Pardon me?

I was lucky enough to be invited to the excellent Demystifying Digital conference hosted by Hill and Knowlton late last week.

I have attended a myriad of Social Media conferences and presentations. I don’t know if its just me, but they tend to consist of a great deal of posturing and buzzwords, but very little substance. SoMe has become the sorcery of our age, easily to dazzle people with very little but sparkly objects and words not withstanding actual results.

I’m happy to report therefore that #HKD2 as it was tagged was a little different. Maybe its  a mark of a maturing discipline, but this was the first time I have attended an event that consistently showcased actual campaigns rather than concepts and ideas. From Fiat’s fabulous ‘Think Pink’ campaign for the 500, through to @Jussipekka who presented a fabulous and incredibly comprehensive overview of Nokia’s global strategy.

But perhaps the biggest take away, was a presentation  from H&K’s European practice on European trends. You don’t have to be London-centric like 99% of the people I deal with to take it for granted your own online and media trends are universal. Planning a campaign ? OK well twitter, Facebook and possibly  a self-created forum. Sound’s good? Not if you are really thinking big and like the internet itself, you want to cross as many boundaries as possible. Thats because for many consumers in Europe, South American and Asia- setting up a Facebook group in English isn’t going to cut it, not only does it not speak to them in their language, they are not even there to notice it.

Heard of Tuenti, or Hyves or Bharatstudent,? No well neither had I until last week. Does it matter? Only if you want to reach the biggest populations on the planet and influence their decision making process.

We all talk about digital transparency , authenticity and appropriate messaging. but if we are not carefull we will transfer the same mistakes we made offline to online, and the brave new dawn suddenly won’t seem so clear after all.

And that  title?  Добро пожаловать к будущему- welcome to the future, Russian style.