Amid all of the “advertising” discussion related to the first ever Facebook Marketing Conference in New York, there was another conversation taking place that didn’t quite get the attention it should have. That conversation was about the great digital/social talent war being waged right now.

For the past few years, in corners, bars and in places we don’t talk about, organizational leaders have been discussing the conundrum they are facing with respect to the exceptional digital talent they need, but don’t understand how to hire, leverage or retain. I’ve watched this up close from both the client side and the agency side for the past 15 years. I’ve watched companies trick themselves into believing they don’t NEED the talent, that the talent can be outsourced or that the talent could simply come the same places they’d been recruiting talent. I once worked in an organization that had more than 20 VPs of Marketing, but the highest ranking digital person was Director.

In perhaps one of the most important presentations I ever saw, an unnamed Global VP of Digital at a large CPG company showed a slide that had the logos of companies that had leaders of digital at the VP level and above vs. those with Director and below. On the left you had companies like Nike, Coke, P&G and on the right you had companies like Adidas, Pepsi, Kraft. She asked the question, which side would you want to work on? This was a presentation in 2004. She got it.

Well fast forward to 2012 to the Facebook Marketing Conference (aka fMC), on a very large stage, we heard progressive executives acknowledging that to succeed your organization will need digital talent. Not just any type of digital talent…EXCEPTIONAL digital talent.

Throughout fMC we heard several one-offs from executives like Nigel Morris (Aegis), Chris McCann (1-800 Flowers) and Ken Chenault (CEO of American Express). A powerful exchange happened early in the afternoon when Nigel shared:

The ad industry needs an “absolutely radical transformational change”, in terms of talent and organizational design. “We had to rip down all the silos.” Organizations need to be more collaborative, allowing specialists to work across different disciplines. “It’s really tough, it’s difficult, but unless our industry grapples that,” we’re not going to be able to satisfy clients.

That was followed up by Chris saying “Well, you can do all that, or you can just hire everyone under the age of 30.”

Agencies and clients are finally on the same page when it comes to what’s needed to continuing being relevant to their customers. It was a big “WOW” moment for me. In the hallways and breakout session areas, I found myself talking openly with people from agencies, retailers, CPG companies, research firms and Facebook proper about this talent issue. There was universal agreement that this will be the year we all look back and see there was a change…a true shift in how companies are thinking about digital talent.

Just so you don’t think I was full of it or cherry picking quotes to support my point of view, you should watch and listen to Ken Chenault’s fireside chat with Sheryl Sandberg. It’s nearly 30 minutes long, but it’s something you really should make the time for. In this conversation, you get a peak into how a very savvy organizational leader is embracing digital. The most telling statement from Ken during the “lightening round” portion of the chat, comes at the 24minute mark. When asked by Sheryl, “learn in the classroom or on the job” Ken makes no hesitation in saying, “on the job.”

Think about that. The CEO of American Express, fundamentally values real world experience more than books and degrees. That’s a big statement. And frankly, it something companies need to start understanding. The talent war in digital will be won, by those organizations willing to find the exceptional digital talent and be comfortable with the fact, that talent doesn’t neccessarily come from a “B” school. No, it comes from garages, agencies, start-ups, improv schools and many other non-traditional “learning centers.”

Have you heard the phrase, if you always do what you always did, you’ll always get what you always got. Well, I ask you, how is it that genuinely smart people at the heads of companies fail to understand this very basic concept? You can’t simply turn the marketing guy who reads Mashable into the head of digital. You can’t simply hire the interns into Sr. Level spots because they grew up with Facebook.  You can’t simply take the head of IT and put him at the forefront of leading your digital strategy. You can’t simply hire someone with a Marketing degree from Yale and an MBA from Harvard…who worked at McKinsey or Accenture and let them lead something as complex as digital, because they have the “management” pedigree. It just doesn’t work like that.

The digital talent war is real. Forward thinking companies were attracting, retaining and growing their digital talent back before 2000. Smart companies were doing it between 2000 and 2007. By the time 2007 rolled around, those who were late to the party were woefully behind. They felt the impact of being late in their mindshare, stock prices, quality of partners and of course financial KPIs.

Despite having all of this knowledge, with hindsight being 20/20, there are still organizations who aren’t investing in exceptional digital/social talent, despite the fact their competition most certainly is. We’re not moving toward an always on, ever connected digital and social world. We’re already there. And to not make having the the talent needed to take advantage of this new world a priority is simply maddening.

Change. We all want it. Even the things we love, we don’t love 100%. There’s an old phrase that I love to bring out every once again, that an old boss shared with me: that’s like pointing out the pimple on Miss America. The point being, we can find fault with anything, if we look hard enough.

Let me be the first person to say, I’m woefully guilty of this. I’m the guy who found problem after problem with the iPad. I pointed out all the things it wasn’t, instead of enjoying all the things it was. It’s easy to critique. It’s easy to demand that something be thinner, lighter, faster, longer lasting, come in more colors, etc. I say it’s easy, because asking for something requires no significant time, effort, R&D, dollars, or risk.

Over the past few years, with the rise of digital publishing and social media, we’ve all been given megaphones and platforms to amplify our voice. As a ritchesou web, we love to point to examples of how as a “community” we can create change. The number of times I’ve seen the Bank of America debit card fee situation referenced as an example of the power of the internet, is uncountable. There are other examples, no doubt. There’s a line though…a very fine line between “community” and “mob.” Michael Arrington, does a fantastic job of talking about the situation companies are in because the web is training is to “apologize because it’s pointless to have a conversation with a mob.” His post is worth your time and thought.

So let’s make this a bit more real for a second. Let’s say, the late Steve Jobs, had called me up after reading my post about the iPad.  This wouldn’t be that crazy, considering the number of people Jobs emailed directly based on emails sent to him. In our scenario, lets say Jobs said to me, Adam, we heard your feedback. We want to give you exactly what you want. In fact, we’re going to throw out all of the research we’ve done, we’re going to dismiss what our internal experts have advised, and we’re going to value YOUR opinion above all others. A new version of the iPad is coming out…the Kmiec Edition (aka iPad 3). It will have everything you wanted. But, here’s the catch, it’s going to cost $1,300.00. In other words, nearly double what I paid for an iPad 1.

Now, perhaps if I was in the upper echelon of the 1%, I’d say yes. Great! Of course in doing so, the majority of other customers would be priced out of owning an iPad 3. Let’s set that aside for a second. Not being in the upper echelon of the 1%, I’d of course say, sorry Steve, but I can’t afford that.

I realize the above situation is unlikely. But, that’s what it often looks like from the outside when I observe requests…no…the demand of the customers. But, it makes for an interesting concept.

Would you be willing to pay for the change you’re demanding?

It’s not like it’s easy to implement change. It’s hard. Take for example Joe Retailer. He has 10,000 store locations. Jill Customer demands he upgrade his point of sale system so that it accepts near field communication technology. Joe says, great, will do. He has 10 registers in each store, so he needs 100,000 new POS systems. For simplicity sake, let’s say the cost for the implementation of each POS system is $100 (it’s much higher). So he needs $10,000,000 in capital to do that. Well the $10M needs to come from somewhere. He can’t simply maintain the current pricing structure but invest $10M. And he can’t lower the prices. So what does he do? He raises prices by X% to cover the cost of the new infrastructure. But, what happens next? Yes, you guessed it. The “community” takes Joe Retailer to task for increasing his prices.

What we have is a no win situation. If you listen to Jill Customer, but don’t raise prices or cut costs/services elsewhere, Joe Retailer will be out of business in no time flat. But, if he raises the prices, he risks the backlash from customers.

Now, this paradox, is not universal. There’s a segment of customers who have no problem paying more for getting more. If you’ve shopped at Whole Foods you know exactly what I’m talking about. The price of groceries at Whole Foods relative to other typical grocery stores is astronomically higher. This has been proven time and time again. But, the Whole Foods shopper…the core Whole Foods shopper will keep shopping even as their prices raise. But, as prices increase, Whole Foods starts to price out more and more shoppers. This isn’t specific to Whole Foods. This is applicable to any business.

However, it doesn’t change the questions or the situation at hand: Would you be willing to pay for the change you’re demanding?

My New York Giants are in the Super Bowl. They’ll be playing Sunday against the New England Patriots; the team I loathe the most. I’ll be in Florida at the iMedia Marketers Summit. And yes, while I’ll be tuning in to watch the game…to root for my Giants, I’ll be tuning in as much, if not more for the ads.  The stage that is the Super Bowl is a marketer’s dream. Your idea, your creative, your hard work is on display for all the world to see.  Creative Directors get geeked out on the idea of having a Super Bowl ad to include in their “reel.” That’s how this business works. We’re all about ego. Me included. Over the years, I’ve had the chance to work on two spots that made it to the Super Bowl. They were proud moments.

As a marketer, it’s been interesting to watch Super Bowl ads evolve into Super Bowl campaigns. Campaign, you might ask? Sure. We have seen the Super Bowl “ad” morph into an ad that has a web site dedicated to the campaign, paid search (if you’re a smart company) to help people find your ad, pre-launching/seeding of the ad ahead of the Super Bow, the solicitation of customer feedback, the gaming of the USA Today Ad Meter and oh so much more. As technology has evolved and user behavior changed (eg 3 screens) advertisers have swung, hit and missed. Last year, I wrote a post titled, “10 Mistakes 2011 Super Bowl Advertisers Will Make” and in looking at it this morning, I think advertisers are destined to make at least 5 of them. Which 5? Glad you asked:

1. The call to action (URL, SMS, etc.) will be too small and come at the end of the ad
2. Paid search to drive people, interested in the ad or who remember the ad, won’t be bought
3. There will be too much emphasis on Facebook
4. Mobile optimized sites will be forgotten…instead Flash heavy experiences will be used
5. Proper load balancing for their hosting environment won’t be implemented – this will mean someone’s site will go down and people wanting to get an offer won’t be able to

Our consumers have gotten smarter, but have the advertisers?  This year should be an interesting test for marketers. We’ll have a combination of elements converging to make for one heck of a cocktail. Real time social media monitoring will be used to gauge consumer feedback, mobile will become a big player, monetizing across 3 screens will be critical, and oh so much more.  The Super Bowl places your work under a microscope.  Consumers, analysts, pundits, your own employees and more provide their often unsolicited thoughts, opinions and feedback.  When you spend $3M for just the air time, it’s too be expected.

The question I often ask is why do marketers use the Super Bowl as a lab? Sure, you could have done consumer concept testing beforehand, but when you invest nearly 5M (airtime and production) for 1 day, that work better be top notch and deliver.  In 2010, I think Google really hit the nail on the head and showed how to rethink the concept of Super Bowl Advertising.  They ran a spot called “Parisian Love.”

That spot wasn’t a new spot. In fact it had been out in the wild on the web for several months. Google created several of these videos and ran the best performing one on the biggest stage. Now, that’s smart…use data and insights to determine which commercial to run.  Why aren’t we using more data driven insights?  Why are we still saving our “best” for the Super Bowl instead of giving our “best” throughout the year? It’s a fair question when you consider how much data is readily available for us, as marketers, to leverage.

I’m hoping this is the year Super Bowl advertising evolves…grows up…and becomes something more than than a stage for ego driven Creative Directors and Chief Marketing Officers to demonstrate they know how to spend lots of money really fast.