"The fact that Facebook wants to join Google on the board is an
important statement that says they understand that we're the place
where they should be communicating," said DMA CEO Larry Kimmel.
Moreover, the organization has opened a new division in Silicon
Valley, where it will host a listening tour among "accountable
marketers" for the next 45 days.
Mr. Kimmel is working to change the DMA's perception among
industry and non-industry players who think that the industry is an
old-school force behind less-than-targeted messages. "The world has
an under-appreciation for the disciplines and it's under the false
notion that 's it's channel-centric," he said. "That's even the
case in our community."
The message of this year's conference therefore is that direct
enables real-time marketing, described by Mr. Kimmel as "speed to
market, access to information faster than anyone else, competitive
advantage." He added that when you ask companies where they are in
real-time marketing, there are still only a few that are where they
should be.
Mr. Stone, who appeared via video, began with a story about the
early days at Twitter and his surprise at how Jet Blue, one of the
first companies to sign on, used the site to transform the
customer-engagement model. The company learned by mistake, he said,
when its social media executive tweeted that he was frustrated by
his unsuccessful effort to push press-release links via
Twitter.
"[The executive] sent a tweet that said, 'What do you people
want?' and there was an overwhelming response [along the lines of ]
'That's what we wanted to hear,'" he said. In essence, Mr. Stone
said, consumers were happy to see the executive drop the PR shield
and interact with them as people. "It resonated highly with folks,
when they switched the strategy from pushing out PR messages to
interacting."
