On Digital

The world’s demand for resources (food, energy, water, minerals) seems to be outrunning our ability to supply these needs in a way that doesn’t dramatically impact our lives.  We are increasingly exposed to threats such as core inflation (described recently by Chinese officials as a long-term, not short-term challenge), financial burdens of securing energy supplies (and the cost of investing in new ones),  and the multiple economic and social risks of long-term climate change on our planet and way of life.

The trouble is that, according to “Mainstream Green“, a new report released by Ogilvy Earth, all this doom and gloom hasn’t been particularly effective in driving mainstream consumers to make (and push for) changes to reduce demand for energy and other resources.

In the US, there’s a 30 percentage point gap between people’s stated importance of living sustainably (80% say this is important), and their action (50% engage in sustainable behavior, e.g. taking public transportation or hiking/biking to work; using eco-friendly products and recycling).  (It’s less in China — 14 points — for reasons covered at length in the report.) The mainstream consumer isn’t adopting or championing behavior change.

The possible solution?

There are some brilliantly creative uses of social / conversational media – desktop apps, conversation monitoring, customer service programs, word of mouth and buzz creation services, facebook and myspace apps and games (to name a few) – that could potentially be very helpful for a brand seeking to expand its presence online and gain market insights.

From the perspective of a brand manager, marketing manager or agency seeking to maximize the value of their company’s /client’s marketing budget, however, it’s very important to understand how to allocate funds.  What metrics make sense to use for allocation optimization?

Here are some suggestions based on popular social media objectives. A TNS Media Intelligence / Cymfony late 2007 phone survey of 71 marketing professionals in the US, Canada, the UK and France suggests that marketers generally have the following objectives for social media:

I asked the Travel Channel’s Head of Digital Marketing, Pete Dorogoff, some questions about how the Travel Channel is currently approaching digital media, with a specific emphasis on social media.   Here are the questions and Pete’s answers:

What’s your title?

Head of Digital Marketing, Travel Channel