OPEN

I was intrigued by an almost provocative comment from Joseph Jaffe on 6th Crayoncast, the podcast from the guys at Crayon.

In his predictions for 2007 Mr Jaffe, he described direct to consumer communications as being the big trend

“…brands are slowly waking from this almost slumbering sleep and recognising that they are themselves bigger networks than all of the television networks combined. Whether it is a can of Coke, whether it is a store front, the amount of people that are exposed to brands directly… is absolutely breathtaking. But more importantly brands are recognising, especially with digital new marketing that they can go directly to consumers…”

This is a highly interesting way for us to think about marketing as we move from a channel based content world to one of networks.

My thoughts, briefly:

• I see networks as neutral. Brands are in the same networks as the media providers they used to simply lobby for influence (PR) or buy their way into (advertising). That means that they can – as well as continuing to look to gain attention via  traditional media – look to both complement and compete with them for attention.
• Existing media brands have deeper relationships with people right now when it comes to content. Brands aren’t trusted as much and as often to provide quality content. That’s not to say that that can’t change, and that in fact brands should work hard to change that by providing useful content that their networks and communities of interest want.

BTW: the Crayoncast is a great podcast to subscribe to (if you haven’t already): brief (10 mins or so) punchy, and packed with insights and provocations from some very interesting people with different takes on digital media and marketing.