THE SOCIAL CMO

Welcome to the world of Agile Social Marketing!

Listening to Rob Katz CEO of Vail Resorts describe their dramatic shift from traditional long horizon glossy high end ad buys, to holding onto the lion’s share of ad dollars until the right moment, reminds me of the concept of agile manufacturing.

Basically, in the past manufacturers would build huge inventories, months even more than a year in advance choosing the colors and styles they thought would sell. Obviously guessing wrong was costly and resulted in dead inventories, writedowns and other not so fun consequences.

In recent years, the shift to agile manufacturing has lead to “just in time” production on a “make to order” basis building as much flexibility into the process as possible, and waiting until the last possible moment to commit to production, in order to act on the best and most accurate demand information possible.

Simply stated, social media facilitates the quick response advertising supply chain, from monitoring the market to rapid campaign deployment. Shifting to social media and other short lead time advertising mediums gives the same power and flexibility to marketers, allowing them to deliver the right message to the right people at the right time and at the right cost. Welcome to the world of Agile Social Marketing!