The global CMO of social software provider Lithium has told B&T she does not understand why marketers are not acting more urgently to embrace the digital social revolution when people would rather forego sex than the Internet.

Speaking with B&T in San Francisco earlier this month, Katy Keim said that she was consistently seeing action at the CEO level, but we don’t see action as much from the CMO level.

“We see some trepidation as we approach potential customers about trying to get into the pool and we feel like it should be happening faster sometimes.”

Keim said she thought it was now much easier for marketers to become ill-equipped. “I think the first thing is marketers are overwhelmed . . . In 1970 and 1980 there were four to six channels and then you get to now, and there’s something like 50 channels that the marketers are dealing with and I think it’s very difficult to discern, not maybe how to interact with all those channels but how to invest appropriately in those channels.”

Keim said that some of the problem could be attributed to the habit marketers have of looking to external help rather than trying to solve problems themselves. “Marketers are excellent at outsourcing and they’re excellent at outsourcing for expertise. There’s an outside perspective you don’t want to give up because sometimes that’s where the big ideas come from. I think where the agencies will run into trouble is when that they’ve become these big branded advertising houses with kind of digital add-ons as opposed to this fully integrated digital offerings.”

Keim said she saw a lot of companies launch big advertising campaigns that were not “even tied to their own community. How could that be? They’re all there talking about you.”

In related news, Keim was in Australia this week to promote Lithium’s latest research, which found that Australians are demanding more from the Internet and are more likely to complain if their needs aren’t met than Americans.

Conducted by Harris poll in Great Britain, France, Germany, the US and Australia the study revealed the impact of the Internet on people’s preferences and behaviour, both on and offline.  It highlighted that Australia is home to the most demanding Internet customers, alongside Germany.

Highlights from the study of more than 1,000 Australian adults who are online include:

Nine out of ten (91%) Australians use an online source to research major purchases and over two thirds (67%) use two or more online sources.

68% said they generally won’t buy something that doesn’t have good online reviews.

72% of Australians expect a same day response to their online request, compared to 66% of people in the US.

Australians are also more vocal with their dissatisfaction, with almost half, 46%, saying they’re more likely to go online with complaints than praise, compared to 39% of their American counterparts.

Digital natives whinge more than those over 45 years, with 58% of Australians aged 25-34 saying they voice complaints rather than compliments online, versus 34% of 45yrs+.

A significant 86% of Australians ever requested help online, with 64% of Australians saying they’d call a toll free number for customer service issues as a last resort.

And finally, over half (53%) of the nation said they would prefer to give up good sex than live without good Internet service (47%) for a month, with 38% of women and 55% of men preferring to give up a good connection online rather than in the bedroom!

If you’re interested in hearing more about social and mobile marketing you should be at MAD Week! It’s the biggest media and marketing event in the southern hemisphere and it’s teaming up with ADMA’s Global Forum for a huge variety of social, networking and educational events for marketers, agencies and anyone else focused on delivering great customer experience.