Digital Impact on Marketing Campaigns

If you looked hard at today’s online marketing, 2 things stand out. Ever recall seeing an ad of a website that you’ve visited recently, while browsing other sites? Also, did you notice that most brand interactions are from your Facebook profile – either through the FB ads or by what your friend in your network had done or recommends… Call it re-marketing, social marketing or whatever… digital has changed the way marketing campaigns are run

Ask any advertiser and they would say that key differences about online medium (from the traditional media) are – interactivity, engagement, measurability. The bigger impact of digital medium on marketing is that advertising campaigns have become more ‘on-the-fly’… Gone are the days when ad agencies was thinking about finding the ‘Big Idea’ and launching the campaign… In today’s world, it is more about managing the ‘Big Idea’ on real-time basis

As more and more consumers become an intrinsic part of carrying the brand communication forward, it becomes inevitable for the campaign managers to be always on their toes ready for a surprise anytime.

The marketing campaign team would a close knitted intertwined team of creative, strategy, technology, PR, analytics, and management…

The hallmark of future marketing campaigns would be –

The end would justify the means: All marketing campaigns would ride on the measurability factor. The campaign could start out as a specific media led (TV, Print, digital), but can change tracks basis how the consumers react/interact with the campaign

Content creation on the fly: As more and more consumers involve with the brand during the campaign, newer formats of content and message customization would become critical to take the campaign forward. It would be similar to having a conversation – only the topic is fixed, what is being said within the topic varies.

Media optimization: The lead medium could keep changing every week, if not every day. A video content on YouTube could be a PR activity in the traditional medium tomorrow. The recent example of the popular song released by Sony Music on YouTube – ‘Kolaveri Di’ was a topic of discussion on national TV channels

An effective exit plan: Since the consumers become active participants in most campaigns, having an exit plan is critical. A campaign might start out with a short-term campaign but could go on for a longer duration (Like the Vodafone ZooZoos) or there could a long-term campaign that would receive flack from the consumer and would need to be backtracked…. The idea is to have an effective exit plan with ‘what if’ scenario considered before launching the marketing campaign

In future the idea is not to be just idea creators but also idea sustainers. Trust me, in the future we marketers would be spending more time managing campaigns than executing campaigns