YouTube, Google, and Wharton give valuable insight

I stumbled across this link the other day on YouTube, and no it’s not some funny video of a pizza party gone wrong, it’s actually something pretty insightful about marketing.

Fast Forward is a concept created by Google and the Wharton University of Pennsylvania. It’s tag line is…

Quick perspectives on the changing face of marketing. Watch. Engage. Debate.”

The website describes how “marketing is in the midst of a complex transformation”, which I guess it is, and probably always will be with the technology constantly changes. Fast Forward is geared towards multiple viewpoints from industry and academia leaders. There’s a ton of short videos which all relate to unique marketing topics. Through these videos the site hopes to show innovative ways to market to consumers, best practices for informed marketing and answers to pertinent questions which are on the minds of many agencies today.

What’s on the site?

Another section of the site is “Trends”, which shows more insight into consumer sentiment based on different types of searches through Google.

There’s also a “Future of Advertising” tab which has even more videos about the approach the site is taking on marketing topics.

A third tab labeled “Free Tools” is pretty much just that, free stuff. Don’t get too excited, it’s mostly from Google and it’s stuff that’s already out on the web, but for anyone who might be new to the land of online content and search, this is probably a helpful section. It covers ideas of search innovation, insights, speed, content and experimentation leveraging new opportunities with keyword tools.

The last tab of the site is called “Events”. This section seems to be compiled of short videos from Advertising Week in NYC. It includes roundtables with CEO’s both on agency and client side.

Final Thoughts

The whole concept of how consumers are now marketers and a conversation is not just one way, but multi-directional is really a pretty amazing and big idea to consider. Agencies and marketing firms can’t treat customers as an end result, but try to see them more as a partners. Technology helps us in so many ways, and Google is definitely near the forefront. It’s great they joined with Wharton and YouTube to create a mini destination for marketing insights.

Check it out for yourself: http://www.youtube.com/user/FastForward

~ Jason Davenport, Going Interactive

Follow me on Twitter @goingjason