Balcom Agency

Part 1: How did we get here?

Welcome to the paradigm shift.

It’s no secret that advertising is changing. Fast. So whether you’re pining for the good old days when you could squeeze the Charmin®, scrambling to learn how to Tweet or developing your Google-killer, it helps to consider how we got here.

The Four Catalysts (Or The Four Horsemen if you’re having a bad day)
•    Internet
•    Cable/Satellite TV
•    Search
•    Social Media

Runner-ups
•    Gaming
•    Mobile

Much of the upheaval started in the early nineties with a little-known phenomenon called the Internet. At roughly the same time, television’s holy trinity of ABC, CBS and NBC began to see their kingdom erode under the deluge of cable and satellite channels (Sound familiar, radio?). Throw in the proliferation of search and the recent explosion of social media and it’s clear that the advertising model that gave us the Marlboro Man, “Where’s the beef” and “Just do it” will never be the same.

Next --
Part 2: What does here look like?

Find a client who begins your first meeting by asking for a website that touches hearts as well as heads -- and hugs you when you leave.

Visit a school garden and discover that a tower of stones wrapped in chicken wire is a “lizard hotel.” See one of the “residents” welcome you by running across your shoe. Try not to squeal.

Interview a second grader about his garden journal. Admire the drawings and poems. Point to his sketch of a cocoon. Ask what it is. Be amazed when he says, “That’s the chrysalis.” (Look up the spelling of chrysalis when you write about it later.)

Go to a teaching workshop and sit in on the Sunflower Session. Learn all about the plant’s teachable moments. Discover that sunflower plants can be taller than you, and a little scary with the roots still attached.

Listen to teachers describe how rainwater collection saves as many students as raindrops, how pepper plants bring parents to school and how helping things grow stops kids from tearing each other down.

Work with a team of designers, developers, writers, illustrators and animators who set the bar at brilliant. Steady the bar when it wobbles.

Show the website to the client for the first time. Watch them start to cry. Try not to squeal.

See a video about the project: http://www.balcomagency.com/our-work/portfolio/clients/real-school-gardens/ADDY

Visit the site: www.realschoolgardens.org

The buzz surrounding social media continues to whip into a tornado-like frenzy. But before you ditch everything you learned in Kansas and set off for the Social Emerald City remember that many of the basics you practiced back on the farm still apply.

Know your customer. What’s important to them? How do they seek out information? Find out how (or even if) your consumers use social media.

Consider your strategy. Think about how social media can help you reach the goals you’ve already set. Don’t re-invent the wheel – just give the wheel a little more traction.

There’s no place like home. And “home” is where you want your customers to end up. Is it on your website? At your event? On your side? In your store, office or facility? On the phone? In your database? Be Dorothy-like in your quest to get customers home.

So if all the flying monkey hype surrounding social media has sent you looking for a field of poppies to plop down in, relax. @kansas is actually a lot more like Kansas than Oz. Sure, social media is a paradigm shift for marketers. But at its most basic level, social media is people having conversations online. And people have been having similar conversations over back fences in Kansas for generations.