I have never been this enamored with product packaging since the MacBook, but people do tell me that Amazon really does amazing things with their Kindle hardware line. I’ve never owned one before, till now. This was given to me as a token for speaking in the recent PRSP Congress (everyone agrees that this 2012 PR Congress was something else!). Before the Kindle, I had a Sony eReader and I have to admit although these two ebook readers do the same thing, there’s something about the Kindle that just makes books more appealing to read. No more used textbooks that pile up in the library.
We live in exciting times. For matters of semantics, I refer to “we” being us people in publishing, advertising, marketing, blogging, and really — anyone involved in a profession that has to do with changing mindsets. Globally, we hear horror stories of PR agencies who “just don’t get it” or marketers who try to ride on a successful bandwagon of memes or tend to desecrate the true meaning of “word of mouth” or “viral campaigns” with half baked communication plans. The same is replicated locally — you probably have noticed an upsurge in the number of blogging events with every other PR practitioner wanting a piece of the blogging pie because the values derived from it are more trendy than scientific.
That last line — more trendy than scientific — is usually reflected by these events that don’t really have a lot of strategy involved. The truth of the matter is that blogs — or the bigger pie which is new media is never an end in itself.
I’d like to dispel the myth that local marketers don’t understand new media. A lot don’t. But to say that everyone in the marketing profession is a luddite is a misinformed statement. Take the Department of Tourism for instance, perhaps the most new media savvy branch of government office that recently bagged a Grand Bronze Anvil for PR Tools. Secretary Durano made use of an online video celebrity to lead a market segment to a quantifiable objective — plane ticket sales and adding a whole lot of “brand equity” to the Philippines. I mean, who would have though, eh?
Generally speaking, bloggers in the Philippines are usually classified as the early adopters when it comes to new trends — because breaking it all down, we’re all just very informed consumers. So when we complain, it’s probably the early adopter in us doing so, forgetting that there’s a huge “big body” making its way towards the paved path.
Sure, you’ll have the dime a dozen marketers. But I’m more interested in getting to know the ones who really do get it. And to be quite honest, they’re starting to show themselves 🙂
