I liked this post by Hegs and wanted to show my follow up commentary. Very interesting issue to those in media and marketing.
hegs:
Novita forwarded me this article today.
It had some interesting takes on marketing in a Web 2.0 world…but I think overall it regurgitated a lot of the same old cliches I read every time I open the cover of Business Week.
I think the old chestnut of ‘engage users’ and ‘have a conversation’ is dead.
The internet has killed advertising as we know it. There are now only 3 types of advertising:
- Search
- Brand - think Nike videos on YouTube
- Word of Mouth
Word of Mouth is the most interesting, and hasn’t been cracked yet. Why should I listen to anything a company says, when I can hear it from the mouths of other users.
The death of advertising is the re-birth of marketing…. when word of mouth is the most important medium…..companies will have to return to one simple rule. My old Kellogg professor used to describe it as ‘making products that delight the customer’…. but I always think of it as products that make me say ‘wow…..this is fucking awesome.’
Papi:
Nice post, and I really liked the article. I, similarly, have a very large database of consumers who opt into our email campaigns, and I think we can do more with these people in terms engaging with them for product and communications research.
In regards to your bold statement that there are only 3 types of advertising, I’m not sure how you are classifying these. Search and Word of Mouth are essentially Media, while Brand is more message. Help me understand what you mean here.
Also, have you read the recent paper from comscore and Wharton on the correlation between clicks and sales? You can read about it here http://www.comscore.com/press/release.asp?press…. I like these points…
- Display campaings are only 1/5th as effective as search campaigns at driving offline sales, but display campaigns have 10x breadth of reach.
- Consumers increase search behavior by 38% during a display campaign.
- The synergy between search and display combined leads to a 119% lift in retail sales (which for CPG companies is the most important due to the size of the base).
It’s great data that basically proves that the combination of display (or banner) ads in combination with search marketing are most effective when used together. It’s nice to have a data point on this issue.
