This post reflects the opinions of the author and not necessarily those of Mashable as a publication.
John Manoogian III is founder and CTO of 140 Proof, where he created the company brand and co-led development of its API and ad-targeting architecture. He codes and tweets as @jm3 and advises startups like Huddl, Gumshoe and Tixelated.
POEM, or Paid vs. Owned vs. Earned Media, is a strategy framework that ad buyers and planners use to segment campaigns and channels. Paid/owned/earned gave us a common working language to organize our conversations and separate the big buys from the experimental backwaters. However, in 2011, the concepts behind paid/owned/earned will break the back of your media team and send money leaking out of your strategy. The world has changed and a new media framework is needed.
Paid/owned/earned is both a classification system for media types and a relational model describing how those media types affect each other. Originally, paid/owned/earned were envisioned as discrete entities: Either you bought massive reach in a channel you controlled (paid), or you had the intern send out some tweets to your followers (earned). Now, thinking of paid and earned as two unrelated initiatives will get you in some real trouble, strategically.
The new ad formats found on Facebook and Twitter often blend paid and earned media opportunities, creating new ways to spend money. This also destroys the question of “is it paid or earned?”
Is a Facebook Sponsored Story from Nike featuring my friend who recently bought shoes considered paid or earned? How about a social stream ad with a funny tagline that I retweet to my friends? Or a rich media banner with a viral video and a share button? Paid/owned/earned distinctions don’t make room for these new ad experiences.
A New Framework
It’s clear that the POEM model is obsolete in the social media age. It’s time for digital advertisers to create media classifications and relational models that can account for new hybrids. Creating a new vocabulary for this stuff will enable more productive conversations about the value of social advertising channels and help sort the wheat from the chaff.
Here is my framework for our new hybrid universe. It’s an updated set of guidelines I’ve dubbed “MASS,” (Measurable, Authentic, Scalable, Social) and it just might help us hold new hybrid paid/earned platforms accountable to a higher set of standards.
Measurable: Can you track activity and engagement in the channel using trusted third-party verified tools?
Authentic: Does the message rest comfortably in the customer’s world, representing a clear and valuable position the brand stands for?
Scalable: Can this channel deliver massive reach without sacrificing targeting specificity?
Social: The web has become social. Ad solutions without social actions don’t account for the social nature of the web.
Is MASS perfect? Hardly. Does it shine a bright light into the most relevant bits of the most innovative ad formats on the market today? We are beginning to think it does.
Image courtesy of Flickr, teganyeah
More About: business, MARKETING, media, Opinion, Social MediaFor more Business & Marketing coverage:Follow Mashable Business & Marketing on TwitterBecome a Fan on FacebookSubscribe to the Business & Marketing channelDownload our free apps for Android, Mac, iPhone and iPad
Posted on Thu, 25 Aug 2011 19:48:31 +0000 at http://feeds.mashable.com/~r/Mashable/~3/rLk0twt7GEA/
Comments: http://mashable.com/2011/08/25/ad-media-framework-social/#comments
John Manoogian III is founder and CTO of 140 Proof, where he created the company brand and co-led development of its API and ad-targeting architecture. He codes and tweets as @jm3 and advises startups like Huddl, Gumshoe and Tixelated.
POEM, or Paid vs. Owned vs. Earned Media, is a strategy framework that ad buyers and planners use to segment campaigns and channels. Paid/owned/earned gave us a common working language to organize our conversations and separate the big buys from the experimental backwaters. However, in 2011, the concepts behind paid/owned/earned will break the back of your media team and send money leaking out of your strategy. The world has changed and a new media framework is needed.
Paid/owned/earned is both a classification system for media types and a relational model describing how those media types affect each other. Originally, paid/owned/earned were envisioned as discrete entities: Either you bought massive reach in a channel you controlled (paid), or you had the intern send out some tweets to your followers (earned). Now, thinking of paid and earned as two unrelated initiatives will get you in some real trouble, strategically.
The new ad formats found on Facebook and Twitter often blend paid and earned media opportunities, creating new ways to spend money. This also destroys the question of “is it paid or earned?”
Is a Facebook Sponsored Story from Nike featuring my friend who recently bought shoes considered paid or earned? How about a social stream ad with a funny tagline that I retweet to my friends? Or a rich media banner with a viral video and a share button? Paid/owned/earned distinctions don’t make room for these new ad experiences.
A New Framework
It’s clear that the POEM model is obsolete in the social media age. It’s time for digital advertisers to create media classifications and relational models that can account for new hybrids. Creating a new vocabulary for this stuff will enable more productive conversations about the value of social advertising channels and help sort the wheat from the chaff.
Here is my framework for our new hybrid universe. It’s an updated set of guidelines I’ve dubbed “MASS,” (Measurable, Authentic, Scalable, Social) and it just might help us hold new hybrid paid/earned platforms accountable to a higher set of standards.
Measurable: Can you track activity and engagement in the channel using trusted third-party verified tools?
Authentic: Does the message rest comfortably in the customer’s world, representing a clear and valuable position the brand stands for?
Scalable: Can this channel deliver massive reach without sacrificing targeting specificity?
Social: The web has become social. Ad solutions without social actions don’t account for the social nature of the web.
Is MASS perfect? Hardly. Does it shine a bright light into the most relevant bits of the most innovative ad formats on the market today? We are beginning to think it does.
Image courtesy of Flickr, teganyeah
More About: business, MARKETING, media, Opinion, Social MediaFor more Business & Marketing coverage:Follow Mashable Business & Marketing on TwitterBecome a Fan on FacebookSubscribe to the Business & Marketing channelDownload our free apps for Android, Mac, iPhone and iPad
Posted on Thu, 25 Aug 2011 19:48:31 +0000 at http://feeds.mashable.com/~r/Mashable/~3/rLk0twt7GEA/
Comments: http://mashable.com/2011/08/25/ad-media-framework-social/#comments