Nigel Walley – 2nd April
I have finally recovered after AdWeek. I went to four conferences and followed two more on Twitter, which was over-kill. As I sat in the final conference, my over-riding thought was how those of us in new media have yet to make the case for a central role for the web and social media in marketing budgets. It was like 2003 all over again. There were some truly dreadful presentations from new media types, but the area that bothered me most was the perpetual over-claiming for the role of Twitter around TV.
I am a massive Twitter fan and probably count as a ‘super-user’. I am also a massive fan of broadcast TV. I like the story that they are somehow mutually beneficial, however it appears to have spun out of control. It has leapt from an observation of concurrent use, to an implication of symbiotic dependence, to the point where now Twitter are peddling the line that not only do they influence TV audiences, but that a brand advertiser can get material benefits from co-ordinating Twitter campaigns with TV ad spots. The only problem is that there is no data to back any of this up. Or if anything, the data disproves it.