By: Tim Forrest

Tim Forrest — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 03:34:07 +0000

Having just read your ‘you don’t own people’ blog I was fizzing with conversation with self (well, there’s only me here so who else am I going to enthuse with?). While you took your direction from who owns the people and how marketing sees us all as a cog and you rightly contest that we’re people first and only by this are we of interest to marketing. Sometimes when you hear clients/planners (of which I own I’m one) talk about prospects or target audiences it’s as if they only come to being by being so defined.
Oh, how wraithlike was my existence until a company happily defined me into existence as an ‘AB male, aged 35-44, FTW, London dwelling and agrees with the statement ‘sometimes I’m too busy to prepare food’. Well, look again because I live in LA, behave like a 30 year old, listen equally to Beethoven & Yeasayer , eat only French chocolate, play the drums and have 3 kids who live abroad. Now, I’m guessing that won’t compute on anyone’s data extrapolation! But, my pick up is this. There’s a lazy, ill conceived body of marketing out there (and I don’t excuse the agency community here either) that is continually ‘doing social’ and coming up with not a lot. In this last year I’ve seen social marketing/media defined variously as 1) 1 million YouTube hits from loading up TV creative 2) a place from which to drive people to a company website 3) a better CTR than display banners 4) a fan page on Facebook that’s straight out of marketing truthspeak 101. The approach is a twisting of ‘earned media’, something that I believe in but has come to mean only a way of reducing your CPA with little or no CPM investment. That word ‘earn’ should suggest that a certain amount of effort is required to see it come good. If it’s not money then it’s time or a complimentary good or service. Anyway, I’m currently wrestling with how to do it right and explain it in a way to companies that looks like good value, is measurable on a realistic metric (so, it may not be CPA!) and creates something organic that is wholly owned by the people who adopt it. Maybe that’s where this ties in with your piece that rather than own people shouldn’t companies/marketers be striving to have people own them?

By: Are Modern HR Practices a Zero-Sum Game? | expōnere

Are Modern HR Practices a Zero-Sum Game? | expōnere — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 11:13:38 +0000

[...] No great surprises there. After all background checks, references and such have been the bread and butter of the Human Resource industry for yonks and let’s be truthful here; business and HR in particular has never been great advocates of treating people as people. Liri Anderson highlights some of the absurd thinking in her post here. [...]

Comments on: Who owns the customer, who owns people?

By: Tim Forrest

By: Are Modern HR Practices a Zero-Sum Game? | expōnere