NorthEast Ohio Marketing Forum

Why aren’t more Northeast Ohio companies blogging?

Posted by: Jennifer Gaglione

Northeast Ohio did not make a showing in a quick search on top corporate blogs. Admittedly, my search didn’t take all that long; however I do spend a lot of time online looking at business Web sites, and have found only a handful of companies in this region that maintain one. Wonder why? Could it be that by opening up a direct line of communication, blogging (define) is simply too radical for our traditionally conservative corporate culture?

Possibly. But for some time now, the Internet has been coaxing business leaders down from their ivory towers and asking them to mingle directly with the people whom they serve. Customers suddenly are in possession of VIP party passes, and they’re not giving them back any time soon. The multi-million dollar advertising budgets, slick paper brochures and corporate double-talk that used to fatten the bottom are no longer as effective.

Nothing illustrates this concept like The Cluetrain Manifesto:

“A powerful global conversation has begun. Through the Internet, people are discovering and inventing new ways to share relevant knowledge with blinding speed. As a direct result, markets are getting smarter—and getting smarter faster than most companies.”

Youth and the Media: Appealing to a New Generation

Today I attended "The Future of News Media, In Their Words: Teens as Media Consumers and Predictors," a City Club of Cleveland forum. The program was the final in a four-part series about the future of media and featured three high school and college-aged panelists' opinions and predictions of where mainstream media must go to appeal to younger consumers. Because it featured an open question-and-answer period, the discussion had a chance to go interesting places and the audience members, each with their own agenda, brought up some thought-provolking questions.

The panel itself was an articulate group of "teens." In fact, to my knowledge, only one (maybe two) of the participants were actually teens. Two of the panel members were majoring in Communication/Media-related fields and worked in college news media. As one audience member aptly pointed out, their opinions and answers are far from generalizable to the mainstream youth population. From a research standpoint what we learned at this forum wouldn't even equal the validity of a qualitative study, but that doesn't mean that it wasn't valuable information. A few trends emerged in the panelists responses to a multitude of questions.

Youth consumers prefer brevity.

These youth all expressed a need to get their information quickly and on the go. One member of the panel criticized television news as "taking too long to deliver the information." Their preferred method of media consumption was in print and online. These panelists prefer to read short media briefs online and then research whatever aspects of the news interest them by searching other media sites and websites for further information. As opposed to a more traditional preference for all the information you need contained in one source, they expressed a desire to know a little about a lot instead of a lot about one subject. They discussed MTV news shorts (remember Kurt Loder?) and breaking news blurbs as being important to them.

Brain Drain: Is Ohio the Bad Guy?

Welcome to the Northeast Ohio Marketing Forum. The goal and the purpose of this forum is for marketing professionals to stay in touch with key issues and relevant marketing information through content developed by and for the community in Northeast Ohio.

A recent article from Crain’s Cleveland Business illustrates how the media is painting the State of Ohio as the "bad guys."

I personally disagree with this article – as a researcher, I would like to know: are they leaving before they get their education at an Ohio school or after? I would argue that they are leaving after they receive their education in the state, so combining disciplines at Kent State and University of Akron etc. isn’t going to keep them here after graduation.

I believe that the reason that the best and the brightest are leaving this area is because of the opportunities that employers outside of Ohio are able to offer to recent college graduates. We are risk-averse in Northeast Ohio. A recent college graduate is unproven. They come cheaper than the road-weary, seasoned professional, but the employer must invest their valuable time in training, development and skill enhancement to get the new grad to a place where a seasoned professional could be on day one. We need to open the door for more college internships and give the students the experience they need to be a productive members of the marketing community.

I had a student say to me recently “I thought I had to leave the area to obtain a marketing position.” I am not saying that students don’t need to make their own opportunities, but we also need to step up the opportunities here in Northeast Ohio to give them the experience to succeed.