It has been many months since I last posted to this blog and I want to get back to contributing on a regular basis.  Today, I saw an interesting announcement that StrongMail had acquired popularMedia.  What caught my attention was the fact that an email marketing provider would see enough value in a social media solutions firm to part with their money in this environment.  StrongMail is clearly focused on a platform strategy in my opinion.

These events typically set off a series of copy-cat moves in an industry so we are likely to see more activity soon.  What is more interesting though is where this is all headed.  The adoption and leveraging of any technology is proportional to how easy it is to adopt in the first place.  StrongMail will make it easier for their customers to use advanced web ads and social media.  That moves Strongmail up one level closer to the source of lead generation.  If you think about it, StrongMail customers need leads to send emails to so initial lead capture is a high value capability.

So, where are we headed?  PopularMedia provides a demo on their website of their Influencer Ads product using the Chicago Fire professional soccer organization.  It is a video of the “goal of the week” and the call to action is to share it with others to build interest in attending games.  That’s cool but imagine this scenario:

• The best moments of the game are captured immediately from the replay reel on the big screen at the stadium
• An SMS text number is provided to get the mobile web page address for fans that want to share that play right now with friends
• The fan receives the link then clicks – they are directed to popularmedia’s interactive ad
• The fan shares the play with a message “wish you were here!”

It is only a matter of time before this type of real time content is provided by the venue as opposed to individuals via their camera phones.  It is much more relevant and compelling in the moment which is what we strive for in marketing communication.  We will look back on these current “goal of the week” type marketing campaigns and wonder why it took us so long to wake up.