Far and away the biggest highlight of my recent West Coast trip was a Supernova workshop panel I co-moderated with my indefatiguable colleague Max Kalehoff. Our topic for the in-depth 90 minute panel was "Social Multi-Media," another term for CGM2 (Consumer-Generated Multi-Media), and we managed to assemble an excellent and diverse panel of participants representing perspective of big advertisers and key CGM2 enablers. Panelists included Michael Wiley of GM (initiator of the GM
Fastlane blog and fellow WOMMA board member), Curt Hecht of GM Planworks (Starcom/MediaVest), Oliver Lucket of video-upload service Revver,
Brian Zeug of Yahoo, and Stan Joosten of P&G. Pamela Parker captured a few key highlights in a recent article in ClickZ. ZD-Net also has a good summary. Our key question:
Now that user expression is dialing up to a more emotional and viral level through social multimedia platforms -- including images, audio and video -- how are marketers facing the challenging implications on traditional marketing practices and customer relationships?
I daresay half the excitement revolved around getting to know everyone from the night before over dinner. During both dinner and the panel, we deeply probed around the impact of the evolving social-media space, especially video. Stan shared insights around P&G's "future of media" landscape work (which clearly acknowledges a world of consumers as "content creators'), but also suggested (especially during the panel) that not all P&G brands (e.g. Charmin) will find this relevant. He also talked candidly of the challenge of large organizations moving fast in this area. Michael Wiley of GM spoke candidly of both the excitement and challenges and rewards of initiating and sustaining externally facing blogs at GM. With the Fastlane's enormous success, he noted, other GM brand are eager to "jump in" and yet there a need to keep it all focused and on-strategy. Curt of GM-Planworks alluded to new media tools emerging to better harness the CGM and social media work, but noted the rapid, almost humbling, pace of change in this arena. Beyond his excellent comments, what was so interesting about Brian of Yahoo was his position itself. Yahoo is establishing key "category management" vertical in areas like auto and CPG to help better "package" holistic offering for major marketers, and Brian, a former key executive from M&M/Mars (home of the highly participatory "Global Color Vote" initiative in partnership with Grey Interactive) is leading the CPG charge. Smart move for Yahoo. Big marketers are looking for holistic planning, not sexy "one-offs." 
Oliver of Revver impressed me because his business model is not only grounded on an aggressive future vision of CGM2, but from the get-go acknowledges the rights and contributions of content-creators. Interestingly, there seems to be a timely convergence of major advertisers looking to CGM or CGM2 as the new "secret sauce" of advertising effectiveness, and the rise of "enablers" like Revver and ViTrue who are looking to "source" or "host" CGM creation or ad-integration for major advertisers...and to do so in a highly consumer-centric manner. Anyway, this post hardly does justice to a wonderful gathering consumer-centered leaders/visionaries, and we all vowed to keep the "conversation" alive. For future learning, I highly encourage the Supernova blog for additional insights.
Disclosure & Credits: P&G & GM are clients of Nielsen BuzzMetrics. We have also led projects for Yahoo. Photo caption from top left to right: Curt Hecht, Oliver Luckett, Stan Joosten, Pete Blackshaw (me), Michael Wiley, Max Kalehoff.
Comments