02 January 2010

Posted at 14:18h in 2010, revolution, social media by

John Wanamaker, who ever he was, supposedly said, "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted. The trouble is, I don’t know which half."As much as I hate to play to the whole "social media is a revolution" idea, I think in 2010 and beyond we'll start to see this wasted half reduced dramatically. Although I don't know if you would class the spend under "advertising".The reason we haven't seen any kind of revolution yet is because no one is using it in any kind of revolutionary way. When we move beyond Facebook Fan Pages as the core of strategy, combined with increased accountability on agencies, we're going to start seeing some pretty amazing stuff.The Utopian in me can't wait for a time when I'm discussing a night out with my mates on Facebook and and my favourite beer brand joins the conversation with information on the nearest and cheapest location to buy a six pack. Or a theatre, knowing my favourite movie, checks my calendar to see if I'm free and then informs me they're showing a screening. And my favourite candy brand is in on it too. How about a retailer makes a recommendation on what to buy my Dad for Father's Day based on his Amazon browsing habits, or even his Twitter usage. The examples are endless.Obviously, we're not gonna be at this stage for a long time. And I'm not even sure how to get there. But at some point we'll start using this abundance of information, deal with the privacy issues and eventually develop the right technology to start reducing that wasted half of advertising.But in the mean time, the least I can hope for is that Coles will stop wasting their half on me....