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It was a whirlwind four days in Seoul this week, so I wanted to share my thoughts on this before I forget. I'm writing this from the airport in Tokyo waiting for my flight back to Newark.

First, here is a quick video with some thoughts as I recorded them yesterday.

The IDG conference was pretty incredible. Hopefully you have had a chance to read the posts from Tuesday and Wednesday to see what I mean. I consistently told the organizers that they had created a conference that was on par with any I have been to in the US. Between the conference and having the opportunity to spend time with the Fleishman team in our Seoul office I noticed a number of similarities to the US as well as some differences.

Some Similarities:

• The financial crisis is global and is on the top of everyone's mind
  
• Everyone gets that social media is a huge growth area
  
• Everyone is confused as to how to measure it effectively
  
• Companies are trying to find the balance between offline and online media and are trying to break down marketing silos
  
• Video and mobile are exploding across the globe, but have to be used strategically
  

Some Differences:

• Strong cultural differences in Korea impact everything
  
• Most US companies fail in Korea (Google has around 1% market share in search here) because they localize, but don't fully immerse themselves in the culture
  
• People demand fast service both on and off line
  
• Koreans are very tech savvy, highly connected and love to meet in person
  
• I found people very hesitant to ask questions in presentations
  
• Mobile is ahead as far as services and quality, but devices are extremely expensive here (telecom companies control the pricing and keep it high)
  

Best thinking:

• Bruce Haines from Cheil Worldwide had a number of gems including "banning the word digital" because it's all marketing. He also stressed the need to think across channels and formats to have the most impact, breaking down silos and develop the best message(s) tailored to the right audience.
  
• Gerry Gouy from MTV was great on and off stage. His view from the entertainment side where he is seeing advertisers spend more money across fewer channels was key. He also mentioned that mobile is still not working at this point and most advertisers are looking to reach a 25-34 year old sweet spot through TV and online.
  

Here is the Slideshare of the keynote address I gave. I'll be adding audio to this over the next couple of days.

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advertising, branding, marketing, Matt Dickman, social media, social networks, Techno//Marketer, technology, trends, web2.0

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Sean presented "It's all about video" to the IDG Next Generation Marketing conference. Sean heads Youtube for the APAC region.

Key Takeaways:

• Youtube follows in a pattern similar to that of TV 50 years ago
  
• YouTube's audience is distributed evenly between ages 18 and 55+ (+/- 4%)
  
• The site has 22 localized versions around the world
  
• Youtube growing very quickly in Korea, gaining significant market share
  
• Marketing videos are moving from online to offline advertising when successful
  
• The lines between advertising and content are blurring
  
• Marketers need to increase awareness, affinity and advocacy and video is helping to do that
  
• Video provides content that increases engagement through info-tainment using the community
  
• Content loaded onto the site can be a test market for marketers
  
• Authenticity is key
  
• Marketers need to create, promote, scale, engage and nurture content on Youtube
  
• Monitoring the conversation allows marketers to react in real time (ex. Tiger Woods walking on water, see below)
  
• Ideas come from everywhere, companies need to work with consumers to drive new ideas
  
• The community continues the conversation by adapting and recreating
  
• Need to track all of these touch points
  

Tiger walks on water:

Technorati Tags:
branding, marketing, Matt Dickman, social media, social networks, Techno//Marketer, video, web2.0, YouTube

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Kwang works at Chiel Worldwide in their interactive group, "the i". The presentation focused on a case study for Samsung's HAPTIC device. The Haptic looks very similar to the iPhone, but the operating system is unique.

Here is a video overview of the phone's functionality:

• Focus of the campaign was on brand experience and contagion
• The Haptic phone launch is very similar to the iPhone (full screen touch)
• Phone launched with a premium image/brand and technical image
• "first is better than better" - Samsung was not the first mover in this space
• The touch sensor provides feedback
• Japanese book "HAPTIC" gave the team feedback on how to approach marketing the device
• Had to explain the haptic term through many media outlets in a way people could understand
• Launch show made to mirror Steve Jobs keynote addresses, invited power bloggers
• Tagline "touch and it will react" driven through ads
• Use of celebrity to drive the "touch" focal point in ads, online, screen saver
• Haptic blog helped to engage users, also reached out to power bloggers to get their unique and personal experiences

Samsung also created a new ad where a building transforms in to the phone. The gist of the conversation is the guy with the phone says that his phone can become anything he wants. The other guy asks him to prove it by making the building transform.

Technorati Tags:
marketing, Matt Dickman, social media, strategy, Techno//Marketer, trends, samsung haptic

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Byung spoke on the topic of having conversations with users in the social web. He has a long history of working with Korea's top social networking sites. His views are tempered by this experience.

Key takeaways:

• Korean social networks are falling behind in the global view despite having a head start and being highly connected
  
• Gaming is the best example of Korean companies having success overseas
  
• User experience is not differentiated in Korean social networks (logo color is the only difference)
  
• Competition is growing exponentially and cost is scaling as well
  
• Success in Korea (10M reach) is the same as failure in the US (10M reach) so case studies here are easy to find from overseas
  
• Social network framework - Content, context, user
  
• Tactics see varying degrees of success because of these three factors and their presence/lack of presence
  
• Focus on the users is the overall key
  
• Experience-driven design is an important trend where developers and users are the same mix - this is lacking in Korea
  
• The power of emotions play a key role in social web marketing
  
• The return on the investment for social networks in Korea took around 4 years to achieve positive numbers
  
• Growth of social marketing must involve the end user through the process
  
• The constructs of social networks are: purpose, identity, reputation, governance, communication, groups
  
• This mirrors the offline operation of society
  
• Content providers are now business partners - the line is blurring (ex. Google ad sense)
  
• The Apple model, where they develop the platform and the community develops the applications, is the future
  
• Metrics are crucial to tracking actions within a social network - look at visitors -> subscribers -> purchasers
  
• Naver, Daum and Cyworld have been around and are not evolving at the rate of US social networks
  
• Potential for small business is huge
  
• Must look at the users and the market/market potential to break in to a new market (why switch to a new site when you are already established someplace else?)
  
• Fewer companies are trying to create new spaces instead they are leveraging existing locations
  
• 
  

Technorati Tags:
branding, marketing, Matt Dickman, social media, social networks, Techno//Marketer, web2.0

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Sung Lee is the VP of Operations for MySpace in Asia. Her presentation focused on the ways in which marketers should approach social network marketing.

Key takeaways:

• Social networks are bigger than you think
  
• People, brands and artists are able to create their presence on the web
  
• The online experience is offline as well in the form of events, etc.
  
• MySpace has 118M unique visitors with over 51% growth in the last two years
  
• 12M of those users are in Asia Pacific
  
• 70K videos uploaded daily
  
• Self-expression, connection and discovery drive social networking
  
• Driven by the "me" economy
  
• Social media is redefining the marketing channels and the media mix
  
• Reasons for friending brands; 29% notice of events, sales, offers / 28% recommended by a friend / 23% want to associate with them / 23% discounts, coupons, samples / 11% want to support the brand
  
• Key stages of social network marketing: Create a community -> Cultivate relationships -> Build long-term CRM
  
• Pass along from a peer drives 34 times the pass-through and 20 times the purchase intent versus ads on MySpace
  
• Five steps to build momentum know the audience, keep it real, empower the audience, enable dreams, leverage the power of the platform
  
• Cartier example drives traffic to download songs, MySpace allows for scale across languages and geography
  
• Questions to ask yourself first: do you know your audience, can you customize the creative, do you have engaging assets to share, are you willing to continue an ongoing dialogue
  
• Platforms are expanding into mobile and will continue to become more prevalent over time
  
• Personal connections with the brand is the differentiation strategy for MySpace over Facebook
  
• MySpace is relatively new in Korea, but is growing exponentially
  

Technorati Tags:
IDG, marketing, Matt Dickman, social media, social networks, Techno//Marketer, trends, web2.0, MySpace

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Chang is on the consumer research team at LG's Household and Healthcare. He focused on product design, evolution and innovation. Internal and external forces help companies innovate.

Key takeaways:

• Customer research in Web 2.0 is the focus of Chang's presentation
  
• Creation of new products requires creative customer involvement
  
• Internal customers - inner creative staff and researchers
  
• External customers - expert customers and other business experts
  
• This helps companies break inertia and myopia internally and to use external inertia
  
• Look at current and customer competitors
  
• Find competitive advantages in design, quality, ads, etc.
  
• Trendspotting is necessary - possibly looking at restrictions and overcoming them
  
• Cross-pollinating teams will help drive new ideation for products
  
• Involving the right outside parties can help lead to more innovation where not expected - need to identify the lead users
  
• Experts in other industries can help find new insights that apply
  
• Darwin's theory of evolution was spawned from diversity and this is what is happening in technology today - more options let us see this evolution
  
• The milk industry shows us the evolution of product/package design - calcium milk, skim, coffee creamer, etc.
  

Here is an example Chang mentioned from Japan for a new drink called White Coffee from Kirin (better know for their beer brewing in the US). This shifts the consumer from traditional views of coffee/packaging. It could work or backfire.

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Jung-Yul is the CEO of TNS Korea. His talk focused on finding the channels that are most effective for marketers to reach their customers. His firm has some interesting measurement methods and constructs for marketers.

Key takeaways:

• Purpose of marketing comms - persuade, create a higher brand experience
  
• Experience/encounters are made up of consumers (who), content (what), contact (how)
  
• Fragmentation is a challenge, new mediums are popping up, more selective consumers
  
• Questions for marketers are which points to use, how to spend the budget, how to optimize relationships
  
• Companies are imitating, experimenting, etc. to find what works
  
• Global economy is impacting marketing budgets and year-over-year budgets
  
• ROI measurement is lacking across channels
  
• Need four items to choose the right channel 1) market contacts, 2) channel clout factor [level of influence of each customer], 3) brand experience points and 4) brand experience share
  
• Market contacts - mass media, POS, one-to-one, indirect, sponsorships create 35 possible options
  
• Channel clout factor (CCF) - which are most informative, make brand look appealing, rank the 10 most important in daily life = CCF
  
• BES/BEP are derived by looking at the clout of each channel compared to the brand
  
• Look at most influential channel for a product category - rank from most to least
  
• In a credit card example in Korea, TV had the most influence followed by a point of sale solution
  
• The influence varies with each product and situation
  
• The challenge is to align channel spending with brand experience for that channel
  
• Shift viewpoint to that of the customer when viewing each channel
  
• Have to look at what the competition is doing to make competitive decisions
  

Technorati Tags:
advertising, branding, marketing, Matt Dickman, Techno//Marketer, trends, measurement

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Jessica Kim is the CEO of Shout Communications and is talking about word of mouth marketing in the Web 2.0 era. Shout is doing a large amount of business in blogger relations and building content for distribution.

Key takeaways:

• WOM - consumers providing information to other consumers
  
• WOMM - facilitating conversations between customers
  
• Communities are tight knit and highly influential in Korea and beyond
  
• Offline WOM is converging online, spreads faster and reaches farther
  
• WOM requires content to be created for pass along
  
• Creator -> Sender -> Receiver (consumer)
  
• 4Ps for WOM -- 1) Product (quality of the content has to be high), 2) Place (where content is distributed blogs, Flickr, YouTube, Daum, Naver, etc. influences what content must be created), 3) People (people can see through fake viral content, need to be transparent, hire credible/knowledgeable people who have hands-on experience), 4) Public trust (
  
• The question of trust is key and also is distributed in the online community
  
• In Korea, influencer marketing is strong - often power bloggers or community operators
  
• Social media allows influencers to strengthen their power, build power and connect
  
• In Korea, Facebook and MySpace are very limited because CyWorld has such a big head start
  
• Bloggers have the most influence, a small subset are power users
  
• Influential bloggers (Power bloggers in Korea) (Charisma bloggers in Japan) have trust and are subject matter experts
  
• Obviously, do not try to control, force or exploit bloggers, it's about relationships
  
• Bloggers need to be able to write a natural review, have experience, have interest that allows them to write in line with the content on the blog
  
• Respect the creativity of the bloggers to give their take
  
• Overt influence backfires when the final product comes out
  
• It's all about relationships, building them long term means giving bloggers a voice inside the company (beta testing, etc.), needs to be win-win
  
• Not blog marketing --> Blogger relations
  
• Make sure your interests are aligned with the blogs
  
• Meet the bloggers in person - point of differentiation
  
• Create a long-term relationship roadmap
  
• Use vendor-neutral language
  
• Metrics in blogger relations are different than traditional ad metrics
  
• Look at pass-through from origin point to new outlets (embeds, links, etc.)
  
• Measure each blog with metrics (Technorati, page rank, Yahoo blog rank, Daum widget blog ranking (Korea), BIKO ranking (Korea), etc.)
  
• PR measurement trends are adapting to digital space (x3, x5, x7 depending on space) and will stabilize over time
  

Technorati Tags:
advertising, conversations, IDG, marketing, Matt Dickman, social media, Techno//Marketer, trends, web2.0, WOM, word or mouth

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Helen Park works for SK Telecom, the company who runs Korea's largest social network Cyworld. Today she is presenting their "T" brand case study. T is the mobile lifestyle service from SK Telecom (similar to Verizon/AT&T/etc).

Key takeaways:

• Rebranding campaign from previous Speed 011 name
  
• Three stage advertising campaign - dreamer, 24 hours T, mobile communications
  
• Previous campaign was disconnected from the consumer's view
  
• Mobile = necessity, essential
  
• Moved from service proposition to value proposition brand
  
• Engaged in storytelling to convey the new brand proposition
  
• Had to evolve from storytelling 1.0 (push/mass) to a never ending story in storytelling 2.0
  
• Enable the consumers to tell the story themselves, re-craft it and have it become their own
  
• Song in ad campaign was very catchy, open structured and could be crafted into something new
  
• Played well with Karaoke culture in Korea
  
• Ad campaign played on the openness of the brand through song and the "realize" tagline
  
• The gist was "whatever you think can be realized" "anything is possible as you think"
  
• Used digital to allow customers to add their own lines to the song
  
• Used 2008 Beijing games to build momentum
  
• Transformative logo was more symbolic, more rounded (adaptive) and streamlined to match brand attributes
  
• Created brand shop "hello T" to pull all of the elements together
  

Here you can see one of the clips with one of Korea's most popular singers:

Technorati Tags:
advertising, branding, marketing, Marketing 2.0 and beyond, Matt Dickman, Techno//Marketer, trends, web2.0