Is the Celebrity Ambassador Dead?

It was the sure fire way to brand success in the 90s.

Find a high profile person, call them an 'ambassador' (sounds flash, right?), find an excuse to gather the media flock at an effortlessly fabulous venue (usually a private mansion, or the soon to be launched night spot to be seen) and let your star Ambassador tell everyone how fabulous your company and its products are.

Celebrity Ambassdors were the secret to brand success! It worked a treat, and in some parts of the marketing communications business-scape, still does!

But is it the sure fire road to success in todays globally mobile marketing communications environment?

New digital technologies have changed the way we communicate.

What we say, when we say it and how we say it, is increasingly dictated by a nineties launched commercial entity known as the Internet which houses information systems like the World Wide Web, (an intricate system of interlinked hyperlinked documents) that enables everyday people folk like yours truly, to store and share information (or what academia would proudly deem: knowledge).

Before most of us get up for the day, we have already reached for our smartphone to check the time, date or latest news from social networking hub, Facebook.

We may in fact be listening to BBC radio on our phone as we walk outside in search of a rolled up newspaper delivered by a spotty teen (or their supportive parent) somewhere in the vicinity of our front door. Why?

Because traditional media is not dead, it is simply a part of an enlarged mediascape that shares some of its formality, but very few of its regulations.

IBRC Conference: Social Media Risk Melbourne, Australia

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Social Media & Footy = The Art of Social from tjunee

Future Social Government, Canberra, Australia

The last time I spoke about sport and social media, Black Caviar provided the living breathing example of how great sports brands can tweet.

Today, Quade Cooper's weekend tweets provided a great example of twi-versations that occur during an employer/ employee divide.

Noone likes an unhappy workplace, however, two tweets can say a lot about a person and a company.

While 'toxic' may be an apt description of any organisational approach that uses traditional media management methodologies to 'manage' it's new media relations...

The reality is, social technologies require a socialised approach to communications.

Irrespective of whether the organisation is using them or not,the employee is, and in Cooper's case, actually leveraging the technology the way it was intended.

Could this be the 'nudge' Australian Rugby needs to finally heed the call and develop a comprehensive governance framework (think widely distributed social media guidelines, policy and contracts) for their employees both on and off the pitch around social technologies..? Let's hope so.

Why? Because if Quade Cooper leaves rugby, he'll also take over 580,000 Twitter 'followers' with him, and that's just stating the bleeding obvious. #FoodForThought

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Social Media in Government - Social Technology & International Sport from tjunee

IBR Conference 'Web 3.0 Investigating the future of social media: 2012 Forum

Here are the slides from my recent presentation at the International Business Review Conference: 'Web 3.0 Investigating the future of social media: 2012 Forum' at The Sofitel Wentworth, Sydney, Australia.

My fellow Day One presenters included: Alex Brown of Virgin Media (UK), Simon Townsend of Deloitte, Rod McGuiness of the ABC and Sean Herron of NASA (USA).

Social Technology & International Sport by Tiffanny Junee[slideshare id=13464961&w=425&h=355&sc=no]

View more presentations from tjunee

Cybermedicine Symposia

Following an invitation from Clinical director and obstetrician to the rugby stars, Dr Vijay Roach, I recently presented a lecture on social media and medicine at the Northern Clinical School, Royal North Shore Hospital, Sydney Australia.

Here are a copy of the slides presented [scribd id=99786772 key=key-1omhnvyxqopq6kf2tjt2 mode=list]
As always, please don't hesitate to contact me, should you have any questions.

Changing nature of media production and consumption in sport

As I revisit stumblings by high profile Australian athletes around the micro-blogging social media platform Twitter for the purposes of my current research, I look with fresh eyes at the Faggot Tweet: Sponsors Speak scandal of last year.

Refreshingly, my position on the relevance of context and content remains unchanged. If anything, I would further jump up and down on my strategic communicators tool box with the intention of seeing more support given to our elite athletes in navigating the new media channels.

In order for this to happen however, it's the administrators and communications professionals who need to stop. listen and learn from the tech team. It's the marketing communications leaders who need to patiently stumble through diciphering the tech team's codes and 'geek jargon', just as they have had to endure our homage to the acronym for the past 20 years.

People and business fundamentals haven't changed, technologies have. And with technology, new communications platforms have been consumed by information-hungry individuals and groups as the nature of association and information gathering has become more social. By this, I mean a global sharing process.

Not surprisingly, this change in the production and consumption of information now brings new, global and dynamic communications channels into the structured and controlled environment of corporate entities. This embedded disconnect does not have to be detrimental to the evolving relationship between corporate, team and individual brands, it just requires an entirely new approach which permits key players to not always get it right.

Stumbling isn't a problem for those businesses with strong key stakeholder engagement and support. So maybe the evolution towards transparency of communications through technology and the inherent nature of the new communications environment in the business of international sport, is more reflective of the health of key partner relationships than anything to actually do with sport performance.

While this is a sentence I never thought I'd write, it is undeniable, that when it comes to intra-organisational social media engagement in sport, the UFC is streaks ahead of the professional sporting pack.

A reminder why I have this blog...

It has been a long-time since I played phone-tag with an athlete for an interview, and yet I remain tied to this business called sport.

By birth (and not through any exceptional athletic prowess of my own) I am intimately woven into the fabric of professional sport.  Not only the public performance part, but the other side - the 'support' network.

Over the past decade (okay nearly two) while dressing for combat in the pre-requisite corporate suit, I oscillated between managing, pitching, sponsorsing and showcasing professionals (a lot of them athletes) in various marketing, communications and media roles.

But I'm not talking about the faux glitz and glamour of the mediatized version of sport.

I'm talking about the skeleton.  The place where it's all about what's best for the athlete to ensure s/he performs. 

Don't get me wrong...this business called sport is a multi-faceted, highly evolved beast.  So none of what I'm saying is particularly new.  Although...

Managing the brand, as well as, the person in this constantly-evolving, very public intricately networked digital world, seems to be a topic in which very few industry experts in Australia are engaged.

Why? Because very few actually understand how to perform in the new digital media age.

To truly understand the profession of athleticism takes a lot longer than an hour's interview or a lifetime of observation.  It takes practical know-how.

Professionalism, or sometimes simply, the commercialisation of sports, adds a new dimension to an athlete's portfolio.

So where can and do athletes go to train in the art of the integrated media network?

Depending on who you talk to, the answer will vary.  Talent managers, media managers, sports unions, lawyers, stylists, university professors, candle-stick makers - it's really a free for all... or is it?

Speak to a veteran performer and more often than not, they'll tell you they've muddled their way through, with the help of a handful of friends and trusted acquaintances with mixed results.

Then turn to a rookie and watch.  The good ones are already sizing-up every person in the room to see if they are friend or foe, helper or hanger-on.

Understanding is key.  Acquiring knowledge, an assurity of stepping closer to success as a professional; because performance isn't all training, playing and recovery.

It's about agility, as demanded by the 24/7 news cycle, the capabilities of new media and mobile technologies, as well as, the traditional key stakeholders: the sponsors, administrators, managers, medicos, team mates, family and supporters.

Managing the person, as well as, the brand is an integrated and highly specialised skill.  One that has evolved beyond knowing the right editor or producer at the various TV or radio stations.

So where can athletes and sports professionals go to train for the new media age?  Or rather, as they say in the corporate world 'network' to exchange ideas and share experiences?

I'm hoping they'll be brave enough to play here... eventually.