video 2 zero

In the Art of the Start Guy Kawasaki emphasized the importance of crafting a mantra rather than a mission statement or business plan. A plan detailing what you intend to do may limit or even emasculate the enterprise. A mantra shifts the focus away from operational details towards values and principles. From the “what” to the “how”. The Art of the Start is a free 30 page PDF well worth skimming through.

For my video production business I came up with “authentic compelling imagery”.

Authenticity works well when applied to imagery - there’s no real downside to “authentic” images. But even a short 3 years ago authenticity had limited appeal in the wider world of media, marketing and brand management. The emphahsis was on protecting and managing the brand or message.

And then Cluetrain began to gain some major traction. Markets as conversations, blogs, and videojournalism all exploded. Suddenly “authenticity” is everyone’s watchword. Authenticity gained currency as dissembling became too expensive. Even the spinmeisters at PR giant Edelman learned that they could no longer reliably serve their well-heeled clients by hoodwinking the public.

The greatest lesson that main stream media. PR companies, marketing departments and advertisers can learn from bloggers, citizen journalists, and user-generated content is the value of authenticity. Specifically the importance of presenting an authentic persona. “Opinionated” is no longer a put-down. Jeff Jarvis made the official announcement earlier this morning:

“Read this post by Saul Hansell about Yahoo on the NY Times’ new tech blog. It is opinionated, filled with opinion, and that’s what makes it so good. I doubt that this would appear in the paper but I certainly don’t know why.”

There are obviously other lessons that mainstream-media can learn from the blogsphere but the importance of personality, charisma, authenticity is close to the top of the list. Howard Owens disagrees. In his list of “What We’ve Learned From Blogs.”
When I commented on this omission his somewhat cryptic response suggested that while he was an advocate of stronger public personas for journalists this was not an area where bloggers were the best model. Perhaps he is right - after all newspaper journalists don’t need to follow the example of the celebrity personas who power the Huffington post. They could certainly learn the same lesson from Michael Moore or Rush Limbaugh.

The authenticity jag has some interesting implications.

First if the brand is a reflection of the company rather than invention of an ad agency can we expect companies to take greater control in the production and dissemination of their own ads? Terry Heaton notes “This year’s Annual Ad Spending Study by Outsell Inc. shows that advertisers in the U.S. think the most effective online marketing tool is their own website”.

Secondly when marketing departments are learning to encourage, or at least tolerate, public conversations with their customers, how can they most productively participate in those conversations? Interesting discussion on this topic in “Social Media meets marketing” at scribemedia.

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