Welcome to the Digital Marketing Inner Circle

This week, Denise Shrivelle has contributed a great interview with Marcelo Silva, General Manager of GroupM Search Australia. Marcelo started his digital career in 1996 in a sales role at Ozemail – I knew him through my early days with Fairfax Online/F2. If you have been in the media segment of our industry for long enough then you will have crossed his path and know him as a great character and one of the truly nice guys. A strong search strategy has become key to online publishers and advertisers – all of us should have a good understanding of, at least, the basic principles and its position in our market.

Marcelo and his team at GroupM produce a highly informative blog which presents regular updates on search and general tips on SEO/SEM (see Q9 for a link). He also offers us a first! – an interesting insight on what he sees as the next big thing – natural language indexing (see Q4). Enjoy!

Name: Marcelo Silva

Works: GroupM Search, Australia

Job Title: General Manager

1. How, where and when did the digital industry find you?

First digital role in 1996 as Group Advertising Manager, Ozemail. Selling banners and sponsorships with my good friend Graig Galvin.

2. What is your current role and what do you actually do?

Responsible for the Search P&L across the 5 GroupM brands including Outrider, Mindshare, Maxus, MEC and Mediacom. The team consists of approximately 40 search specialists.

Along with the financial responsibility training and education is a large part of this role.

3. If you could have any job, what would it be (can be in and/or outside the industry)?

A musician – travelling the world and playing music would be nice.

4. Take a punt on the ‘next big thing’ in digital?

A couple of years back, as a marketing director; I conducted focus groups for the youth market. What became apparent was the use of language within these segments, resulting in some very insightful findings. In particular was the use grammar. E.g. Abbreviations (messenger use), sentence structure and other idiosyncrasies.

I predict ‘natural language indexing’ as the next big thing – given the variations in language across multiple segments and sub groups. It’s becoming increasingly complex for marketers to effectively communicate with their target markets and being relevant will result in more successful campaigns. I envisage this will expand across video and other digital forms.

5. Where do you see the digital industry in the next 5 years? (any forecasts and challenges)

1. Becoming the lynchpin of the entire communications mix

2. More convergence and the proliferation of user generated content.

6. How do you see other media evolving in the next 5 years?

Adapting and leveraging their core assets will be key for traditional media. For example, figure heads from TV, radio and other traditional media are blogging, Tweeting and experimenting with other social media tools. This adaption extends their brands to a wider, younger and fickle audience. For example, I hear Oprah has 1 million followers on Twitter and even the Pope is on Facebook and YouTube!

7. Where do you see the digital industry going in the next 12 months? (Particularly in light of the evolving financial situation)

Generally speaking digital will continue to be integrated into the overall mix, especially search marketing. Despite the GFC digital will be commanding a greater share of the overall pie.

Of some concern though, marketers still utilise search as a standalone direct response mechanism. Search can also build desire and should be maximised during the brand awareness phase!

Across the board I can only see upside. I recently judged the IAB award entries and I found my contemporaries to be smart, passionate and most of all patient. I think the industry is in good hands and clients are finally seeing the light.

8. Did you ever have a big digital idea you wish you pursued (or someone else’s idea you wish was yours)?

I’m a big fan of the *Memetrics offering and multivariate testing in general. When I was at ING Direct we were one of the first blue chip brands to trial the XOS tool in Australia. The results were phenomenal and subsequently the approach was rolled out to other ING international offices.

*Denise added: Memetrics Holdings Pty Limited provides testing and optimization solutions for digital marketers internationally.

9. Where do you get your industry information from?

A combination local and international sources:

- Online, magazines and papers

- I better say Google otherwise my wife will kill me.

- The Outrider blog: www.outrider.com.au/blog

10. What industry groups or networks are you a part of?

AIMIA & IAB