"Is Change Really Happening?"

Background 

Today nearly every company is trying to digitally transform itself in order to remain connected with its customers, the only problem is that there tends to be a discrepancy between how these companies perceive their "transformation" and the actual reality of what they have done.  More often than not the executives within a company that is undergoing a digital transition believe truly that changes are being made but are not knowledgeable of where exactly the changes are being made. An article in Ad Week claims that nearly 88% of companies report undergoing a digital transition but when surveyed, only 25% of the participants could specifically name changes as proof that a transformation was occurring! 

Top Priorities

In today's business world, some of the main priorities for companies who seek digital transformation are split among these following groups: 

• Improving processes
• Furthering Research
• Building a competitive social media program
• Updating consumer-facing technology
• Integrating social, mobile, web, and e-commerce services to create a smooth customer experience.

Top Challenges

• Changing the culture within a company
• Changing the "campaign" strategy to an actual plan of action
• Communication & cooperation between various departments
  
• Allocating proper resources
• Understanding the impact of newly connected consumers

Impact of Shift

The overall benefits of bringing a digital shift to your organization are things such as a lift in engagement, customer satisfaction, and greater conversion. All of these factors are vital in the long-term success of a company and should be  monitored and improved upon on a regular basis. 

Sources

Hoffman, Melissa. "Is Your Company's Digital Transformation Really Happening?" AdWeek. N.p., 10 Nov. 2014. Web. 11 Nov. 2014.

Conducting The Orchestra of Marketing

In todays world of advertising, running an Integrated Marketing Campaign (IMC) is much like conducting an orchestra. There are a number of different media outlets that have to be accounted for when running a successful marketing campaign, such as internet, print, radio and television. Integration has become increasingly difficult as of late, due to the growing number of marketing jobs being outsourced and sub-contracted to specialists. Although this creates a more efficient financial standing for the companies, it hurts the ability of the marketer to integrate material and create a "amazing" performance. Another element that has made integration far more difficult is the sheer number of available channels. The number of media channels used in advertising was two in 1990; that number has tripled to six recently.

Two key roles make up the orchestra for Brand media strategy; the conductor and the composer. The composer is the person who develops things like the brand idea and the marketing plan, while the conductor is the person who leads the implementation of the strategy. It is important that these two roles do not overlap too much but can collaborate well when needed.

Pepsi demonstrated how running an Integrated Marketing Campaign is much like conducting an orchestra when they were introducing Diet Pepsi MAX into an already crowded marketplace containing some 150 energy drinks(Young, pg.115). The overall campaign objective was to essentially "wake up" consumers who had become bored with the current soda options by providing a diet soda with double the caffeine and ginseng, designed to deliver maximum energy to its consumer. Pepsi created awareness of their new product through a fully integrated television, radio, out-of-home, internet, and PR guerilla campaigns. Pepsi transformed the game of Whack-a-Mole into a "Whack-a-Yawn" video game, this created a space for consumers to view the latest television ads as well. The result of this campaign was a 17 percent spike in both brand awareness and persuasion compared to category norms.  

The New Media Rules

In the eighties and nineties there was no bigger star in the advertising field than Nike, and no more successful spokesperson for sports apparel, than Michael Jordan. But despite experiencing immense success from their "Just Do It" slogan that they have utilized over the past 20 years, Nike is constantly changing the way that they advertise, and what outlets they use to reach the end consumer. Nike, much like other companies has begun to transition more and more of their advertising from traditional media outlets such as television and radio, to the internet. The reason for this? With the internet, companies like Nike can reach millions of consumers instantaneously through mediums like YouTube and Twitter, and do so very in a very cost effective manner. This generation of consumers is more active on the online and alternative media outlets than traditional ones, forcing marketers to adapt to better reach them.

In addition to changing the way that they gather information and interact, consumers today are not focusing more on finding the newest and best product on the market, but instead they are seeking experiences instead. This change is causing companies to create experiences rather than simply products alone, Nike for example, has created an online community where fellow runners can share their results and experiences with other Nike running shoe owners. Creating "experiences" like this online not only intrigue the shoe owner, but create massive amounts of user-generated advertising that will continue to promote the brand and raise awareness without any additional funding from the company that created it.

The increase in internet usage has created unforeseen complications for television advertising. As consumers' appetite for media increases astronomically over the years, the amount of channels available increase as well, fragmenting the concentration of viewers per channel. This as a result has caused advertisers to show advertisements across different channels and media platforms, ensuring that they can reach their target market wherever they are.    

The New Age of Advertising: Facebook & Google

Jourdan Parkinson
Google and Facebook have both altered the the advertising industry by changing how we reach our target audience, and how we can do this in a very cost-effective manner. Google's major contribution to the advertising field came with the unleashing of a product called AdWords, which allowed marketers to bypass traditional advertising mediums and directly target consumers who were searching for something related to a specific product or service the marketer was selling. Google has served as the advertising platform for even rival company, Microsoft, who rely on Google's AdWords to successfully target consumers. Google has even forced other advertising outlets such as the television industry to be much more accountable and transparent in how they measure the price of advertisements, according to their actual effectiveness. 

Facebook has been the other main driver of change in the advertising industry since its launch in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg, a Harvard University student. Perhaps Facebook's most significant attribute is that it provides a rich amount of data on users that can be accessed by marketers Everything from their current interests, to a genre of movie that they are into would be accessible to a paying marketer. The growing accessibility of social media sites like Facebook raise notions that these social media websites may one day replace email all together. Users can access their profile from any smartphone, laptop, or tablet, and can reply instantaneously just like they were using email. The only difference: most young adults spend more time on Facebook than their email. Facebook also allows companies to build an online community and generate massive amounts of user-generated content, whether it be reviews about their products, or ideas for a new one. 

As social media continues to drive change in the way businesses reach consumers, Google and Facebook have served as the missing piece in Advertising, for the contributions that they have made thus far are profound, and as a result, the industry will never be the same.      

  

My name is Jourdan, I am a senior Marketing Communications major at Western New England University.  I would like to open my own advertising firm within 5 years of graduation. My hobbies are jetskiing, scuba diving, and traveling.