You Might Be a Digital Dinosaur

What are you going to do differently to make this year better than last year?

Newspapers are going out of business on a daily basis. Television advertisers are leaving in droves. Radio stations are being forced to layoff employees because of declining revenues.
Way back in the early 90s, the economy was going through a downturn, media had been tremendously affected by USA Today, Cable TV and more targeted advertising. I decided to switch the marketing of a company from Trade print to consumer broadcast and in the process learned that Wrestling and NASCAR were well targeted audiences for the companies product.

I knew there was no way that I could convince the Board to let me spend the advertising budget on Wrestling so that left NASCAR. That decision evolved into the sponsorship of a race team. This caused a stir in the organization because I was spending money on a race team when the organization was going through cutbacks and shortened work weeks. Immediately upon hearing the first rumblings of problems, I explained that the expenditure on the race team was made to increase our brand image and exposure in an effort to increase sales and get everyone back to work.

It worked. They bought into the idea and became big supporters of the endeavor.

In 1993 I spent $500,000 on our NASCAR Busch Team and we won the Championship. As a result of our efforts, the company received $1,000,000 worth of exposure on Television plus significant print coverage and incredible team spirit in the organization. It did increase our brand image and helped us gain ground with some major accounts. I also believe that it was a key ingredient in the 60% unit growth achieved while I was working with that company.

Today, like then, traditional media is undergoing some tremendous changes. This is evident by the falling revenues of traditional media. At the same time, there is one avenue that is continuing to grow and that is Web 2.0. This is a new arena for marketers and there are few precedents to follow, but in this uncertainty lies a tremendous opportunity.

Check your understanding of this new media by taking the quiz, You might be a Digital Dinosaur if:

You think FaceBook is the family photo album.
You think your office is MySpace.
You think tweet is what a bird does.
You think Linkedin has to do with keeping your dog in the yard.
You think Tweetdec is the front porch of a birdhouse.
You think WordPress is what Gutenberg used to print the Bible.

Here is how to score your results. If you got:
5+ = Marketing Guru
4 = Social Networker
3 = Tweeter - Tweet me @CannonAdvantage
2 = barely aware - Talk to a tweeter
1 = Digital Dinosaur call a tweeter immediately for help.

© Copyright Bob Cannon/The Cannon Advantage, 2009. All rights reserved.