Conversation key to mobile marketing: Ogilvy's Hendra

November 7, 2007

Carla Hendra, CEO Ogilvy & Mather

NEW YORK -- Experts at the ad:tech New York conference agreed that conversational marketing is the key to success in the mobile channel with the rise of social networking revolutionizing the culture of marketing and giving consumers more control over the messages they receive.

But to make conversational marketing work requires a role reversal for marketers. More adept as dispatchers, marketers will now have to go into listening mode, said Carla Hendra, co-CEO of ad agency Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide, New York, and an ad:tech panelist.

"You now have collaborators -- you're inviting your audience in with you," Ms. Hendra said during a keynote presentation titled 'The Art of Conversation.' "From a brand manager's perspective, it's a scary thing."

In a world where online social networks rule, consumers have become more aware of marketing.

Every day consumers market themselves by contributing personal information to profiles on Web sites such as Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn. They have opened up their personal lives to brand and, as a result, want open conversation with those they choose to patronize.

"Smart marketing means acknowledging consumers are smart and showing them that you want them to be a part of the conversation," said fellow panelist Beth Comstock, president of integrated media at NBC Universal, New York.

To use social networking effectively as a marketing tool it must coincide with an active behavioral targeting campaign, Ms. Comstock said.

She pointed to the events after NBC Universal's $600 million acquisition of women's site iVillage Inc. in 2006.

Borrowing inspiration from MySpace and Facebook, the media giant decided to introduce individual profiles on iVillage.com. But the site's then-target demographic of 34-year-old women was unimpressed.

NBC re-evaluated its strategy and introduced new group-oriented tools that ultimately reconnected the brand to its audience.

"With the profiles it was case of giving the audience the wrong tools," Ms. Comstock said. "We gave them the right tools and it took off."

Marketers can look forward to having these conversations with consumers in their most personal spaces.

The recently announced Open Handset Alliance and the free mobile platform, Android, assures a new age of slim-designed, media-accelerated phones as early as 2008. But it may be too soon for marketers to predict how much advertising will be served in the mobile channel, Ms. Comstock said.

"Everyone thinks everything will be ad-supported," Ms. Comstock said. "I just don't think going forward that will work. We just haven't seen the right subscription-based experience."