PART II OF THE “TREND WATCHING TO GAIN A COMPETITIVE EDGE IN MARKETING” SERIES:

True loyalty – and the word of mouth buzz that comes with it – evolves naturally from the great experiences you have with a company over time.

Notably great experiences are punctuated by a moment of “wow”. Sometimes it’s when the product or service delights,  or maybe when it anticipates the needs of a particular niche or a large group of people, or my personal favorite, for no legitimate business reason, when it pleasantly surprises a person.

Many of you have initiatives using all of or most of these methods, and so do your competitors. You’re creating great ads hoping that consumers will connect with you. These ads are in banners, on search results, on branded micro-sites, in company blogs, and perhaps you have even created a page in Facebook or MySpace. These are all good things, but ultimately we’re still talking about the strategies that have effectively worked in advertising for the last 100 years with just more mediums in play.

Reaching Your Audience

For a long time, advertising was made by an agency and a client, and then presented to the consumers as a final message. But that dynamic has changed.  With the current state of digital, advertising is not a canned product to be presented to the consumer. It is a dialogue with message boards and blogs facilitating near-instant feedback from the client’s target market. This sounds like an amazing new opportunity for interacting with consumers, but there is a catch.

With word of mouth advertising, one person will tell a friend whether they like or dislike a product, and their discussion is localised.  In today’s digital age, this is no longer the case.  What a person says about a brand has started to appear in search results, and in many cases, they are getting higher search results than a brand’s own micro-sites and primary websites.  Indeed, a brand will post its adverts and viral ads on YouTube and other video sharing sites, where they are instantly commented on for everyone to see.  The result is that brands are not in control anymore.

However, there is an important lesson for brands to learn.  Traditional focus groups often do not offer the insights that reflect reality.  But the people commenting and interacting with a brand via social media are reality.  It is important to embrace them and the digital space

Brand Evolution