PRX Releases

Conversational Marketing Set to Surpass Traditional Marketing

Join the Conversation: How to Engage Marketing-Weary Consumers with the Power of Community, Dialogue, and Partnership by Joseph Jaffe

• Based on the 2007 Social Media Survey conducted by TWI Surveys on behalf of the Society for New Communications Research:
  • Nearly 57% of respondents report that in 5 years time, what they spend on conversational marketing will be greater than that of traditional marketing.  Another roughly 24% believed it would be the same as traditional marketing
  • 81% of marketers believe that in 5 years they’ll be spending as much or more on conversational marketing vs. traditional marketing

• Join the Conversation, a new book by author, blogger, podcaster and marketing pioneer Joseph Jaffe, offers insights into the new consumers in a brave new world – in which the “prosumer” (or producing consumer) comprise a small fraction of the people who buy your product but have a disproportionate ability to create, harvest and - electronically or otherwise - disseminate an enormous raft of uncensored messages about your brand to their “closest strangers”.

• Jaffe serves up a host of entertaining anecdotes, illustrating brands that are succeeding in engaging in this new art of conversation and those who’ve been bitten in the backside by the traps that await those who enter the conversation without a plan, including:
  • Dove
  • FedEx
  • Nike
  • Wal-Mart
  • Chevy Tahoe
  • Chase
  • The Los Angeles Times
  • Starbucks

• Jaffe scorns those brands that solicit feedback and expression only to lose face when they “clean it up” for public consumption or those whose fake blogs are quickly outed as ersatz engagement. 

• Hailing a new democratized creative class capable of smelling out brands that pretend to start conversations yet fail to give their consumers a real voice, Jaffe warns how even innovative and much loved brands can be rejected when they fail to stay connected to their consumers.

• Jaffe even allowed visitors to his own website the chance to collaborate on an entire unedited chapter, which now appears in the book.

• Overturning the four P’s of marketing (product, place, price and promotion), Jaffe instead offers six C’s:
  • Content
  • Commerce
  • Community
  • Context
  • Customization
  • Conversation

• Join the Conversation posits ten critical insights all marketers must internalize on their journey in this new frontier, the five essentials for building effective conversation, as well as advice on when not to jump into the conversation.  While marketing and conversation may be like oil and water today, tomorrow, Jaffe believes, they can become very willing bedfellows with ground rules; parameters; and terms of engagement that garner respect and manage the expectations of both parties.

MULTIMEDIA ELEMENTS

QUOTES

ATTRIBUTABLE TO JOSEPH JAFFE, AUTHOR OF JOIN THE CONVERSATION: HOW TO ENGAGE MARKETING-WEARY CONSUMERS WITH THE POWER OF COMMUNITY, DIALOGUE AND PARTNERSHIP

“The primary message of this book is simple: there are literally millions of alive, human, passionate and authentic conversations going on around you right now….isn’t it time you joined in? Marketing can be a conversation with the combined efforts of community, dialogue and partnership”

“Marketers can no longer afford to put their brands on a pedestal or hide behind the focus group one-way mirror nervously stuffing our faces with M&Ms hoping that the group doesn’t become unruly and decide to storm the castle.”

“Every day your consumers are willingly identifying and exposing themselves to you in the forms of outreach (customer service), outrage (blogs), or outlandish behavior (consumer generated content). The cost to engage meaningfully with these consumers has never been – and won’t continue to be – so low.”

One of the most sought-after consultants, speakers and thought leaders on new marketing, Joseph Jaffe is President and Chief Interruptor of crayon, a conversational marketing company, specializing in community, dialogue and partnership. crayon’s client engagements include The Coca-Cola Company, American Airlines, Audi, Starwood Hotels, P&G, GSD&M and SpiralFrog.

Prior to launching crayon, Joseph ran jaffe, LLC, where he worked with companies including P&G, The Coca-Cola Company, Dunkin’ Brands, TiVo, Motorola and Fox Interactive Media. Before that, Joseph was Director of Interactive Media at TBWA/Chiat/Day and OMD USA, where he worked on Kmart, ABSOLUT Vodka, Embassy Suites and Samsonite.

Jaffe’s popular blog and audio podcast Jaffe Juice provides daily and weekly commentary respectively on all things new marketing. You can join the conversation at www.jaffejuice.com. His podcast was voted a Readers’ Choice Award as “Best Marketing Podcast” by MarketingSherpa. You can subscribe via iTunes.

His first book, Life After The 30-Second Spot: Energize Your Brand With A Bold Mix Of Alternatives To Traditional Advertising (Wiley/Adweek) was released in June 2005 and focuses on how advertising is evolving in a world ruled by an empowered consumer and no longer governed solely by the 30-second spot.

Joseph’s impassioned, straight-shooting and honest perspectives have found their way to every major media outlet, including the likes of CBS Evening News, ABC World News, Bloomberg, NPR, The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, USA Today, Fortune, Newsweek, Business Week, Ad Age, Adweek and the list continues.

Joseph is a Senior Fellow at the Center for the Digital Future at the USC Annenberg School and he has also lectured part-time at NYU’s Stern School of Business, Cornell’s Johnson School of Business and Syracuse University. 

Hailing from South Africa, he lives with his wife, daughter and two sons in Westport, CT.

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