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Ad Week 2009: Social media manifestos from Ford, Unilever and P&G

New York has always been the epicentre of the ad world in North America, but even in the six short years since the industry first came together to orchestrate Ad Week, things have changed radically on many fronts. Gaming is getting more play this year, mobile scored a summit, trust is on the agenda, as is social impact, and climate change has its own symposium.

However, media remains at the core of the hottest shift in ad circles these days, so it's fitting that two two-day media events kicked off Ad Week in New York yesterday.

According to Interaction, a new GroupM global study, Internet advertising will account for about 15% of global measured advertising spending in 2010, up from an estimated 13% of this year's pie, and up 11% over the previous year. And online outperformed other media through the recession, so no wonder the media streams of Ad Week festivities are digitally obsessed.

IAB's MIXX conference/expo is entitled "Fueling the Creative Revolution in Interactive Advertising," and OMMA's online media, marketing and advertising conference/expo goes under the cheeky billing of "The New Socialism: Marketing's Greatest Opportunity? Or the Final Nail in Big Media's Coffin?"

Luckily, the two confabs are being held mere blocks apart, so MiC can bring you tidbits from the stages of both.

Over at OMMA, organized by MediaPost, the day started off tabulating "The state of online media, marketing and advertising by the numbers."
After ComScore co-founder and CEO Magid Abraham mapped out the aggressive growth of online media and where it's headed, a marketer from Coca-Cola in the audience asked if social media is providing exponential audience reach beyond mass, meriting all the effort. Abraham replied that they do see incremental reach to TV, because when you look at effective TV reach (3+ impressions) you reach about 60%, and that when you add in social media, since there's a lot of young people not watching TV - or maybe just watching it online - you could reach 80%, which is why advertisers are evolving their digital strategy.

Ford: from zero to social brand hero

One morning keynoter, Scott Monty, Ford Motor Company's global digital and multimedia communications manager, is doing just that. Monty's goal was to make Ford the most social auto brand in three years, and did it in six months. He shared Ford's global media strategy in a presentation fittingly called "Social Media Strategy: From Zero to 60."

Monty, who coined the expression "tweet-up," explained Ford's motivation for jumping into the digital fray by citing growing consumer distrust of companies and the credibility of people like themselves and third party experts.

He also says that structural changes at Ford set the stage for success in this realm, explaining that leadership and a strong plan is key to staying on course. Fortuitously, in 2006 Ford hired from outside its industry, bringing in CEO Alan Mullaly, who put a strategic plan in place designed to align and cut out non-core business. And he's not only on board, he's on Twitter. After that, according to Monty, 90% of success in social media is just showing up.

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