• by Tyler Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_tyler, March 4, 2013

It's been one month since Oreo brought the term "real-time marketing" into the limelight, but the Huffington Post believes that its 15 minutes of fame could already be over. In an article posted today, the Huffington Post wrote, "Hey, real-time marketing was fun while it lasted, wasn't it? One day you're The Next Big Thing; the next day you're marched off to the sales & marketing history museum with Burma-Shave signs and the Fuller Brush man."

Real-time marketing has been around since brands have existed in one way or another. But the Huffington Post article, and this RTBlog, speaks of real-time marketing in the context of using Twitter to promote brands during real-time events, like the Super Bowl or the Oscars. In this context, burying "real-time marketing" after an underwhelming display by brands at the Oscars would be jumping the gun.

A Convince and Convert article from last week laid out all of the attempted real-time branding Tweets during the Oscars, most of which crashed and burned. After going through the Tweets, one thing became abundantly clear: this version of real-time marketing is still nascent. Oreo might have knocked it out of the park at the Super Bowl, but that doesn't mean every other brand has it figured out already. 

As Social Media Insider wrote last week, "good ideas take time." Let's take it a step further: Even good real-time ideas take time before they actually work in real-time.

It has been a week since the Oscars, and the general reaction to the real-time marketing attempts during the show has been brutal. It might not have been pretty, but it's all part of something new. Just because it didn't work at the first major event since the Super Bowl doesn't mean it never will. 

This new definition of real-time marketing needs to walk before it can learn how to run.  It sounds backwards, because if something needs time to grow and improve, it can't be classified as "real-time," can it?  

Brands should keep trying this method of real-time marketing. It will eventually work; Oreo has proven that it can. Patience might be the antithesis of "real-time," but there needs to be a place for it.