by Tom Gerace
Member since:
August 31, 2005

Welcome Social Media Ad Council (SMAC) founding committee!

September 17, 2008 09:22 AM EDT (Updated: September 17, 2008 09:59 AM EDT)
views: 613 | rating: 10/10 (12 votes) | comments: 25
Greetings!

Thank you all for joining us as founding members of the Social Media Ad Council (SMAC).  The response to SMAC has been overwhelmingly positive over the past two weeks, demonstrating the need for standards in our space.  I look forward to working with all of you on this promising, important initiative.

Let me take a moment to introduce you to one another.  Joining the SMAC founding committee are:

    33Across Inc. - Eric Wheeler, CEO
    Burst Media - David Cooperstein, CMO
    BzzAgent - Dave Balter, CEO
    Carat - Adam Cahill, SVP, General Manager
    Communispace Corporation - Diane Hessan, President & CEO
    Davie Brown - Tom Meyer, President
    DecisionStep - Dave Shevock, COO/SVP Marketing
    Deep Focus - Ian Schafer, CEO
    Digitas – Chris Paul, VP Director, Media
    Doner US - Mark Brown, SVP, Media Director
    Edelman - Jackie Price,   Senior Vice President, Global Marketing
    Edelman - Danielle Wiley, VP, Social Media/Food & Family
    Edelman Digital - Elizabeth Pigg, VP, Media Strategy
    Enfatico - Torrence Boone, CEO
    Gartner, Inc. - Allen Weiner, Research Vice President/Media Industry Advisory Service
    Gather Inc. - David Woodrow, SVP, Sales & Partner Services
    Hattaway Communications Inc.  - Doug Hattaway, President & CEO
    Havas Digital - Don Epperson,      CEO
    J3 Division of Universal McCann - Robb Hecht, Digital Managing Director
    Kel & Partners - Kel Kelly, Founder & CEO
    MediaVest Worldwide - James Kiernan, VP, Group Director
    Moxie Interactive  - Michael Winter, VP, Group Media Director
    Quantcast - TS Kelly, VP, Media Research
    Starcom Worldwide - Art Sindlinger, Activation Director | Social Media & Gaming
    UniversalMcCann - Stuart Bogaty, EVP, Global Managing Partner
    W2 Group - Larry Weber, Chairman and CEO
    Zinio - Jeannie Mullen, CMO
 
In my conversations with a number of our founding members, there appears to be consensus on key priorities for the organization. We must create a common vocabulary for describing engagement.  We must establish standard buying units that enable easier transactions in the marketplace.  And we must agree upon uniform measurement methods for social media.  The industry will be better understood and will grow more rapidly if we succeed at all three.
 
I will reach out to each of you in the next two weeks to solicit additional perspective and to create a plan for organizing SMAC and starting our work together.  We will hold our first teleconference on October 22nd at 2pm to formalize our organization.  We are planning a working meeting and reception in New York City in early November where we will more clearly define the goals and scope our work and establish a process for working together to accomplish those goals.  We will be sending more details on the October call and November meeting as soon as I have circled back with our founding members.

If you have any questions at any time please feel free to reach out to my colleague and SMAC™ Organizer, Chris Baptiste.  In the meantime, please join us at smac.gather.com and share any background thoughts or ideas that you have prior to our first October call.  Thank you again for your commitment to SMAC™.  We look forward to doing great things together!

All the best,

Tom

-----------------------------------
Tom Gerace
SMAC™ Founding Committee Chair

http://tom.gather.com
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Comments: 25

Bob B. Sep 17, 2008, 9:25am EDT
I wish you success Tom.
Tom Gerace Sep 17, 2008, 9:42am EDT
Thanks, Bob. We think this is an important initiative in the industry. Back in the early days of print advertising, the industry created standard buying units (in most cases, the concept of buying consumer "ad views" in bundles of 1,000). This led to well understood pricing (cost-per-thousand or CPM) which quickly enabled the advertising marketplace.

In Social Media, we have the same kind of media advertising (you may have noticed it on the site :-) but we also have the ability to invite interested consumers into a conversation with brands about new products. We can also provide experiences (competitions like our First Chapters and First Tracks competitions, for example) that are supported by leading brands.

This kind of engagement has tremendous value for brands, but we don't yet have standards for measuring it, talking about it, or offering it to the marketplace. Bringing industry leaders together to create this kind of common vocabulary and understanding is a key step to bring social media revenues in line with the growth of usage/engagement in the space.
Lori F. Sep 17, 2008, 9:43am EDT
Good luck Tom. What exactly are the goals of this organization?
Hello Tom,
This is excellent news and I'm very pleased to see not only Gather on there, but also BzzAgent as well.
Marilyn
Tom Gerace Sep 17, 2008, 10:09am EDT
Lori- The primary goals for SMAC are to establish a common vocabulary for the industry, create well defined, standard engagement packages for marketers, and to achieve consensus on how to measure and value engagement.
Tom Gerace Sep 17, 2008, 10:10am EDT
Thanks Marilyn. I am excited that Dave could join us as well. In fact, I am really grateful that so many industry thought leaders (Dave included!) have come together around this initiative.
Yvette F. Sep 17, 2008, 10:44am EDT
Sounds interesting. Good luck!
Richard Frisbie Sep 17, 2008, 12:24pm EDT
It is exciting. Besides coming up with advertising values you will help all the web authors.

I'm often asked by Tourism Boards how my web content (versus print articles) can be gauged, valued, categoried? How do hits or views equal circulation figures? What is my article worth in print terms -- and I don't know what to tell them. Your work will be a huge help in establishing credentials and statistics for digital authors. Thanks!
Christine Zibas Sep 17, 2008, 12:56pm EDT
I would love for the group to establish some sort of standard of conduct, although I realize this is a side issue to your main goal. By that, I mean that a website behaves responsibly (according to what they have set out and promised). There is increasingly a problem with consumers on the web interacting with websites that begin with good intentions and ultimately end up deceiving their members when they have overpromised (eg, Boomertowne, NetWinner). This has a direct impact on advertisers, who are negatively effected by poor policies.

There have been reports of several of Boomertowne's advertisers being contacted by disgruntled members.
Katherine M. Sep 17, 2008, 12:56pm EDT
Okay now tell me what this is all about in PLAIN english and how this is going to affect Gather.
Kerry Dexter Sep 17, 2008, 1:29pm EDT
Tom,
wish you the best with this, and thanks for letting us know about it.
how international is this group, and what are your plans for international outreach?
Verie Sandborg Sep 17, 2008, 2:48pm EDT
I'm pleased that Gather is taking a leadership position in this important endeavor. Good luck.
Could you define engagement?
F. Jeanette c. Sep 17, 2008, 4:19pm EDT
I wish you great luck. You have been so good to us.

10 4 u
Rose H. Sep 17, 2008, 5:09pm EDT
An excellent move and a positive step. It makes sense to coordinate and find common ground on language as well as measuring value and engagement.
Good Luck, Tom.
Debby O. Sep 17, 2008, 5:10pm EDT
Much luck with this Tom!
Kate F. Sep 17, 2008, 5:56pm EDT
Thanks for the intro, Tom. This is very exciting.
Heather ~of the Whippets~ M. Sep 17, 2008, 9:16pm EDT
Good luck, Tom.
sarah g. Sep 17, 2008, 9:41pm EDT
good luck!
Connie C. Sep 18, 2008, 3:37am EDT
Wow Tom,
This is wonderful. Good luck to you
Andrea (Ms. Conservative) L. Sep 19, 2008, 3:32pm EDT
Wishing you success, Tom.
M. Bradley McCauley McCauley Oct 23, 2008, 6:03pm EDT
Blessings for your success.

It's rather male dominated, which surprises me since we have such a large female membership.

I applaud, or do I just 'laud' your initiative? Bravo
Patricia I. Nov 4, 2008, 11:45pm EST
Much good luck with the program. Gather is a wonderful site and I don't want it to become like "others" that recently disappeared!!!

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