Rishad Tobaccowala speaks at University of Michigan on Social Media

I had the privilege of attending the University of Michigan’s guest speaker this past Friday, 2/6/09. They brought in Rishad Tobaccowala, Chief Innovation Officer, Publicis/Starcom/Digitas. He also has his own company, Denuo- which means a fresh/new in latin. I took great notes off of his presentation on social media/digital marketing.

I pulled Rishad’s quick bio online:

Rishad Tobaccowala is the CEO of Denuo, a future’s “think-do” company that helps its clients get to the future first in ways that make “tomorrow tangible today.” Denuo combines strategy, research, ideas, program management and ventures to help clients as varied as Hewlett Packard, Nestle Purina and Astra Zeneca and also works with start-ups such as Daylife, Meebo and Glam Media. Denuo is part of Publicis Groupe. Along with his Denuo role, Tobaccowala serves on the board of VivaKi, as the top innovation leader across its four brands of Starcom MediaVest Group, Zenith Optimedia, Digitas and Denuo.

Here are a few of his points in brief. They’re quite strong- and a few of them really out there- yet appropriate!

- Think of the internet as a connection engine. People are using it for discovery, social media (connecting and expressing), commerce (amazon sales are still increasing) and creativity (Flickr and blogging). Within this connected age ignorance arbitrage will come to an end, rising individual media conglomerates, new expectations (transparency and responsiveness), and new emotional truths (trust is a huge issue).

So as we move into this new connected age, he talks about 7 shifts that will dig us deeper into this age. I’m just going to pull a few that I found were really intriguing.

- Shift from telling to delivering. Advertising media promotions need to start evolving towards products, utilities and services, customer support. The proof is in the performance, the act and behavior rather than the message, the media and the discount. Yes, you may pull people in with an initial discount, but people are looking for practicality within their products. For example- you have companies on Facebook talking about the advertising (ie groups), but not about the products themselves. Clients are trying to sell things on Facebook. However, look at how Hyundai is DELIVERING:  Hyundai launched that  if you lose your job after buying their product, they’ll let you return the car, no credit problems. They are addressing the problems, not just trying to sell you the ‘cool’ car.

- Shift to polar-marketing. Two way markientg, independent media vehicles, and simple measures will need to start evolving towards multi way marketing, multi media, multi measures. Who wants to have a specific relationship with your brand? There are only 4-5 brands in the world that people truly attach themselves to. “I don’t want to have a relationship with tylenol, i just want my headache to go away.”

-Shift from engagement to utility. Measures of digital campaign success tend to focus on how long a person spends with the brand under the banner of ‘engagement’ (total page views, total time spent, number of interactions performed).

So who is doing this well?

Nike Plus: It incorporates running maps through Google, both localized and international, extended into influential product development through software and Apple iPod partnership, highly successful in social connection and brand sales:

-22 million miles logged

-97% recommendation from program members

-18% increase in conversion from intention to purchase

-Nike Plus shoes sales: 20% increase in 2007

-$17 increase in average sales value from program mebers vs non-members

-1 million sensors sold

…This is some great stuff… Does anyone know if R/GA helped out with this?

Allstate Teen Driving Contract: Great successful video “SAVING PEOPLE’S LIVES”. The number of teenage deaths went down. This had a purpose, and yes, ALLSTATE was apart of it, but really reached out to consumers on a different level.

Lifehouse’s song became success on iTunes after this campaign too.

American Express Members Project: American Express gave their members the option to submit ideas on how to give money to charities and foundations. It was very personalized. From the project 186,508 cardmembers registered, 7,000+project ideas submitted, 162,087 votes cast, 1.5 million unique visitors to website.

So Rishad’s points are bold… more dynamic and innovative digital mediums are going to have to start evolving if company’s want to stay up with the connected age. And believe it or not, he states that Facebook and Myspace are not the future. The stuff that some of these companies are doing (above) are the future in what many others need to climb aboard with. Facebook ads nowadays just aren’t enough.