Stop Thinking Like an Advertiser and Start Thinking Like a Brand Programmer

The classic ad model is quickly dying.  

Cable TV started to kill it by dramatically increasing our viewing options and making it easy to zap ads and switch channels.  The Internet is finishing off the job because TV is no longer the only place you can use video to communicate about your brand.  Everyone now has the web.  It's easy to use video on your brand's web site.  In fact, you can create whatever web programming you want.  You're not interrupting anything with an ad.  You're now conveying information (or branded infotainment) that people have surfed their way to your web site to find.  You are no longer an advertiser.  You are now a brand programmer.   Big difference!

As a brand programmer you're free from all those constraints that "advertisers" face.  The big one being the limitation to thirty seconds (or sixty if you've got the big bucks).   Hey, it's your web site.  Those videos can be any length you want.  But long videos cost too much money to produce I hear someone saying.  Not necessarily.  You can spend a fortune or you can spend almost nothing.  That's a marketing decision based on what you think your brand requires.  The most popular viral videos from the web are home-made and that's a big part of their charm.  They are not slick and they are not overly produced and people can't get enough of them.  They're real and that makes them believable and (potentially) persuasive.

Research  techniques that play a large role in shaping TV ads at many companies are not relevant for web-based video.   The research tools that have been used for years to measure and evaluate TV ads don't apply to web-based brand video.  All those research-driven "do's and don'ts" can be tossed right out the window, too.  How liberating for brand communicators!  And how scary.  No rules.  No road maps.  A blank palette where brilliant creativity can flourish and where lame creativity has no excuse to exist.  

But this new world requires a new mindset among marketers and "advertisers."  An ad created for traditional TV is not likely to work on the web.  New thinking and new approaches are required.   Similarly, if you've never been a TV-driven marketing company, you now need to move into the world of video production and become a brand programmer for your web site.   There are many small B2C and many B2B companies that have NEVER considered video as a brand communication tool.  Today, this is just silliness.  If you've got a web site, you've got a platform to use brand video as a marketing tool.   

All Those Unmanaged Web Sites Out There

Is there anyone in business today who disagrees that having a vibrant appealing web site is now an absolute "Must Have"?

It's the first place a potential prospect or employee or strategic business partner goes to learn about a company.  It's the first place they go to evaluate you versus your competition. Remember that old saying "You only have one chance to make a good first impression"?  Well, today, that first impression is made by your web site.  In fact, today, I'd argue that it's your web presence OVERALL and not just your web site that is making that critical first impression. Your company is being googled and whatever shows up on that first page of a google search represents your company in today's digital interconnected universe.

When is the last time you googled your own company or brand?  Try it.  Be a secret shopper for an afternoon and pretend you know next to nothing about your company and/or brand.  Google it.  Do you like what you see?    Do you see things that you'd like to change and improve?  Is your SEM and SEO what it should be?

Now, here's the $64,000 question....do you have anyone in your organization whose primary job is to manage the internet presence of your company and/or brand?  If not, WHY NOY? How easy is it for you to make changes to your web site and actively manage your web presence?   Companies and their senior executives generally get all hot and bothered about building or rebuilding a web site and then they check it off the "to do list" and move on to the next project. That's insanity.  Whenever I revisit a web site and see that it is exactly the way it was the last time I looked, I conclude two things:  1)no one is paying attention and 2) this company doesn't get it.  They are not a sophisticated marketing communicator and probably not a very well run business.  In some cases these are probably erroneous perceptions, but perception is reality.  The point is that if you, as a senior marketing or corporate executive, are ignoring your web presence or attending to it only periodically, you are ignoring a critically vital aspect of your company.

Your web presence is NOT a project or a part-time job.  It is a strategically vital dynamic communication platform that is probably more important than every other communication tool in your marketing arsenal.  It merits full time attention .  It is never "DONE".  It is a work in progress that should be evaluated, measured and managed every single day.  

If your company is not paying enough attention to its web presence, shame on you.  Start!  It's marketing insanity not to.