. Who better to imagine what they can do for a brand today, a year from now, or two years from now, than a group of science fiction writers?

The Power of Imagination

Look at it this way. The pace of change is accelerating. The avenues of communication are changing dramatically. The way people make their decisions about your brand is becoming less share of voice and more word of mouth. In a world like this, your ongoing success is determined less by what you’ve done, and more by what you’re planning to do. Teens are already abandoning MySpace. What’s next? People are multitasking their media. What does this mean? Agencies simply refuse to keep up with the pace of change. Can you even do a traditional full-year media plan anymore?

To succeed today takes vision. Imagination. And a commitment to doing something truly unique, different, and meaningful. A brain trust of science fiction writers imagine new ways to do things on a daily basis. They create entire worlds and economies. They see trends, and extrapolate them to see their impact. And other people pay to read their ideas. If there isn’t a better definition of creating compelling next-generation ideas, I don’t know what it is.

The Power of Story

But it’s not just vision. Why do people keep coming back to experiences like Star Trek, Doctor Who, Stargate, Highlander, Star Wars, or any of dozens of other movies, TV series, games, and more? It’s the power of story. A great tale, with compelling characters, human motivations, powerful conflicts and believable backstory–this is the foundation of every bit of meaningful human communication for thousands of years.

Story is more powerful than claims like “cleans faster” or “more technology.” Especially when people are so savvy to claims: “Cleans faster than what? What’s fastest?” or “What does ‘more’ mean?” These same astute folks willingly put down the money for a movie or a DVD, and spend two or more valuable hours of their lives being transported by a great story.

And science fiction writers, being writers, being published, and being paid, know how to create compelling stories.

So maybe it isn’t so strange that we were chosen because we were science fiction writers. Maybe it’s something that everyone should consider in this rapidly changing world.

We now have Second Talk kiosks on the Pontiac Motorati islands, on the myriad NMC campuses, at th College of Second Knowledge, and in several other independent locations. The latest list is available at www.secondtalk.com/get_second_talk/.

In other news, Vodaphone announced that it is working on a device similar to Second Talk, and Linden Lab has said they are working on truly integrated, localized voice chat within the Second Life client. Which is cool! That’s what we’ve always wanted, and we think it’ll do wonders for the potential of Second Life as both a business and social tool.