What really helped make the campaign unique was the role of media – but the new-style media coverage did not unfold quite the way some observers thought it would. Early in the election contest, I wrote about the fact that many in the political class were expecting this to be the UK’s first real digital election – in the mould of Barack Obama’s victory in 2008 when online communications played an unprecedented role.

Well that wasn’t quite how it worked out, was it? Instead, this was the election in which good old television played a huge role – maybe a bigger role that ever – as the TV debates dominated the campaign. So, while new media may be interactive and speak more directly to the individual, it took a back seat while an old mass media made a massive impact on the campaign’s trajectory as the old-fashioned big broadcast event created an excitement that set the election apart from any other in recent history.

For the Liberal Democrats, the television debates provided an unprecedented platform to showcase their leader and air their views – with Nick Clegg emerging as a serious player and legitimate contender for prime minister. But it was also another old medium that may have knocked him back down, as many of the mainstream newspapers went on the attack with a series of withering – and in most cases unfair – attacks on the LibDem leader who seemed bemused at the idea of going from the new Churchill to a Nazi sympathiser in the space of a week.

So while old media, particularly newspapers, have struggled to maintain their relevance and influence in the digital age, they certainly demonstrated that they can still be wheeled out take centre stage – to in fact provide centre stage – when Britons want to watch the big event unfold en masse before they gather round the water cooler. Even in the election’s compelling aftermath.

One talking point that has emerged so far is that just about everyone involved in the UK election industry – you know, those politicians, party activists, journalists, PRs, ad agency mad men, pollsters, quiz-show comedians and assorted pundits who live for the big campaign – is beginning to wonder if this one will be unlike any other when it comes to media.

With many of the consultants who helped devise the strategy behind Barack Obama’s successful US presidential run – with its extensive use of social media and other online touch points – heading to the UK as election advisors, the British political machine finally appears ready to embrace the digital age.

Will that make a fundamental difference to the way election campaigns unfold in the UK? Not very likely.

Social media has become a kind of cure-all for whatever ails marketing programmes of all types – and political “brands” are no exception. The Conservatives have already made an early, near-disastrous foray into the world of social media with the Cash Gordon website launched on Twitter and Facebook. The aim was to embarrass Brown by exposing links to the Unite union, but the site ended up being hijacked by opponents of the Conservatives who used it to embarrass the Tories themselves by uploading swearing, porn, links to Labour websites and even Rick Astley videos.

This underlines the inherent risk to any brand – whether it is a political party, a corporation, a charity, a restaurant, a car, a laundry soap, or a biscuit – if it chooses to engage the public through social media: this opens a dialogue in a medium over which the organisation that started the conversation has very little control.

When political groups, companies, or other organisations start using social media to get a message across, it all too often smacks of GMOOT (“Get me one of those”) syndrome, as it has been dubbed in AdAge. This is the trend whereby someone senior in an organisation sees that someone else is using some type of social media and demands that those below him do the same – without thinking things through strategically. 

Any organisation – especially a political party – has to weigh up the benefits and potential costs, and even dangers, of launching a campaign using social media. And digital activity still has to be part of a broader media campaign that unfolds and fits in with a wider strategy.

Social media might seem like a great way for a party like the Conservatives to make a connection with a younger demographic than they normally might, but it has already been shown that it can blow up in their faces. Would social media on its own enable David Cameron to connect with younger voters and finally get his chance to hug a hoodie – rather than be mocked by one? Don’t bet on it.

What you can bet on is that social media will play a part in the campaign – perhaps even a growing part as the run-up to election day progresses and the parties get a handle on digital – but television, newspapers, radio, doordrop brochures and good old-fashioned face-to-face campaigning will still all be big in the mix.

Cute tweets and virals may make for good water cooler chat and headlines but they won’t drive fundamental change – either in the political landscape or in business.

Campaign magazine’s table of the biggest UK media agencies showed eight of the top 10 suffered a drop in billings between 2008 and 2009 – including a more than 10% slump by number one agency MediaCom, a 16.5 % fall by number four Mindshare and a 22.5% plunge by number six Starcom UK Group. The headlines also showed that WPP Group, which owns Mindshare, saw its profits fall by 16% in 2009.

But is there more to these figures than just the recession? We are now living in an age where companies are realising that they can rely less on traditional media vehicles such as newspapers, radio and even television and can instead speak more directly with their customers through digital media.

We already see print media owners struggling as newspapers and magazines grapple with ever-shrinking page counts and staff cuts. The long-term trend may be that the fragmenting TV marketplace, radio and other conventional media will be facing similar issues sooner rather than later.

Before the recent news on media agencies seeing their billings slump, we had a lot of talk in PR Week about Richard Sambrook, former head of global news at the BBC, jumping on the PR bandwagon to become “chief content officer” at a global PR agency to help clients create written, video and audio pieces.

This recognition that, in future, communicating with customers, stakeholders and the public at large will be about more than traditional PR – ie. placing articles in print publications or arranging broadcast interviews for clients – is nothing new to us here at Lindsell Marketing. Generating content that can fuel PR initiatives, marketing campaigns, websites, sales programmes and other ways of talking to the marketplace is a future that has already arrived here.

So while the recession may have accelerated the process, the change we see taking place in the way companies, government departments and other organisations communicate with the world around them is a permanent shift we have seen coming – and that includes PR as well as other traditional ways that companies communicate. The key going forward will be to develop the right content to fuel the new communication engines that are replacing traditional media vehicles.

Last year saw a turning point in its organisation. The organisers stepped up their game in terms of thought leadership, and this year are offering up to 80 sessions and keynotes from leading industry organisations like Google, Chartered Institute of Marketing and YouTube. This was also helped by the move in 2008 from the smaller Olympia venue to a larger presence at Earls Court. All this has transformed the show into a valuable industry leading event at a time when it would have been easy for the organisers to sit on their laurels being the only DM show around.

Thought leadership, analysis and industry insight has clearly become the focus, drawing in the visitors and exhibitors. And yet looking at the TFM press room, the exhibitor publicity is seriously lacking in effective thought leadership content.  The usual, mundane, “We’re going to be at TFM, this is what we do, please come and visit our stand” is the rule rather than the exception.  Snoozzz. Why not generate original research or publicise your client successes to help you stand out and draw interested punters in?

Luckily my colleague Hugh Filman will be visiting the show.  If you want advice on how to create an effective trade show PR strategy, that is more than a bland press release, flag him down – he’ll be more than happy to help!