CNET Wonders “Who Asked Marketers To Join Readers Online?”
I spent 6 years selling adverting and other marketing services for CNET — asking, as part of my job, for marketers to join our readers online. I’m sure glad I didn’t have to sell against that headline when I was there!
Elinor Mills at CNET’s News.com asks what she takes to be a rhetorical question, “Want to ‘converse’ with marketers?” and provides her answer in the headline to her piece, “Me neither.”
I wonder how Intel, the advertiser running alongside that story, feels about CNET’s point of view, that Intel doesn’t belong there, that marketers aren’t adding to the CNET experience except insofar as they pay their bills.
Mills also challenges the founding concept of conversational marketing:
And what’s this with the slogan of the conference — “Brands are conversations”? No, they aren’t.
Oh my goodness. Forget about the sometimes-controversial programs called conversational marketing. Great brands have sparked conversations since before there was an internet, conversations that often don’t even require that we open our mouths. We tell our friends, our colleagues and communities something about ourselves (I’m not saying it’s always something good) by the brand choices we make — the cars we drive, the sneakers we wear, the cellphones we use. I don’t know Elinor personally, so perhaps she doesn’t engage with brands or people who use, wear or talk about brands. But if that’s the case, she’s part of a very small segment of population.
The hilarious thing is, just by saying “And what’s this with the slogan of the conference — “Brands are conversationsâ€? No, they aren’t.” refutes her point. She’s conversing about the “brand” of the CMSummit.
I can understand some peoples knee jerk reaction to brands being conversations, but I think the qualifier you put in your post is an important one:
“Great brands have sparked conversations since before there was an Internet, conversations that often don’t even require that we open our mouths.”
People can argue about brands being conversations but would anyone argue that *Great* brands are conversations?