Open Those Pockets

4. Create conversation capital and turn your advocate media on

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   The largest new media space is the highly public voice of the consumer. If you have advocates, as evidenced by high customer satisfaction rates or a large pool of net promoters, then your primary marketing objective ought to be empowering them to distribute your message and endorse your brand. Let them know they are a critical component of your success and reward them for their support. President Obama (arguably the marketer of the year, if not the decade) told his supporters first who his VP candidate was via text message. In turn, how many text messages do you think his supporters sent out spreading the news? Millions.

   You should also add the measure of buzz-worthiness to your marketing review criteria. Ideas and campaigns that capture the imagination of consumers and the press have a higher likelihood of being talked about online and offline. So whatever you do, do something worth talking about and it'll get talked about.

5. Optimize all your assets to market your brand

   Expand the definition of what media can mean: your employees, their cars, your trucks, your product, your buildings, your partnerships, your packaging. As you evaluate your marketing plans, a component of them should include “own brand media.” Zappos has 500 employees who tweet. Burger King recognizes that the wrapper of a Whopper creates more brand impressions than most TV shows. Ask yourself if this real estate is being used to optimally extend your message. Necessity is the mother of invention, and one of these “own brand media” may be the key to keeping your brand in the consumer conversation.

Always remember, it's the quality of the engagement that really counts. Take social media. The fact that a single YouTube video can have more impressions than an Oscar telecast is pretty powerful. Many marketers are still trying to figure out how to deploy their brands into these social arteries.

What seems to be getting lost in all of this is that it doesn't matter how much you put out there, or how many social mechanisms you use or, for that matter, how much you spend. What matters is how much people engage with it.

My seven-year-old can post a video on YouTube. The question isn't are people seeing it, but are people following, rating and sharing it; are they “friends” or even “fans”? Cadbury's “Gorilla” ad received 3.5 million YouTube views. Impressive. More impressive is that it is one of the most discussed pieces of online content of all time, and it's spurred thousands of consumer-created spoofs. Its real value is its talkability. So ask yourself, is the content your brand is creating worth engaging in and talking about?

Yes, when thinking about your marketing spend during a recession and, more important, about your marketing content, the biggest risk is to not take a risk at all.

Jamie King is president, Euro RSCG Chicago.

Got a topic you'd like to suggest for a “Thinking Out Loud” debate? E-mail beth.negus@penton.com or brian.quinton@penton.com