I am heading back to Los Angeles after attending ad:tech in New York (with a record 13,000 attendees), thinking about how we may be experiencing a significant moment in the growth of user-generated content as the professional writers in Hollywood bargain for royalties from consumption of their content online.


As users -- particularly those under 25 -- discover, connect and influence their friends in social media, are they making truly significant moves away from the content produced by professionals in traditional media? Will advertisers increase their $1.2 billion spent on social media this year faster than the $3.6 billion forecasted for 2011 by eMarketer?
I don't know. But if the sessions I attended at adtech are any indication, we must now recognize that rich opportunities of engaging customers come from the integration of media .
That means, as Eric Bader, SVP and Director of Digital Connections at Mediavest Worldwide, said, avoiding the "shoehorn" approach to media use. That is, stop forcing what format works in one medium to work in some other medium. Our dollars will not produce the returns we want unless we make that effort.
For example, he says, just watch what a spot you run at 7:41 PM does to web and search traffic just minutes later. All the more true for social media and user-generated content that changes now on a monthly basis.
Marketers who understand how brand equity is enhanced through media integration will be MVPs in their organizations. Do you know any?