With more than 20 years experience in business development, marketing and engagement strategy for brands, Tim Hayden studies communications behavior and the technology that is reshaping it every day–the ever expanding mobile presence. As Edelman’s Senior Vice President of Mobile Strategy, Tim assembles integrated strategies for brands and agencies with experiential, social and mobile solutions. We asked Tim a few questions to get our minds ready to delve deeper into mobile strategy for everyday communications with clients and customers at AWC Austin’s upcoming July 18th luncheon. Register today and we hope to see you there!
AWC Austin Hosts Tim Hayden
AWC Austin: What do you consider to be your biggest career achievement?
TH: As far as career achievements go, I’m very proud of starting companies, GamePlan and 44Doors, that were both innovative and successfully profitable. It is self-fulfilling to see your vision for a business become an operational reality. Yet, I feel that I’m still striving to accomplish a feat in business that has some profound, maybe historic, positive effect on the world.
AWC Austin: What is the biggest change you’ve seen in the PR/Communication industry over the last ten years?
TH: The rise of social media fragmented traditional media channels while also creating new media sources in social networks and blogs that none of us could have forecasted. Now this fragmentation is being extended further, as almost anyone can carry Hollywood in her/his pocket to report news, share opinions and criticism with the world, in an instant. Social was big, yet mobile will have a more profound and lasting effect.
AWC Austin: Why is communication so important in business today?
TH: Communications is vital to business today, just as it has been the past 100 years. We have brands to support and protect, sales to garner, service to deliver, and the tenets of a sound communications systems often define the success (or not) of those business efforts, and more. More simply, I would state that customer service and the customer experience is nothing without communications that make us happy and want to buy again or tell our friends about that experience.
AWC Austin: Where do you see mobile technology going in the next year?
TH: There’s so much to list in expected changes over the next 12 months, but there are some high-level behavioral shift caused by “mobile” that I watch most closely. As we approach 60-70% smartphone ownership, we will see a lift in retail sales, entertainment and outdoor experiences increase. Americans, in particular, will spend less time online and more time offline. While smartphones are surely empowering this trend, it will be tablets that rise as the overall champion in capturing our media consumption and e-commerce behavior in the office and at home.
AWC Austin: What is your favorite part about working in this space and at Edelman? TH: Mobile touches everything in communications and is starting to reshape so much of the operational side of business. I love working in the middle of this whirlwind of change, as it gives me a preview of the future that most other careers cannot. Edelman is a thrilling place to be today, as there is a unique confidence in the world’s largest PR firm that allows us to introduce and shepherd emerging technologies and innovative strategies, such as mobile marketing and social business, with brands on a global basis. It is a challenge that I look forward to every morning, and I am blessed to be working alongside such a dynamic team of communications professionals across the planet.
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