One of the biggest dilemmas for marketers is determining how to communicate with their target market effectively. Marketers are now realising that consumers are spending almost one whole day per week online (IAB Australia 2014). Due to this there is a shift to integrate communications into online forums to be able to engage with consumers via daily communications and social relationships. Digital marketers are thus now interacting deeply with consumers’ social relationships, and encouraging consumers to play a proactive role promoting the product via digital communications.
“High Definition media and marketing ecosystems” is a term that has been given to the new media landscape, where consumers are being targeted by integrated marketing communications (IMC) through paid, owned and earned media both online and in real life (Digital Ads 2014). This newly integrated form of communications is becoming a critically important financial resource for the online industry, with expenditures of $23 billion in 2009 throughout North America (Digital Ads 2014). It is also becoming the most cost-efficient method of reaching and influencing today’s next generation of consumers.
Take a look at the below YouTube clip for an excellent example of an IMC campaign. The “Lemon Lovin” campaign is by Savanna Cider from South Africa. Savanna wanted to create an interactive and quirky campaign for Valentine’s Day. The objective of this campaign was to increase brand infinity and traction throughout earned media by encouraging active participation and talkability.
Active participation is one of the major benefits of IMC and is the reason it is so popular because it makes consumers feel like they are in control. It is also beneficial for advertisers because it creates positive word of mouth on social channels, which is one of the most trusted forms of information search in consumers’ post purchase evaluation.
Savanna used their existing Facebook community to launch the campaign. Then the company created a “Savannagrams” competition element, which encouraged loved ones to organize personal love serenades on Valentines Day. These “Savannagrams” were recorded on smart phones and uploaded on to social media, this generated traction for Savanna throughout the online community.
Savanna launched a “Lemon Lovin” teaser on their Facebook page, Savanna’s own YouTube channel and it also featured on various TV Channels. To continue to extend active participation Savanna created an online poem generator on their website so consumers could create and send their own personal lines of love. Online and Newspaper advertising used QR codes to direct consumers back to the “Lemon Lovin” pages on Savanna’s online forums.
The thing I like so much about this new trend of interactive marketing is that the engagement is a subtle, subconscious process in which consumers begin to combine the ad’s messages with their own associations, symbols and metaphors to make the brand more personally relevant (Digital Ads 2014). The goal for brands like Savanna is not simply to expose consumers to a particular product or service, but to create an environment in which they are actually interacting with the brand and integrating it into their personal and social relationships (Digital Ads 2014).
The question I have to ask now is where will digital communication be in 5 years time?
References
Digital Ads. 2014. “Alcohol marketing in the digital age.” Digital Ads. August 15.
http://digitalads.org/how-youre-targeted/publications/alcohol-marketing-digital-age-1
IAB Australia. 2014. “Nielsen Online Landscape Review – May 2014.”
Savanna. 2011. Savanna Lemon Loving – Digital Marketing Case Study. YouTube Video, 2.13.
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