Jimmy Gilmore

01.13.10

Time to stop pussy footing, creative folks.

: Image by musha68000 via Flickr

I’m a copywriter and also a social media guy. So a post by Jim Mitchem got me fired up last week. And it also got me thinking about the role that creative folks are playing in the social space right now. The reality is we’re not doing all that much right now. In fact, a lot of what I’m doing in the social space has more to do with coaching and cheer leading than it does being creative.

So I think the time for the best in my field, copywriters and art directors, to help transform social media to a more creative space over the next couple of years. Right now, clients are still just talking about spending big bucks on social media and we in the agency world, are still trying to get them to actually pony up the agency fees required to have a senior creative do something transformative. And I can’t wait.

Right now the inspiring and creative things are coming from developers and technical innovators. But sooner or later the wizzbang excitement is going to be gone and we’re going to need these tools to be distributing engaging content. The creatives role will be to step up and make make this interesting, exciting and well, creative.

Back in the early days of film, audiences were happy to sit through a screening of a horse running and train chugging along a track. And they were actually afraid they were going to get hit by the train. It was damn exciting stuff for people who had never seen anything like it before. After a few years though, the same audiences started demanding a story. And directors like Eisenstein and DW Griffin delivered with Battleship Potemkin and Birth of a Nation.

Web 2.0 is delivering us the tools to be creative in entirely new ways and it’s now up to us to figure out how make the most of it. Yes there have been some interesting projects and I hope it won’t be till the One Show and D&AD create an award for Twitter before we see the full power of advertising creativity unleashed on the space. Let’s not wait, lets start moving the ball now. It can never hurt to get ahead of everyone else.

Technorati Tags: advertising, Atlanta, bloggers, Copywriter, copywriting, jimmy gilmore, social media, Web 2.0

Tags: advertising, Atlanta, bloggers, Copywriter, copywriting, jimmy gilmore, social media, Web 2.0
| Posted in advertising, creative | View Comments

11.19.09

What I learned at BlogWell Atlanta

I’ve already posted on the 10,000 foot view, so I wanted to get at about what I actually learned BlogWell Atlanta.

Andy Sernovitz had some important points on ethics and disclosure. He outlined dangers to a brand of not having clear, legal agreements with vendors acting on a brand’s behalf and opined that the new FCC guidelines a positive development for the industry. His belief is that social media will be much better served by government policing than it would by being allowed to evolve on its own the way email did.

There were some compelling BtoB stories. Orange and SunGuard had showed how social media benefited their bottom line through providing helpful information to clients and potential clients.

Also there was a terrific UPS crisis management story. And I enjoyed hearing about Coca-Cola’s Expedition 206 campaign.

But what did I really learn there? That there’s a vibrant community of professionals trying to figure this social media thing out. That it lives beyond the blogs and tweets. That people are engaged, smart, and want to do the right thing. And frankly that’s damn refreshing place to be compared to discussions about direct mail, email marketing, or print advertising. People really are seeing a brighter horizon in this space while in traditional marketing the world is shrinking.

So even if Twitter does turn out to be a stupid fad, I think social media is a pretty great space to be in.

Technorati Tags: Ad Agency, Atlanta, blogging, BlogWell, jimmy gilmore, social media, Web

Tags: Ad Agency, Atlanta, blogging, BlogWell, jimmy gilmore, social media, Web
| Posted in BlogWell | View Comments

08.3.09

Is Social Media Advertising?

: Image by Straws pulled at random via Flickr

Not so long ago advertising was TV, newspapers, magazine, outdoor and newspaper ads. Even with the Web in the mix, most “digital stuff” was left to digital specialist.

As the digital space has become more important to consumers and clients and more money is invested, it’s become a no brainier for ad agencies to want to be more involved. As they have, they’ve tried to apply old branding models to a new and more complex network of communication. They’re finding that things like micro sites aren’t always the best vehicle for promotions that might work better on Facebook.

Which brings us to social media. If advertisers run an ad on Facebook, does Facebook become advertising? I could argue that any media that paid communication inform about a product or service is advertising. That’s what ad agencies do with other media.

But social media isn’t created for readers, it’s created by and with them. Which is why an ad can appear so intrusive in this media. This means that advertisers have to think differently about the messaging that’s used in the social space and possibly, maybe even start from an a different creative brief.