• Pivot Post 2: Top Three Takeaways From Day One

    Posted on October 19th, 2010 by and currently 0 commenting.

    Chris Shipley - Pivot Conference

    Top 3 Takeaways From Day One: Robbin

    1. One of my favortie speakers from Monday morning’s line-up was Kit Farrow. She’s a consumer psychologist. Don’t you love that? She made an interesting point about online engagement during the Q+A session. About online dating. You can see someone’s photo and profile and say, “this could be the one.” Then you can email them or chat with them on the phone and say again, “this could be the one.” Then you meet them and within two seconds, you rule them out. There are just some cues we get face to face that we can’t get online. Hmmm. And 90% of word-of-mouth happens offline. So if brands want to connect with their customers, why don’t they spend more time finding ways to find their passionate advocates offline? Just got me thinking.
    2. Second comes from Anthony Shore. He names things. We don’t like bullshit branding, and we don’t like bullshit in social media. Here’s a tiny bit of his speech: “No audience is more cynical than the 18-34 year olds who were born into an online marketplace awash in spam, ‘paid user reviews,’ phishing and other greedy deceptions.” These cynics can sniff out bullshit from a mile away. Actually, they’re waiting for it. And when they zero-in on the source of a communication’s stench (an exaggeration, and ambiguity, and inconsistency, nonsense, promise that is too good to be true) they’ll pounce. And rather than just take their business elsewhere, they’ll take up a cause to expose and punish the bullshitting offender by urging others to boycott. Isn’t that encouraging? And hopeful? Maybe there will be less bullshit in the world. Nice thought.
    3. And speaking of nice things: this generation wants to understand purpose. For them, it’s passion over money. I’d have to say that I think this is just a value shift that is happening across generations. I feel it. Don’t you?
    Top 3 Takeaways From Day One: Dodds
    1. People talk about this new way to connect with customers: conversation, relationship, and ugh, the already over-played ‘authenticity’. But in the same breath they still talk about ‘tapping in’ to customer’s lives to sell them stuff. I fully understand that at the end of the day you have to make sales, but it seems that marketers are in somewhat of an identity crisis. Some work so hard to understand a specific demographic when they really need to re-think what a relationship with their customer actually looks like. They say they want an ‘authentic relationship’ with their customers, but no-one I have a meaningful connection with ‘taps in’ to my life because I’m a certain demographic. Some appear to be managing this shift well, others have a long way to go. What’s clear is that there is a a major tension and that we all have a lot to learn.
    2. I found it very interesting that throughout the first part of the conference (focused on understanding Gen Y) many speakers peppered in brief bits on how important it is to hire talent and treat employees well. They agreed that you have to make a significant investment in your employees if you are going to interact successfully with your customers in this new environment. I don’t’ think this mandate has changed much between the old and new environments, but the consequences for failing to fulfill it have. A good reminder that treating your customers well starts with treating your own employees well.
    3. There is so much talk about the changes that are happening – teen addiction to the internet, constant connection to technology, etc. Yet only a few people really sought to answer the question of whether these changes are fundamentally a good thing. One presenter said that she thinks a lot of the trends she sees are negative (creating more superficial relationships than real ones). The lack of discussion around the topic makes sense in a room of people trying to adapt their marketing to remain profitable, but I think there is a lot of value in asking the fundamental questions. Sure, we can measure these changes, and lots of them are psychological, but are we just going to figure out how to sell to the changes without stepping back and asking about the consequences for society as a whole? Fun (and crucial) questions to think through.