The Media of Communications with the Consumer of the Future

MediaPost today: A firm selling something gross is doing cool viral marketing! Isn’t it great?

It’s not till the third-to-last graf that we find out that, actually, the pest-control firm in question has had no measurable results from its blogging, videoing, Twittering, etc.—and isn’t planning for any.

One certain measurable result is that the marketing community is now exposed to this company, Truly Nolen. (I’ve linked to the blog so you can see what some of the fuss is about.)

But anyway, the short version here is that Truly Nolen started a blog, created a Facebook page and YouTube videos, and joined Twitter (which happened Monday; maybe it’s Twitter pushing the story). Net result, as far as I can tell? 100 quasi-leads in three months; 400 video impressions (for one video, anyway) in two months; and 53 Tweets, many from media contacts.

Well, okay, as a public-relations effort, it has measurable value. But that’s it—it’s P.R.—it’s not brand marketing, which is the section of MarketingDaily (sub. req.) where it appeared. This example doesn’t show how these are the media of communications with the consumer of the future, as Truly Nolen’ P.R. head puts it in the article. Far from it.