CMOs Grow Weary

And so CMOs are growing weary of the 2.0 world. I got good news and bad news. I work and live in the 2.0 world and I'm weary of it as well. The good news (that wasn't it), is that it's about to get a whole lot better.

In fact, it can't get much worse. Nothing new is really being adopted, we have no way to measure the success of anything and the most production comes from coining terms to describe the new technologies. I know we love our copy in the marketing world, but sometimes (and I only mean sometimes) we have to deliver something of substance.

The end game is upon us. Budgets are shrinking. It's no longer good enough to run rampant over the 2.0 world with nothing but buzzwords. In fact, buzz is no longer enough if it doesn't lead to results.

I can already see the gears turning. Digital marketing is returning to the geek where it belonged all along. Sure, banner ads are great. They're fun to build, require a great deal of creativity and are relatively cheap. But us geeks have known for years that they just don't work. How do we know? We don't use them. A little common sense goes a long way.

There's suddenly a new (I don't know why it's taken this long) school of thought on digital marketing. We are also users of this technology. If we wouldn't do it, why do we expect customers to use it? I'll wait a moment for the answer.

Intuition leads to great ideas but not great execution. The numbers are starting to fall into place. By that, I mean that there is actually some measure of accountability being cooked into the work. This goes beyond Omniture tags. This is about engagement.

Are the numbers right? Absolutely not.

But that won't matter in the long run. The models will be refined and eventually lead to greater production on digital work. For once, we will have models to defend the buzz - or relegate it to the proper pile where much of it belongs.

I, for one, am looking forward to the day where we stop talking about 'viral' and start talking about a good placement for digital video that generated a 20x return.

Imagine that.

CMOs already are. They're just waiting for us to deliver. And like the pizza you grow impatient waiting on, the chance for something revolutionary is growing cold.