Complex Moving Parts

Some thoughts on the complex moving parts that is now marketing.

The election gave us a rich opportunity to identify what is being communicated to whom and how. We know politicians are brands and with names like Obama, Biden, McCain and Palin - they're actually good brand names: unique, short, and memorable. For a complete run down of social media activity see the post on Web Strategist. In short the Obama brand out performed the McCain brand 3 or 4 to 1. And it isn't just the fact that democrats tend to skew younger because among young people, the skew still exists. What about the two respective audiences makes them behave differently? Is there something about the message that creates two different segments? Is there something about the segment that hijacks the brand? Does the 'social responsibility' of one brand accentuate the use of social technology? Does the 'independence, self-reliance' of the other brand suppress the need to use social technology?
The use of social media illustrates just how complex communication is getting to be. No longer can marketing programs be linear fishing trips. Maybe Integrated Marketing Communications should make a comeback: It is "a planning process designed to assure that all brand contacts received by a customer or prospect for a product, service, or organization are relevant to that person and consistent over time.” Neighbor Rich Seminik's book of the same name maybe a good place to start to rethink the process.
For high consideration products designing campaigns in this new area is no longer about finding all the physical points where you can reach the audience, but rather understanding all the places a person might go to discuss the underlying need, problem or benefit. Thinking about the decision process in this light creates at least a dozen new opportunities.
The water cooler, coffee pot, and conference room are the new radio, TV, and newspaper. According to At-Work Consumer survey:
- Word-of-mouth is highly influential on purchases made by at-work consumers, with 95.6% indicating they regularly or occasionally give advice to their peers about products and services, and 92.9% indicating they also seek advice from peers before making purchases.
- Workplace presents the perfect environment to create buzz for product introductions and new store openings. While taking a break from work, 67.8% at-work consumers socialize with co-workers and 42.2% also indicate they communicate with friends and family during the workday.
There are several types of marketing programs - Foundational, Operational, Experimental, and Transformation. Keeping these in sync with an over-arching strategy can be challenging - and disastrous without a strategy.
Finally ROI must be looked at the campaign level not just at the tactic level. Take a hard look at the "R" of that statement - it isn't always meant to be 'revenue'.