Will the ascent of social media as a key communication tool (especially among the movie industry’s core target audience of 12 – 34 year olds) herald a corresponding ascent in the quality of films produced in Hollywood? Unfortunately, that probably won’t happen.   – Too many factors seem to be at play in the proliferation of bad or boring studio movies.

But according to industry vets including Peter Guber, the former chairman of Sony Pictures as quoted in a NY Times story today, the immediacy of Twitter, Facebook and text messaging “has made it much harder for studios to trick consumers into thinking the movie is worth their time.”

The Times story is ostensibly about the diminishing ability of mega-stars to drive folks to theaters on opening weekends and beyond.  It quotes economists that believe marquee names have long been unable to drive box office results big enough to validate their paychecks.   However, it seems that this fact has accelerated significantly over the past twelve months with the ascent of social media and growing penetration of smart phones.

This convergence of events is especially worrisome for Hollywood studios that routinely place $200 million dollar bets on products that historically need to capture the public’s imagination (and money) over the course of a 3-day weekend.  -- The combination of the immediacy of social nets to deliver unfiltered, trusted messages along with make or break opening weekend hysteria is a toxic combination for movie makers.

But this is a lesson that should be paid attention to by marketers of all stripes: it’s getting harder to get over on audiences (see ‘Land of the Lost’) but companies that deliver great products (Flip Video, MadMen, Chevy Camaro) that generate genuine consumer excitement are destined to be winners.

Many folks that know me know that in the aftermath of the 2001 dot-com crash, I opened a restaurant in NYC's West Village with the belief that there was no long-term future in running a digital agency.  After working 2 jobs for 3 years I (thankfully) figured out that my future actually was in digital marketing but that's not really the point of this post...

Believe it or not, my involvement in the food biz somewhat naturally led to a broader interest in food, cooking, restaurants, etc. that persists to this day.  So, yesterday, when reading a blog post from outgoing NY Times food critic Frank Bruni, I was struck for the first time by parallels in the process of creating great digital experiences and creating a great restaurant.  (In many ways, this is sort of an extension of my last blog post.)

In a companion piece to his 4-star review of Eleven Madison Park, Bruni explained how and why a restaurant that merited a mere 2-stars five years ago, could elevate itself to the rarefied world of 4-star dining.

1. According to Bruni, Eleven Madison Park was a restaurant that insisted on improving. How? Discipline, perfectionism, and impeccably high standards.  Similarly, without these kind of aspirations in digital marketing, it’s impossible to achieve 4-star results. 

In digital marketing, there’s an also an understanding that a key component of achieving these type of standards is to meet data-driven key performance indicators.  And that rigorous, on-going testing, measurement and optimization is the logical, rational path to success. 

2. “Restaurants do improve in fundamental, noteworthy ways, taking customer feedback and reviewers’ comments to heart.”  This is a great parallel for embracing customer insights accrued within social media campaigns, via usability testing or through other feedback mechanisms.

3. Desire To Share: In the same way that most of today’s most successful digital marketing campaigns harness consumers’ desire to share experiences via Twitter, Facebook and other social networking channels, Bruni factors his eagerness to tell people about the dishes he’d had and the pleasure he’d experienced into his measures of success.

4. Gut Feeling: Bruni explains that at the end of the day, the difference between a 3 and 4 star rating isn’t necessarily scientific.  His years of experience give him valuable criteria for analysis, in the same way that a deep track record in digital marketing provide great insights into the success or failure of specific campaigns or components therof.

Restaurants have been around forever but digital marketing is still a relatively new field.  (At Flightpath we often reference our “constantly evolving skillset”.)  So, I think we’re fortunate to be able to derive good ideas and best practices from examples of excellence that are all around us – even if they’re decidedly un-digital.

It’s always interesting to me when I hear about people in completely foreign lines of work that share similar professional challenges to those of us in the digital marketing industry.  Over the weekend, I was confronted with two very interesting stories that seemed aligned with some of the issues we face when developing and rolling out web sites intended to achieve business goals on behalf of Flightpath clients. 

While stuck in traffic on Friday, I heard a story on NPR about the Airtrain that connects JFK airport to the NYC subway system.  As reported by WNYC’s Andrea Bernstein, five years after its inception, the AirTrain draws 5 million passengers a year despite confusing signage and insufficient passenger information.  Listening to the story, I couldn’t help but draw parallels to challenges we face in creating simple, usable, user-friendly web sites.  This is a fascinating story for anyone who creates web sites or is considering commissioning creation of one.

Next, the weekly Public Editor column in Sunday’s New York Times titled ‘How Did This Happen?’ chronicled a comedy of errors (seven, in fact) that made their way into Times reporting rushed into print around the death of Walter Cronkite.  The newspaper printed wrong dates, incorrect information about Cronkite’s work, and more. 

Apparently, many of rules and processes the Times employs to check facts and approve stories fell by the wayside as they rushed to meet deadlines.  Anyone that’s ever been involved in web site quality assurance will likely understand the cascade of events chronicled in this thought-provoking story and remember checks and balances they’ve implemented in order to circumvent similar problems.

Author Clark Hoyt explains that ‘seemingly little mistakes, when they come in such big clusters, undermine the authority of a newspaper.’  The same holds true for a web site.