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

Unilever: a lot more listening

OMMA also hosted a panel exploring "The New Socialism - Marketing Industry Growth Engine?" moderated by Media Link chair and CEO Michael Kassan, who described the climb of social media in melodramatic Hollywood movie mode: "first it took our children, then it came for us, if our pets could type they'd be on it," adding darkly, "something wiki this way comes."

When asked the million-dollar question: "how does it fit in your overall channel mix?" Rob Master, North American media director, Unilever, replied, "we're still evolving with it." Admitting that several years ago he was dubious about there being a role for mayo and deodorant in social media, fast forward and it's now a built-in element. "Now we're looking at the fabric of our campaigns and everything underneath that's social."

Another element Unilever is still evaluating is the right metrics. "Social is a whole other avenue, we don't have a firm grasp of ROI. We're setting up a host of metrics to allow us to benchmark. One of the biggest things Unilever is doing is a lot more listening. Every 60 seconds, four conversations are started about butter or margarine."

Speaking on the same panel, Phil Cowdell, head of Mindshare NA, piped in that they need a wooing metric. "We need to learn to woo. Ultimately we have to get to sales, but it will depend on personal impressions, prejudices, beliefs about a brand. We need to bond them to the brand."

On the question of "is it worth it?" Master replies, "it's something we're watching very closely. We go back to the consumers and ask how they respond to our programs. In the beginning it's going to be a lot of work to restructure your organization in terms of media and creative as well as brands to address the issue." Unilever's social space is helmed by a cross between its media, PR, digital and AOR partners, the 800-number folk, legal and the brands themselves, all working cross-functionally, internally and from an agency POV.

Cowdell also pointed out that the working mayhem wrought by social media is a further "disconnect on the business compensation model, it brings us closer and closer to the abyss."

To get up to speed on the marketing side of that abyss, Master says the last Unilever offsite had a day and half on social media, and is doing Twitter training for the entire org. "You need to stay light on your feet, very nimble, and harness the power of the young people in your organization - we do things like reverse mentoring."

P&G: creative counts

Over at the MIXX event, Lucas Watson, P&G global team leader, digital business strategy, talked about the creative side of working in the digital space. The man with 300+ brands in his digital care entitled his thoughts on the matter "Creative Counts." Watson says that based on learning in the interactive space, creativity quality is driving 70% of the business impact.

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