INTERACTION. TRANSACTION. RESEARCH. ENTERTAINMENT: The 4 most important things to remember when thinking digital?

This is an article I wrote in August 2003 to help people think about the internet and digital. It is mazing how valid and accurate it still is today....

The Internet and its use as a marketing tool can strike fear and trepidation in the hearts of marketers – or simply be dismissed by them.

The industry itself did not – and has not – helped at all. Firstly it sent everyone down the wrong path by focusing on the use of the Internet in particular as a direct response tool, where clickthrough is king. And more recently, the debate is over how big your ads should be.

Let’s get back to basics: here’s a simple approach to consider as you think about if, how and when to use new digital media and channels like the internet to build your brand or company. This straightforward way of looking at new digital media and channels is based on consumer insight – which should always be the basis of marketing initiatives.

A consumer has four main uses of digital media. Let’s look at each in turn – their roles, applications and the opportunities they present:


1. Interaction

People mostly go online to interact – with email being the most popular tool. Instant messaging, community sites (e.g. iVillage for women) and chat facilities are not far behind – and are growing fast.

So?

The implication of this is that your consumers are online, ready to interact, chat and engage with you in as close to real time as possible. Are you set up and able to take advantage of this?

2. Transactions

This doesn’t just mean shopping – although online retail is the area that gets the publicity. The real powerhouses are things like online banking (faster and more convenient than queuing at your high street branch) and most importantly, peer-to-peer activities. These are where consumers transact in goods (eBay), information (dooyoo) or money (PayPal) with each other.

eBay, the online auction site is the master at this and is not only the most-visited site in the UK, but is also the most profitable online business.

So?

Consumers love peer-to-peer activities and online services that enable and facilitate these make money. Is there a role your company or brand can play in this arena?

Another hook is to enable consumers to manage their relationship online with you by giving them access to their information and data – think personal address books and diaries attached to email facilities.


3. Research and education

The starting point for many people on the Internet is search engines. Google, Yahoo and MSN search tools are among the most-visited group of sites. Sites that consumers associate with education, research and learning are second in popularity only to online transaction sites.

So?

You need to ensure your sites or products are listed well and high up in search engines by making use of search engine optimisation and listings.

Can your site build in more educational content or services?


4. Entertainment

When thinking about digital media for entertainment, many people tend to think of the much-publicised music swapping and downloading. But the powerhouses of e-entertainment remains the big three portals: AOL, Yahoo and MSN.

These are the three most-visited sites globally and provide the gateway to news, business information, entertainment news, features and downloads – and much more.

Specialised target market portals like Babycentre.co.uk (new and expectant mothers) or Gay.com perform extremely well with their niche audiences.

Big money though is being made in the areas of vice, gaming, gambling and ‘adult’ entertainment.

So?

Forget the idea of building a portal yourself. Too many have burned piles of money trying to compete with the big players. Instead focus on having a presence and relationship with those portals where your target customers are going already.

Focus on the four main areas of digital media and channels that the consumer operates in: interaction, transactions, research and entertainment. Look at each in turn and see what the implications and opportunities are for your brand, product or company.

What is with all the public service advertising going on? Isn't it time to lighten up and be more positive?

What is with all of the public service TV ads going out in the UK at the moment? Despite the huge government deficit and spending, departments seem to have funds to spend on a number of campaigns to tell UK residents on what they should - and should not - be doing.

Is this a signal of the growing nanny state? Sign of a coming election and the government trying to show how they trying to improve the health and safety of the population? Or a sign of departments spending their budgets before the next tax/ budget year that starts end of March?

Whatever the intent, I think the ads are overall leaving a feeling of unease about the life we live, and adding to an overall feeling of downbeat and uncertainty as they are all depressing and scary. I think it is really depressing at a time when people are already feeling pretty much down

The other  weekend I saw on TV:

Smoke alarm warning
It tells us how a few breaths of fumes in a house fire can kill you.
Like drowning it shows a bedroom submerged in water.

Seat belt warning
Shows 2 cars crashing and tells us how the driver was killed by his organs keeping moving when he stopped.

Domestic violence/ bullying
Shows a young girl being pressurised by her boyfriend and then him pushing her about and pulling her hair.

Women and dangers of social drinking
Warns about risks of drinking, showing 2 women chatting at home drinking, with one in an x-ray style so we see her organs and possible effects.

Stroke warning
Warns how to spot a stroke and shows in disturbing acting with a burning effect on the forehead, the mouth, arms etc.
Knife crime
Compares the future of 2 people, one who achieved their ambitions but the other who does not as they got a record for carrying a knife

Benefit Fraud
This shows people being caught claiming benefits and doing some work. It warns that you WILL be caught and 50000 are caught every year.

We saw all of these during 2 back to back programs for example on Sunday morning watching TV with kids. It must be creating a sense if a scary and disturbing world full of danger and also warnings and risks.

I do wonder if there is better way of making and communicating the benefits other than fear and gloom and doom. Isn’t it time to lighten up and be positive? Or is the sad fact that negativity sells and convinces?

Talk: "Creativity In Advertising: 5 guidelines for success"

Watch and listen to this 15 minute talk about Creativity in Advertising: 5 guidelines for success that is a talk I did for the World Advertising Research Center: Creativity in Advertising ConferencePush the play button and you will hear the audio and the slides will move in synchCreativity in Advertising: 5 things I wish I had known 10 years ago

View more presentations from Gary Bembridge.

Subscribe to my Marketing Unleashed Podcasts (where you can also listen to this) on iTunes by clicking on this link

To download the presentation in a PDF with the slides and the speaker notes: click here

The old way versus the new way. A video demonstrating how relationships between advertiser and consumer need to change...

This is a great little video that was made by Microsoft which demonstrates how "the old way" of talking TO your target is not every helpful today. She has chamged and expects a different kind of relationship which is based on interaction and engagement. She does not want to be talked to but with...

This is entertaining, but pointed! Enjoy

Watch the video on YouTube or on the blog posting:

Are all brands destined to die? Is the way we manage and think about them destined to make them eventually die, and new ones to emerge?

In another posting I spoke about how success can lead directly to failure, as people become more and more cautious and reluctant to diverge from something that succeeded in the past - especially if that was a big success.

More recently, I have been thinking more and more about that. But taking a slightly different stand and wondering if it is almost inherent to human nature and been the fundamental thing that allows and enables innovation, and new ways to emerge and succeed. In fact, the very fact that successful people and brands then stick to the formula that worked for them at first is actually important... as it enables new and different models and brands and business models to emerge.

I remember going to a conference arranged by work in Los Angeles. It was one of those all signing all dancing things that no-one seems to run anymore as seen to be showing too much excess, and at it they had all these workshops we rotated around. In one of them (that has always stuck in my mind) the consultants who were manning it had a very simple (but dramatic) story.

They had 2 large boards. And that was all.

On one board they had a list of the top 5 brands from 50, 40, 30, 20 and 10 years ago.

On another they had the largest companies listed on the stock exchange around sometime after the big crash in 1929 and then today.

On the brand board it was frightening to see that brands just disappeared and disappeared and almost none had survived a very long time. In many cases as new forms and ways of doing things had come along and the old brands had never evolved from the category or form and died.

On the company board it was the same, with many industries merging and others emerging.

It was also startling to how even in recent times so many brands and companies that I knew and had grown up with had gone, and I had not really thought about it.

It was a striking and startling message.

And yet we all go to work and keep doing what we do and keep trying the old ways and forms that our bosses measure us on, as that is the model they know and understand.

But is that the nature of the world? By being slow to change, being slow to embrace new things it allows younger, more nimble, and new visionaries to experiment and flourish and take over markets. Until they too suffer the same disease.

Are we all only destined to have our day. Our 15 minutes of fame and time..

MAKING A BOOB OF YOURSELF? Or are you a bigger boob by not being provocative, arresting and stopping people?

Give us more provocative print ads.

Give us more arresting headlines.

Make people stop and look at my ad.

These are things we are always saying to our agency about advertising. Then (of course) we then proceed to work the idea and headline down bit-by-bit into the copy strategy wording with a picture.

I am guessing the makers of these gems asked for the same thing, but in their cae they stuck with provoactive, arresting and stopping power.

It works!