a Marketing 2.0 glimpse for Philippines

How many times did I say to my colleagues to exercise their fingers and make them collaborate with their brains?

How can I forget about the multiple debates I personally got into since the year 2001 on using digital copy (if not by email) instead of hard copy? During that time, my business partners would even laugh at me and would still insist on submitting to clients the post mortem reports and documentation in clear books that would weigh more than 2 kilos. They would always say that it is the practice in the advertising industry. For me, it’s a crap somehow abusing the environment! The quality might have been there but the little innovativeness was absent. After all, the employees were also lost and the wannabes later on were looking for their blue book to see what they are gonna do next. In other words, the vision stopped even before it exists.

Why is information not important to many executives whose favourite line includes “what the heck am I gonna do with this?”

Are you still checking at your Friendster? It’s 2002ish! Many may not know that the founder Jonathan Abrams was removed as CEO after 2 years. After turning down Google’s US$30 million offer, the company now is valued at less than one-twentieth its valuation 5 years ago. It has already been eclipsed by Facebook which I am sure that most of my friends who are still not into it are losing opportunities from their supposedly network.

So you think you have great ideas. You think your ideas are original. What about your strategy? You think that your ideas are a set of good strategies. Your personal strategy may be different from business strategy. In my case, I follow my personal strategy. Where do I get the wisdom? I refer to the books and magazines I read from the bible to punk marketing, to surfing magazines and to the very classic “pugad baboy”. I extract the good from the bad stress by spending time skating with my Sector 9 board in one of the streets in Global City, Fort. I collect architectural and coffee books like Venice and New Home that stimulate my creativity of building my own dream house in the future.

Again, so you think that your ideas are a set of good strategies. Then after 2 years you will feel that the number of people who you think will still do business with you will plunge. Then you will start blaming the 5 forces analysis such as the threat of new entrants, the bargaining power of your suppliers, bargaining power of your buyers, threat of substitute products (goods or services), and the competitive rivalry in the industry. You will also start blaming your employees for not adopting your system. Then, the war kicks off in the boardroom and you will start firing up the missiles to one another until the ship sinks. Then a hero will come in to save the world.

I don’t blog everyday. I blog when I am inspired. Off the hook, my canyon advice is “you must blog!!!!” Someone else will do write about what you are thinking and feeling now. It is no longer a question of status in life. Rich or not so rich. Poor or poorer. A college graduate versus a high school graduate. The chief executive and founder of the most innovative company in the world might not know how it feels to have a college diploma. He never had a chance to grow up with his biological parents. He started broke and once played as a mascot in a children’s party.

The other day we were talking about redesigning the website of Redmedia, the company we founded 3 years ago. A dormant on its first year, it has been transformed with its original objective of helping companies connect with their customers using CRM (questionably owned by the call center industry) to digital brand marketing and relationship marketing. Blah blah blah! We have so many ideas in mind. In fact, we always talk about the technology trend that is so fast that every time the 3 of us bolt in, the ideas become a strategy.

Inboundpass.com occurred overnight, believe it or not…in our geeky thoughts! Last year, the most controversial online source of Philippine collegiate basketball leagues such as NCAA and UAAP was launched and steadily became the reference (that we would like to share to our future sponsors and advertisers) of alumni and basketball fans.

We tried to introduce (and we still do) Web 2.0 to the market but I could only count with my fingers those who adopted and understood it. Inboundpass.com is an elementary example of Web 2.0. Now, some groups are beginning to enrol themselves in grade 1 to comprehend the technical foundation. Many get intimidated with Tim O’Reilly’s concept. But how many times we will say that Web 2.0 is also a marketing tool. If you do understand the word innovation, then you will know that it is a powerful business concept – interaction of business models.

It was almost a decade ago when I first used to connote my inspiration as “technology enabler” or “technology driver”. Technology is a discipline. It’s a principle. It is not just any piece of hardware or software that most of us thought. Sad to say that even my former classmates in Technology Management Center understand that technology is a product or something tangible. Today, technology is already a lifestyle. It already reaches the point that the business world uses it as one big marketing harness on the mountain. In other words, we have been indoctrinated.

In the Philippines, to make Web 2.0 commercially successful, it must be introduced to the brand managers and marketing managers. When technologists discuss about this concept, they are only building a small meme. If restraint to the marketing people, the benefits to the companies may start to leak.

Now, in order to pursue Web 2.0 to the marketing executives and business owners (let’s talk about the advertising executives later), the 3 of us in Redmedia agree on enabling a new paradigm, Marketing 2.0, in the Philippines. To make the marketing executives and business owners understand what Marketing 2.0 is, we use social media network as an illustration. In the present, engaging consumers with a brand is no longer the best way in getting people’s attention. I repeat, engaging consumers with a brand is no longer the best way in getting people’s attention. 4Ps or 6Ps may be a good foundation but it is still an old school approach. The best way is to let the people engage with one another. It is the intensity of social engagement that brings the brand to spread like a virus – a viral marketing.

What would you like to see more? Product ads or your friends?

I am buying a Canon Powershot G9 this week. After having read the reviews, as a novice, I am so excited to use and explore this practical point-and-shoot camera which is compared with the expensive Leika but with almost the same functionalities. I didn’t bother to see any product ad either on TV or print. I didn’t even have a chance to talk to a Canon sales rep (as if I care). Instead, I relied on what my friend said. Then I surfed the net and read blogs about the product. Then, I decided to buy.

How many among you have iPhone? Did you rely on the traditional advertising approach or convinced by your friends?

While driving along Makati Ave. last night, I called up Dave Quitoriano and was excited to phone him the feedback I got from a brand manager of a top multinational company whom I discussed and shared the Marketing 2.0. I unintentionally revealed my salesmanship personality for like 15 minutes and surprisingly got a positive text message from him when I was buying an architectural book in Fully Booked, Powerplant. By the way, Fully Booked is owned by young and dynamic entrepreneur Jaime Daez, whom I bumped with once, if I were not mistaken, in Fully Booked, Bonifacio High Street.

Dave emailed me a link about the blog of Aileen Apolo. Incidentally, this is the information we need to help marketing executives, business owners and decision makers to at least spare attention to Marketing 2.0.

You will be surprised that a full-service media communications agency, a fiscally independent from McCann Erickson conducted a global (of course, Philippines is included) research about the impact of social media to measure consumer usage, attitudes and interests in adopting social media platforms. I will share my opinion about the research next time. If you can’t find the PDF file signed by Tom Smith of Universal McCann, then you may email me.

Anyway, going back to my sketchpad, Web 2.0 needs Marketing 2.0 in order to reach out to the marketers. It has to be disrupted for better and not to be ignored. A constellation of messages in the environment of the new era is Marketing 2.0. It is 360 degrees communication and 24/7 open to innovating services.

Technology and marketing people in the Philippines have to collaborate. You can watch it in CNN.com/360 . You upload your favourite photo with either Piolo or Angel to Flickr. You watch David Blaine’s feared rival Ramon Bautista (a.k.a Dan Michael) and his magic tricks in YouTube. You are now a member of Facebook where you can accept in your network your crushes and ignore the people you hate, or simply you don’t want to see. You can now secretly join an underground social media cult where you trade your weaknesses and privacy. Testimonials on the web are available…above all, you have friends who can help you decide, buy, and influence.