The future of marketing and advertising is a future where convergence and relevance are king and queen.
Convergence ::
In the absence of a technological revolution things tend to converge. Just as CD and DVD readers and writers have converged into super-drives that can read and write CDs, DVDs, and Dual-layer DVDs, your home computer and living room television are converging.
This convergence means that "traditional" television advertising no longer needs to be so traditional. By that I mean, it can be interactive, targeted (by more than just a generic demographic), and relevant—which brings me to my next point.
Relevance ::
Effective marketing needs to be relevant to the audience. Every marketing dollar spent to convey an irrelevant message to a prospective buyer is pretty much wasted. Just because you’re watching a car race, doesn't mean you're in the market for an oil change. Rather, imagine the impact if you only received the oil change message when it's been more than 3 months since your last oil change.
The Future of Marketing ::
Allow me a fake, short story as an example of what interactive television marketing could look like.
You return home from a long day at the office. It’s been a longer day than usual. You sit down, put your feet up and flip on your Internet-enabled TV. After checking your email on the bottom of the screen and watching your favorite prime-time show on the top of the screen, they break for commercials. You’re about to flip over to another channel when you notice that the local Pizza Hut is having a "buy one pizza get another one free" promotion. The ad says, "Click buy on your remote to order."
The offer is appealing, it’s late and you’re starving. You click "buy" on your remote. The screen asks for your choices of topping, and if you would like to use the same credit card from your last purchase. You select "Yes" and the screen gives you an ETA for delivery. You hit the "Back button" to return.
Then you see a reminder from the city that your registration needs to be renewed soon. It asks "Click buy on your remote control to have your new registration sticker sent to you within 5 business days." You opt to set a reminder for tomorrow instead of buying now. You’re too hungry to think about inspection stickers.
After your show is over and all that’s left of the pizza is the crust, you pay your gas bill and order a movie. "Blades of glory" looks like it might be funny.
Conclusion ::
In the example story, marketing is able to be targeted, relevant and offer-driven because of the convergence of your television and home computer.
This could be the future of television marketing because it allows marketing messages to reach an interested audience in an interactive way and it is traceable and accountable back to the marketer.
The technology exists. The model has been proven. It's a matter of putting the Big Idea together.
What do you think? Is this a step in the right direction or invasion of privacy?
HOME :: BIG MARKETING IDEAS BLOG
Wednesday, April 4, 2007
Big Idea :: Convergence & Relevance
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NPR Topics: Technology
I'm not sure if your question was rhetorical or if you were trying to spawn some discussion....but here's my two cents.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure if this form of marketing is an invasion of privacy, it kinda depends. I actually think it would be incredibly convenient. On a side note... I think it will be the continued damnation of this country and our further decent into "couch-potato land". But that's an entirely different debate.
In my opinion, we view spamming as an invasion of privacy because it's inconvenient. If an overwhelming amout of spam that was received was relevant to the recepient than it wouldn't be classified as an invasion of privacy. But this kind of future technology in your example seems like an interactive televised pop-up and I dont think pop-ups are necessarily an invasion of privacy, they're just annoying. I guess it would also depend on the way in which these different converged mediums obtain the personal or private information of the consumer to make their message relevant. How much private information is necessary to make a message relevant? And do you think consumers are less likely to mind an invasion of privacy if the message is both relevant and convenient?
This was kind of all over the place, but I think I'm getting some kind of point across...
llcpublicrelations,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment.
In order to make the message relevant, there would have to be a tremendous amount of private information available. How would this information be gathered?
In the future, it will be much more appealing to actively give your information to a marketer when that marketer has proven that they intend on using that information to make their messages more relevant rather than just selling that information to the highest bidder. For example, you would be far more pleased with getting a 50% off promotion for wine glasses if you were an avid wine-drinker rather than a recovering alcoholic.
Today, we are bombarded by messages that are usually completely irrelevant. Does it bother you when you get a marketing message on the TV that you didn't ask for? No, you've probably gotten used to it.
The fact is that companies don't want to pay to supply you with messages that you have no chance of responding to any more than you want to receive that useless message.
The key here is “relevancy”. When it’s combined with the convergence of the Internet and TV, the days of TV ads that are as irrelevant as internet pop-ups will be at an end.
That day couldn't come soon enough if you ask me.
Justin,
ReplyDeleteGreat post.
Bill Gates hit on these themes during the recent Windows Vista launch. I suppose the new OS was not that exciting to talk about, so he leaped ahead to speak on his ideas about "more-Internet-like TV" - describing it in much the way you do.
As TV is still the safe home of "interruption marketing" aka advertising, a huge mind shift will have to take place in those quarters of the media toward what's already begun to happen online: Subscription, opt-in, RSS, communities - all as you say have the characteristic of relevancy, because they are user-driven. And because they are more readily measurable and are effective, I think the economics involved will ultimately drive the convergence you predict. Advertisers will demand the ROI with TV that they're getting online.