The way ahead for digital advocacy

Reading Hugh Macleod's blog today I saw part of a long post, where he talks about the meeting he had with Microsoft after the unveiling of the Blue Monster Reserve. Squirrelled away in his post is a point about the demand and supply for innovative digital advocacy-centred campaigns. I can see exactly where he's coming from:

"A few weeks ago, I was having lunch with somebody very high up the global Digital Advertising foodchain. He was telling me about how once he was pitching for a ten million dollar account with a large international client. The client basically said, "I love the idea. Let's do it. But... can you scale it to a hundred million dollar spend?" My friend sadly had to confess that his idea did not scale that large. My takeaway: Advertising clients are lining up to give talented folk their money. The only problem is, this brave new world is still in its infancy, much the same way TV advertising was in its infancy fifty years ago. Unlike traditional advertising media, demand for services exceeds supply. There lies the opportunity, but even the smartest minds in the business are still having a hard time figuring it out."

Comments

[Suw]

What do you mean when you say "digital advocacy"? As far as I am concerned, advocacy is something that activists do when they are campaigning on a particular cause or policy, or is the work of a legal advocate. Please, let's not use "advocacy" when you mean "advertising". The two are not one and the same. The advertising industry has already polluted the phrase "word of mouth", so let's not pollute a word used by people attempting to effect policy change.

[Drew]

Hmm. Thanks Suw. Good point. I'm not trying to use the words advertising and advocacy in the same way. But using digital media as a platform to find and encourage the creation of advocates of a brand / product / whatever. Advertising isn't my game so I'll change the wording of my post if it looks the opposite.

[hugh macleod]

Suw is mistaken. One doesn't have to be a lawyer or a political activist to ADVOCATE a position.

[Iain Tait]

Nice blogging Drew.

Your 10m / 100m budget issue is something I've been thinking about a lot recently. Clients live in a funny old world where they have to spend the money they've been given in order to get money to spend next year. But actually being given a big budget isn't always the best thing. Sure you can scale the costs, but is the impact going to grow at the same rate (from my experience probably not).

If only clients would buy: "Give us the 100m now. We'll do the 10m thing, and 9 more like it later" ;-)