I was looking forward with anticipation to the above named event laid on by the Chartered Institute of Marketing. Would they reveal any secret revelations about the online world… perhaps some tactics for how to market within social networks? At least there might be a speculative debate among experts.

A debate did take place - but virtually everyone there seemed more interested in trying to protect the CIM from becoming obsolete rather than discussing what the future of marketing actually was. Indeed the session revolved almost entirely around a research project which the CIM has commissioned about the definition of marketing. When I asked whether they’d asked any consumers what THEY thought marketing was I was literally laughed at: ‘that’d be like opening Pandora’s box!’ someone said.

This baffled me. Even the speaker’s own presentation slide (amusingly entitled ‘Changes in marketing since 1976′) had ‘Conversation with customers’ among its bullet points.

I think the most valuable marketing work we do with film plays into the notion that people respond to ‘human conversation’ much more than ‘commercial announcement’ (read Seth Godin). Ok, so it’s hard to have a conversation with a screen - but the rise of shared video in online social networks indicates that video is more often than not the conversation-starter.

Companies that want to be part of a conversation with their customers need to have something interesting to say - but they also need to be prepared to listen to the response. The speaker last night concluded that he was pleased that their polemical discussion had sparked a debate. I’m not quite so sure the Chief Executive thought the same - his passing comment to me was (and I swear, verbatim) “Remember lad, I’m the one who’s over sixty and has the words ‘Chief Executive’ in my title”!