Proof that this interweb thing is just a fad!

Last month I sacrificed an entire weekend to start a Masters Certificate in Marketing Communications Management.  The first module covered such topics as internet advertising, new media channels, public relations, consumer promotions, sponsorship marketing and direct response marketing - topics that consume my every work day.

I figured there wasn’t much to learn…

Imagine my surprise when one guest speaker who claimed to have been part of the creative process that resulted in Tim Horton’s famous “roll up the rim” contest proclaimed this Internet thing was misleading, full of lies and largely ineffective as a communication channel.  Was he talking about television?  

Apparently not.

It led me to wonder if I had been led astray with this whole interactive marketing thing.

I remember being suspicious as far back as 1994.

I remember taking a break from an interactive interface design class for CD-ROMs to gather around an Apple PowerPC (loaded with a 66 MHz processor) to stare at blinking text on a grey background. We were looking at a very basic website for the world wide web on something called a Mosaic browser. This was supposed to be more interesting than what we were building in Director?

Then again, maybe we are on to something…

General Motors announced this week that they will be allocating 50% of their annual 3 billion dollar advertising budget to online media - or about 7 times more than their 2007 total spend.  Television and print budgets are taking the hit.  

Ford and Chrysler have recently gone web 2.0 with new social media sites aimed at engaging consumers in a conversation.

Chryslerlistens.com is scheduled to go live in a few weeks while Ford has already launched their powered by you site at http://www.fordpby.ca.  Now that they’ve gone head first into social media, their ad budgets will not be far behind. 

The rest of the entire advertising industry will also not be far behind.

This week we begin our second module with the same guest speaker.  This time we’ll be focusing on building and sustaining brand dynamics. 

I figure there probably isn’t much to learn…