Marketers these days consider both the social media and the digital media in their marketing and promotional strategy. When Maggi noodles are being re-launched, they have designed a campaign for the digital and social media. Six short films are being shown. They reflect the spontaneous engagement with and affection for the product. The campaign has already garnered 7 million views on digital and social media platforms. Social media can make or mar a product. When Maggi was assaulted on the social media, it disappeared within days. Social media is considered highly suitable for Gen Next brands, say a smart watch or radio cab service. These are the millennial brands run by the millennials and catering to the millennials — such brands are created with the digital consumer in the mind.
Brands which use social media use them for building reputation, acquiring new business and creating buzz and advocacy. Customers can give feedback and can have their grievances redressed directly. Social media thus can be used for customer relations. New customers are acquired by inducing free trials. Interesting content is made to generate interest in the existing as well as new customers.
FMCG financial brands in banking, insurance and credit and automobiles too are turning to social media and are making applications that integrate with such platforms.
Established organisations continue their traditional marketing, and are making further forays into social media by creating compelling stories.
Bankers have created applications such as Ping Pay ( Axis ), icici bankpay ( ICICI ), Kay Pay (Kotak), Pockets (ICICI). Insurance brands like HDFC Life asked people to participate in world cup #My Team-MyPride campaign to identify Sar Utha Ke Jiyo moments. Pepsi asked contestants to make a 30-second commercial for IPL matches. The best commercials were to be aired during the matches. YouTube users and content creators were motivated to spread the word. Sonam Kapoor advises people on relationships and the break ups. Actually these break ups are related to styling products. After such break ups, you can think of L’Oréal, since you are worth it. It is an attempt to sync the message beautifully.
Advertising campaigns these days are comprehensive — they include social media. Agencies design the message accordingly. The elements in the message are rearranged. Gillette Women against Lazy Stubble used this strategy.
Social media have sheer power of reach. To begin with, communities were built, but they just complained about their grievances. The relationships were transactional. There was no attempt to build on emotions. YouTube broadcast long and boring commercials. All this made Internet a passive broadcasting entity.
All this was bound to change. Since 2014, Internet has emerged as a powerful media. Facebook promoted Xiaomi, which has become the fastest growing brand. Vodafone and Airtel too used social media. Reliance used Twitter. This is because our understanding of the social media and the behavior of people there has improved.
Instead of brand stories, social media circulated stories of the people. All stories must be woven around people. How to do this? Here you have got to be selfless. That then satisfies your selfish motives. Brands have to identify common values, which can be shared with people. Social media is live story-telling, and not the recorded version of a TV commercial. Certain Facebook pages command millions of likes, thus demonstrating the power of Facebook presence. Brands have to make people heroes.
The flow of information in pre-Internet days was unidirectional — from the company to the consumers. These days it is from consumers to consumers, and from consumers to companies. Most consumers do their buying search online, and they buy the product offline ( this is called RoBo ). Yaa, certain transactions are closed online also. Brands generate leads through various efforts, e.g. QR codes. This leads to online promotions.
Digital advertising must be explored in all its dimensions — search engine optimization ( SEO ), search engine marketing, emailers, display advertising across portals, verticals, in-mail boxes, ad networks and social platforms. Each must be evaluated separately to learn about the response generation.
A company must support the online efforts by setting up retail and direct sales structure offline.