Future is a four letter word

By Fabian Tilmant on 20 March 2009 in New (ways of using) Media | Comments Off

BLYK or EXQI. Strange words that symbolize innovation in Belgian New Media landscape. What’s interesting in these initiatives is that, unlike most of the pure online players, they’re operated by media people who are looking for new models, based on advertising revenues. Indeed, profitability, and thus possibilities of getting sufficient budget from advertisers, is the start point of these initiatives. Eric Samson (CEO Blyk Belgium) and Gabriel Fehervari (CEO Alfacam) don’t hesitate to take their pilgrim’s staff to spread the word to the market and evangelize advertisers to their new models, forecasting better ROI than traditional models.

The new models set up by these innovative companies take into account new trends initiated on the web such as integrated content, brand conversation or interactive direct marketing. Contact-based models are slowly but surely falling apart due to the flood of information customers are submitted to and technological evolutions that allow capturing customers’ feedback and estimating brands’ value almost instantly. New models using brands in a more clever way, reaching a real win-win-win between the media, the advertiser and the consumer will rise and bring closer a product to its communication.
On top of this brand/product/communication layer, a new service layer will bring more value to the consumer and allow the brand to better differentiate itself on the market. Just like we did for Eurostar.

Just like any innovation, the main Achilles’ heels are the timing to reach objectives and acceptation degree from the market, or rather the targeted niche(s). Blyk starts with 0 members and Exqi plans to struggle in a french-speaking market they don’t really know. And acquisition of customers is a long, difficult and expensive journey.

I invite you reading the long interview of Gabriel Fehervari in this month’s Media Marketing or meeting him at the upcoming BMMA lunch. You can read my debriefing of GRP Media Session around Mobile Marketing where Eric Samson introduced Blyk’s model.

Tags: Blyk, branded service, exqi, IDTV, media, mobile