Welcome to the New New Centric
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.
