Our consumer is no longer engaged
in the monologue that traditional advertising and marketing strategies drive
because communication tactics have evolved and have made instantaneous
conversation easy, cheap and ubiquitous. This very instantaneous communication
has been facilitated by Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and the other array of
social networking, blogs and other tools that have allowed for consumers to be
connected across the globe. These technologies have facilitated the ability of
like-minded consumers to share stories, discuss brand recommendations, and
ultimately experiences. Further it has allowed for humans to interact in more
meaningful and important ways (the Egypt political revolution for example),
which allows marketers to more easily interact with and target niche consumer
markets. What this technology has allowed is for firms to create marketing
communication that is launched digitally first and foremost to facilitate the
discussion already happening around the globe and allows for companies to
engage, understand their consumers’ needs and be a part of the everyday
conversation.
Take Threadless for example,
which is a million-dollar apparel company that has virtually no design costs as
their community develops designs that eventually become their products. They
have a rapidly growing community because of the unique experience that his web
site provides others. The company is so responsive to its community that it is
able to react to feedback and redesign their website within hours of the
feedback being surfaced– talk about instantaneous customer satisfaction! Also
take Chipotle’s “Back to the Start” campaign which won numerous awards,
including advertising awards at the Cannes film festival (currently sitting at
around 8 million views on YouTube as it stands today). This was launched to
YouTube first and was coupled with a website where you can learn more about how
the company sources sustainable, organic food. What’s unique about it is that
not only did it effectively leverage digital channels to engage users and to
facilitate conversation, but it used traditional methods after launching on digital
to extend the reach and impact of the campaign.
So what does all this truly mean
for marketers? I think it means that consumers are looking to have conversations
and interact with brands to know that their voice is being heard. The
democratization that has been facilitated by technology means that it is truly
all about the content that is created in the ad, how it facilitates
conversation in your target audience, and how you create an impactful
experience for the consumer. It also means that your content has to stay fresh,
be unique, fit with your brand promise/expectations, and be remarkable or
something that consumers want to discuss and talk about.
As I sign off on this blog, feel free to comment below on
what you think about digital advertising. I’ve included a link to a few
articles below if you want to learn more about how to effectively use digital to
create content or want to learn more about the advertising campaigns mentioned above.
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