1. The Birth of Viral/Buzz Marketing
The War of the Worlds radio broadcast: the beginning of a different kind of marketing
In 1938, when Orson Welles’ broadcast of The War of the Worlds caused immediate panic and fear among the public (who believed the world was really at war with aliens), no one knew it then, but this would become one of history’s biggest publicity stunts; thus, viral and buzz marketing were born.
Today, viral marketing has come a long way from frightening naïve citizens about alien invasions. Virtual marketing, in today’s sense, is an online promotional campaign that hopefully spreads like … well, like a virus. Its creative focus and increased sales may be simply a byproduct. Really, the content is just so cool that people want to show it to EVERYONE. Similarly, buzz marketing calls for some jaw-dropping event and happening that stirs up a commotion, and people just can’t wait to talk about it. It is a PR vehicle – a shot of adrenaline with a chaser of pure product information.
Bottom line: one minute nobody’s heard of it, and next, everyone’s talking about it.
2. Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
People don’t need advertising to tell them about products anymore; if they want to find out, they will. Twenty years ago, brand managers would run a single annual media advertising campaign, two or three consumer sales promotions, and leave trade marketing to sales people and logistics experts. CRM technologies now enable marketers to run dozens of finely targeted campaigns per week, support partner promotions through portal technologies and integrate with internal sales departments and outsourced logistics partners.
Traditional marketing goals are built on sales targets, such as market share. Because of databases, CRM allows you to ask, “Which customers shall we target?” CRM focuses attention on three specific customer life cycle questions, which many marketers still ignore: which customers do we want to acquire, which do we want to retain, and which do we want to develop? Now, you can know your customers and develop relationships with them.
This has given birth to customer satisfaction surveys, rewards programs like frequent flier miles and the implementation of customer-focused businesses that value brand loyalty.
3. Brand Utility
In 1952, Rosser Reeves coined the "Unique Selling Proposition,” and branding was born. Branding, still extremely important, spurred millions of brands that called for the millions of advertisers that consumers see daily.
The idea of brand utility isn’t new; it’s what Guinness Brewing Co. did back in the day with the Guinness book of world records. Brand utility is linking your brand with something useful. It creates shared experiences and shared relationships. Instead of putting dollars into the masses of distracting advertising, it uses the means and creativity you have for advertising to create a promotional approach.
Brand utility doesn’t focus so much about who your consumers are, but about what they do. How can you help them? They are not about apps, technology or brand activation (but brand utility many times encompasses these ideas) – they are about providing a real benefit for promotional purposes, one that connects to your USP in whichever way that suits your situation best.
Who’s doing it? Nike. They created Nike +, a service that allows runners to track, share and store their runs. This brand is staying away from interactive advertising and instead, putting on services like this that will genuinely benefit their customers.
4. Social Media
The ability to talk directly to your customers via blogs, Twitter and Facebook
Before the emergence of social media, brands would try with much time, effort and money to reach out to consumers. Now, get your brand enough followers, friends or whatever else the Internet coins them, and you can blast whatever message you want to thousands.
For the first time, brands and services don’t need surveys or customer hotlines to listen – they can just log in. Social media allows brands to become human and participate in simple and genuine human interaction.
It forces brands to be transparent, which isn’t bad because brands really shouldn’t have anything to hide. Social media allows for the most deep and personal brand and consumer connection that technology thus far has offered.
5. Generational Marketing – the Great Divide
If earning a traditional degree or online degree in marketing teaches us anything, it’s that advertising to a 16-year-old girl isn’t the same as a 75-year-old grandpa. It’s demographics, but even more, it’s generational marketing. Each generation has their own characteristics, needs and interests. Generational categories include:
- Millenials or generation 2001ers, born after 1980
- Baby Busters or Generation X, born between 1965 and 1980
- Baby Boomers, born between 1946 and 1964
- Mature Citizens, born between 1909 and 1945
For advertising to effectively work, you can’t hope that your message will resonate the same with Baby Busters and Mature Citizens. All these generational categories are composed of varying thoughts, ideals and lifestyles. Furthermore, these generational factors and social values contain just as much influence on buying branding as your common demographics, like income, education, gender, etc.
By establishing a relationship and building brand loyalty with younger generations now, a company can potentially reap the rewards for the rest of those loyal consumers’ lives. Because once someone’s brand loyalty has been set, it’s an uphill battle to try to convert them. And as a result, it’s harder to sway the loyalty from older generations because their minds have already been set for years on particular brands they value.
What will the future hold?
It’s impossible to predict when the next innovation will appear on the horizon. World events, advances in technology, evolving consumers, breakthroughs in communication – no matter what the future holds, marketing will be there to help shape and tell the story. Learn about the online degree in marketing offered at Bryan College Online.
