You know you've come up with something really really compelling and sticky when folks start to dedicate articles to its demise. Such is the case with Henry Copeland's "out-with-CGM-in-with-'immedia'" argument in yesterday's MediaPost. In one of his more memorable lines, he argues, "Calling blogs consumer-generated media is
like calling sex the 'clothless generation of heat, musk and mucus.'
The essential excitement and motivation just doesn't come through, does
it?" After this fine-metaphor, he makes a case for rebranding the movement around a term called "immedia."
First reaction: Three cheers for anyone seeking to promote and brand the most profound and important landscape-shift in marketing history: consumers (or users, or individuals, or whatever) taking greater control of the message. A couple weeks back, Burson-Marsteller dropped a release using the term "User Generated Media." Edelman uses the term TrustMEdia. Many other phrases and expressions have been used, but at the end of the day, we're all talking about the same concept!
Second reaction: I'm admittedly glued to the word "consumer," partly stemming from my P&G training, which I still credit for my continued passion for deep consumer understanding. Yes, I buy CEO A.G. Lafley's "consumer is boss" mantra hook, line, and sinker. It will take a small army to move me away from this critical positioning. Broadly defined, the term "consumer" works, and the last thing we need is let marketers off the hook for not tatooing the word "consumer" --- in LARGE CAPS and bold face -- to their foreheads. Copeland is offering us a well-intentioned "technical" reason for walking away from the term "consumer," as so many marketers attempt to do, and I just don't buy it!
Third Reaction (plus some explanation): Here's some important historical backdrop on the term CGM. I actually came up with the term CGM while in the shower one morning about three years ago. Although I later co-founded WOMMA, at the time I had real issues with the term "word-of-mouth," as this concept still seemed to came across to many marketers as touchy-feely, non-quantifiable, ephemeral, and even fleeting. I had mixed feelings about the term "buzz" and the term "viral" had too many double meanings. What seemed critical and urgent to me was establishing a term that marketers would easily remember and truly take seriously. Moreover, it was critical to find a term that immediately synched with the current vocabulary of "media" buyers and planners, who in my view were significantly over-investing in "paid" media and conspicuously ignoring the unmistakable impact of "free" media. This is the first time I've admitted this, but CGM actually stemmed from a desire to find something that rhymed with CPM (cost per thousand), which is a universally known metric of media buying.
What I learned very quickly was that the core hypothesis proved correct: new names that anchor to industry "comfort zones" make sell-through much easier. So far the term has actually helped break down barriers in getting marketers starting to take word-of-mouth and consumer-generated content more seriously. We're still in the early stages of the education process, but the industry is getting wiser.
Last Reaction: On the "media" part, we're all in agreement, and I'm probably closer to Copeland (a very impressive advertising pioneer, I might add), on this point than some of my WOM brethren. The fastest growing media is that which consumer shape and share themselves. It's TIVO resistant, and presents long-lasting sources of influence.
Ignore it at your peril.
(BTW, Matt Galloway and Owen Mack beat me to the punch on some excellent thoughts here.)
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