IAMAI seminar: Marketers need to understand the Web 2.0 language

It’s a ‘connected’ world consumers are living in, but are marketers keeping up? At the IAMAI Web 2.0 conference, experts discussed a marketer’s understanding of the changing media consumption patterns of consumers

Today, everyone seems to be carrying his own definition of Web 2.0 in his pocket. For Shailesh Rao, managing director, Google India, Web 2.0 is “empowerment,” while Pushkar Sane, head, Starcom IP, Asia, terms it “jargon.”

At the IAMAI Web 2.0 seminar held in Mumbai, perhaps the most interesting definition came from moderator Jaspreet Bindra, country manager, MSN India, who compared Web 2.0 to the state of a ‘horse’. According to him, the traditional marketing can lead consumers to the product but can’t force them to buy (in a sense, it can lead the horse to the water, but can’t make it drink). But in Web 2.0, the horse (consumer) himself comes and takes a drink (Bindra was hinting at user generated content or UGC).

IAMAI seminar: Marketers need to understand the Web 2.0 language

Pushkar Sane

Furthermore, in a traditional media mix, the cart (mass media) are placed before the horse (internet), while in a Web 2.0 media plan, the horse (internet) is considered first and then the cart follows (offline media). “Besides, in UGC, you hear it from the horse’s mouth,” quipped Bindra. While his comparison was well-appreciated, panelists were also quite fascinated with Sane’s definition: that of Web 2.0 being jargon. “From a consumer’s standpoint, there’s nothing like Web 1.0, 2.0 or 3.0,” he explained. “Only marketers coin these fancy terms, while for the consumer, this transition was seamless.”

Jaspreet Bindra

Sane also broke the myth of a ‘second life’ or ‘virtual life’ becoming more important than real life. “There’s nothing like a second life; for consumers, their internet activities are all part of their one and only life,” he explained. Next, he pointed out a unique phenomenon in marketing on the internet: the lack of a primetime. “Consumers are empowered enough to consume/co-create content whenever they want,” Sane said.

Tarun Bangari, head, product marketing, Akamai Technologies, added that the Web 2.0 space has given Word of Mouth (WoM) a new spin altogether. The creation of Pepsizone or Sunsilkgangofgirls.com stand proof to that, he said. “It will also be helpful for the CEOs of web companies to start their own blogs on different topics, and involve consumers,” he said. Citing the example of Ajit Balakrishnan and Rediff.com, Bangari said that consumers tend to see the bloggers brand in a different light if he involves them in non-syndicated content. “What starts as a blog then becomes a community concept, helping you build your brand without having to do much,” he observed. Further, he pondered on the theory of brand advocates or missionaries spreading the word about one’s company on the net.

Mohammed Iqbal

Garima Chaudhry, head, eAlliances, Citibank India, was more cautious about that route. Instead, she advised that companies should listen to their customers and monitor what they are saying, including what detractors have to say. “When it comes to UGC, consumers don’t want blatant advertising in their faces,” she said. “But yes, if someone is posting incorrect information on your product, then you ought to correct that.” She also advised marketers to first master Web 1.0 before even thinking of Web 2.0. Agreed Mohammed Iqbal, senior planning director, Ogilvy & Mather, “Brand’s aren’t listening to their consumers enough. It should be a two-way dialogue between the advertiser and the consumer.”

Rao disagreed with Chaudhry and Iqbal, saying that any sense of control on Web 2.0 is a myth. “You type your product name on any search engine, and will land up with thousands of results. And these change by the second. How can one ever map that?” he asked. Besides, bloggers write what they wish sometimes, and it can’t be measured at all, Rao opined.

To his disappointment, present amongst the panelists was blogger and podcaster Kiruba Shankar, director, F5ive Technologies, who piped up, “One shouldn’t treat bloggers like page views; these are real people not in it for huge monies, but use it as a medium for expression.’’ He gave the example of the Royal Enfield Thunderbird, which gave the newly-launched bikes to bloggers free of cost for two days, to do with as they pleased. The strategy worked: rave reviews and big sales followed. But then, he also cited a case when pampering bloggers can backfire – when Microsoft Vista launched, they loaded it on laptops in Ferraris and sent these to whom they felt were the top 20 bloggers globally. This offended other bloggers who didn’t make it to the list, and the result as anyone can guess, was a disaster on the web.

Sane agreed that blogging heavily influences opinions, and a marketer is yet to crack the perfect way of leveraging this blogger’s park. Ratish Nair, CEO, Interactive Avenues, gave some helpful hints on the blogger-marketer debate. “Sony messed up big time, which is a lesson for everyone. A marketer needs to decide who he is targeting – the reader of the blog or the writer?” he asked.

That left everyone in the hall with something to think about.

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