Think you know what integrated marketing is? Think again. While 2009 was a year of chaos, 2010 will be a year of consolidation, according to a new white paper from Media Logic. "There is no question
that the old model of marketing, dependent upon an isolated and passive consumer, is dead, never to return," says Ronald Ladouceur, Media Logic's first senior vice president and executive creative
director.
Marketers are scrambling to compensate for the chaos caused by the fracturing of media, and the failure of traditional channels to deliver reliable ROI. But the apparent randomness
and even stunt-like quality of many marketing efforts suggest a major disconnect. Many still see popular social media and search services simply as new "channels" to interrupt with ads.
Thanks
to technologies that allow for massive social networking, the passive consumer has become active and is not so easily manipulated. He or she now plays as strong, or stronger, a role than the marketer
in determining what a brand signifies, what it is worth, where it can be found, whether it should be trialed, and if and when it should be purchased.
Every online action taken, or comment
offered by the active consumer, not only expands the total information available, it pushes back - actually altering products, services, markets and ways of doing business.
The implications of
this are only beginning to dawn on brand managers and the agencies that serve them, according to Media Logic. "Conversation is king" and "Feedback is frictionless" don't give much guidance to anyone
struggling to figure out how best to allocate marketing dollars, build a brand and promote products in a world of infinite information and instant opinion.
Media Logic's "Conversation-Centric
Marketing" model embraces massive social networking and dictates major changes in how brands communicate with their prospects and customers, how they communicate with their agency partners, and how
they interact internally.
Marketer-constructed brand and product messaging remains the dominant influence on the conversation, Ladouceur says. "Product positioning and key messages do not
passively emerge from the conversation," he says. "They must be consciously seeded."
The CCM model clarifies the primary purpose of each media type: paid, earned and owned. The significant
drivers of CCM are social media, and ever more portable and powerful personal communications technologies.
As social media is more routinely deployed as a component of integrated marketing
strategies, the real-time demands of the media will inevitably force an increase in real-time client/agency/customer interaction. "There is great opportunity here for the development of a more
productive relationship between brand managers and the agencies that serve them," Ladouceur says.