Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Panel Discussion: Managing the Media Landscape

Moderator:
Jennifer Tramontana, Principal, The Fletcher Group, LLC
Brad Russell, Director of Communications, NetSpend
Teri Llach, Chief Marketing Officer, Blackhawk
Stefan Happ, General Manager, Prepaid Cards North America, American Express

Jennifer Tramontana, the moderator for the panel discussion began the morning’s session by discussing how the media landscape today is changing into a more social environment. Press releases should incorporate many multimedia aspects like embedded videos, links, and pictures to engage the audience. Social networks are also becoming increasingly important in order to listen to the customer.

Brad Russell from NetSpend mentioned that traditional media is not going away so social media should augment your media outreach and not totally replace it. Companies can not afford to ignore social media any longer because this platform is on the rise and is not going away anytime soon. Not only should companies dedicate resources, but their time is equally as important because consumers want honesty and truth.

Teri Llach at Blackhawk also mentioned that traditional media continues to be a important tool of reaching the customer but twitter, facebook, and myspace are used to supplement it. Posters, ads, and commercials are one-way conversations and the new age requires two-way conversations that social media entails. Consumers want to have a dialogue with companies and so online, social, and mobile media allows companies to really listen to consumer conversations.

Stefan Happ from American Express began his speech discussing what drives a successful viral campaign. “Buzz marketing” does not drive business results because but word of mouth is the most powerful messaging. Positive messaging and conversations from consumers helped drive the American Express brand before the company started to spend anything on traditional media.

Here's a short clip from the presentation:



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