In many ways modern advertising has come a long way since tobacco companies first introduced modern techniques in the 1920s to create mass demand to match the new mass production methods. Soon new mediums like radio, TV and film enabled brands and their agencies to dynamically demonstrate their products' benefits in ways that static promotions never achieved. As we learned each channel's strengths, we discovered better ways to target our audiences, gaining ever-increasing accuracy in broadcasting our messages. But fundamentally, the way we communicated never changed. We were always talking at consumers and never with them.
For a long time, that was all we could do. It was all the technologies allowed. Fortunes were made by pushing ads into every conceivable media channel, trying to lure consumers into buying the advertised product. And it worked.
Over time consumers learned to mute TV commercials and ignore omnipresent billboards and magazine ads. They became jaded and cynical. We as marketers figured out new, more interesting ways to push our messages and it continued to work-for a while.
Then, with the Web came hope; hope of a whole new era of measurement, targeting and campaign optimization. We could precisely target the ideal audience, an audience that actually wanted to see what we were showing them. Unfortunately, while SEM and other targeting technologies helped drive relevant messaging, online advertising continues to be hobbled by two issues: the lack of ubiquitous availability and the old paradigm of push advertising. As a result, we see numerous missed opportunities and low conversion rates driven by lack of timeliness and engagement.
As we exit the PC to Internet era and enter the mobile to app era, we are seeing a change in the relationship between brands and their audiences. All of a sudden, because people are no longer tethered to a terminal, consumers are empowered to interact with brands through advertising, products and packaging at the moment of their interest. No longer do they have to wait until they arrive home or log back in to the office computer. They can do it right here. Right now.
With over 50 percent of the U.S. population owning smartphones (and growing rapidly), such devices allow near total freedom of the information, accessed whenever and wherever it is needed. It also begets the infinitely more efficient model of pull advertising, enabling consumers to request information when discovering something of interest in any situation at any time.
We have entered the "Age of the Consumer," an age according to Forrester where control has shifted to the consumer. Behavioral studies show that when an individual seeks information about something and is able to act upon it, the conversion of that intent will be 70 percent more efficient than a classical push ad. It becomes even more so if you add the ability to engage the user in a conversation about a product he is interested in or loves.
Some innovative companies, like Vine and smartsy, are catching on to this wave by creating apps and software that allows a dialogue between a brand and its audience when and where the consumer wants. Such technology opens a realm of nearly endless possibilities of content creation while increasing conversion rates dramatically. Audience participation isn't just allowed; it's encouraged. Hell, it's necessary. By not only providing consumers with information in the moment of their interest, but also engaging them in conversation and empowering them to create their own content, we can drastically increase the relevancy of messaging and its authenticity.
Welcome to engagement advertising.
Source: Forbes
About the author
Paul Dunay is an award-winning B2B marketing expert with more than 20 years' success in generating demand and creating buzz for leading technology, consumer products, financial services and professional services organizations. He is the Global Vice President of Marketing for Maxymiser, a leader in web optimization and analytics, and author of five "Dummies" books:Facebook Marketing for Dummies, Social Media and the Contact Center for Dummies, Facebook Advertising for Dummies, Facebook Marketing for Dummies 2nd Edition and Facebook Marketing for Dummies 3rd Edition.
