June 17, 2002

Sean Carton: ...Death of the "Official Story"
Sean's latest in ClickZ talks about Macromedia's use of blogging to "promote" their new products. Sean points us to a very important study by Edros and Morgan which found only 10% of consumers trust Internet advertising.

I think blogging and other forms of C2C communications (Sean mentions instant messaging, SMS, email chat rooms .... BTW, I think what makes blogging so powerful is that its truly in the public sphere, where as apps like instant messaging are private communications...) are the future of "marketing." "Marketing" in quotes because as oppposed to B2C marketing, where a company pushes a message to a customer, C2C marketing is where businesses facilitate and encourage the communication between customers. And going back to that stat where only 10% of people trust internet advertising, I think customers are looking for some kind of communication that is lower in the bullshit and higher in real value. As marketers we need to facilitate this marketing and ensure its integrity and honesty is upheld above anything else (including -- and don't jump -- negative commentary).

From Sean's article:

Whether Macromedia knows it or not, what it's done is merely institutionalize a trend that's been building up in the consumer landscape for years, a trend that many commercial advertisers are loathe to address: that the Internet now makes it virtually impossible to create a unified "image" consumers will swallow. Sure, you can still create "brands" people can identify, but now, if that finely crafted brand image doesn't match reality, you're gonna be found out.

Interestingly, Mike Chambers, one of the Macromedia bloggers, said that it wasn't a decision by Macromedia to start the blogs but a decision by the 5 community managers who are blogging for Macromedia today.

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