Last week’s “Media Playground 2009″ at Cuba Café (organized by IIR in cooperation with Valve) provided a plate full of food for thought on changed consumer behavior and marketing in today’s media environment. The participants took part in ten presentations and a panel discussion by experts from the field.

Following the opening words by the event’s host Ville Tolvanen, the morning started with Tuukka Temonen sharing his insight why internet videos should not be treated any different than films produced for other media. Antti Seppänen continued with a presentation of the Staraoke concept as an example how to use multiple media around a concept and Antti Öhrling gave a thorough introduction to social media marketing, using the success story of Blyk as an example.

Our presentation stood in direct continuation of Öhrling’s final thought “Let the customer own your brand”, talking about the complexity of user generated content. Tuomo Sihvola and Sebastian Greger aimed at raising awareness for the fact that each of the conceptual dimensions of UGC (immediacy, public dialogue, customer insight, low participation threshold; to name a few) brings along both possibilities and risks. Our on-stage dialogue - which thankfully evolved into extensive discussions with the audience - ended with a list of six rules we identify to be crucial when acting in the field of social media in general, and UGC in particular. We will elaborate further on these topics in a later blog post.

After the lunch break, Marco Mäkinen showed how established and emerging marketing strategies should be combined for success. He was followed by three case studies, Nina Venäläinen presenting Nokia’s social media launch strategy for the N97, Minna Lenander showcasing valio.fi’s online TV and Risto Vuorensola sheding light on the “Satellite bicycle” viral videos YLE launched last autumn. The two final talks were by Per Kristian Tandberg, on targeting as a means of cost-effective digital marketing, and Kim Weckström, about digital customer care.

In the closing panel discussion, Heikki Rotko, Kari Kivelä, Roope Lehtinen and Reetta Meriläinen discussed with the audience about ongoing changes in the media and how the established media can keep up with the user-driven trend away from the traditional forms of media.

This has been a great day, with a well-selected balance between insight derived from hands-on experience and very concrete case examples. Having enjoyed the numerous discussions with both seminar participants and the other speakers, we are happy to have been the partner in this event and took home a load of new thoughts to digest and take further.