Traditional advertising—things like print and TV ads—may not be dead, but they are almost certainly on life support. With the inundation of marketing from seemingly all angles, customers have become desensitized and, worse, disengaged from all but the most innovative advertisement. How, then, can companies continue to reach an increasingly skeptical and informed consumer base?
The answer may lie in the simple virtues of value and interactivity. Such was the focus of “The Future of Advertising: Defining the New Rules of Consumer Engagement,” a session at NRF’s Big Show from business intelligence consulting agency PSFK.
“Given the way that people are consuming media today across various channels, and particularly on the go, there’s a need within the market to tailor the message so that it’s relevant to that consumer in the moment, captures them in that moment, and ideally push them toward that desired action,” said Scott Lachut, president, research and strategy, GSFK.
It may come as no surprise that shareability has become a core tenet for effective messaging. With more than one billion users on Facebook alone, the interactivity found among today’s consumers allows for amplification of messaging that had previously been nothing more than a marketing pipe dream. Beyond reaching an audience with a message delivered directly from a trusted friend or family member, this connectivity provides advertisers with an entirely untapped market that would previously have never engaged with the product.
Along the same lines of this newly interactive view of advertising, consumers now want the chance to participate and shape the message in any way they can. Rather than simply viewing and absorbing a message, customers demand to be part of it. One example of this kind of interactive content is Loyalty360 CX Award winner Wayfair.
The online retailer launched a 10-episode TV series centered on do-it-yourself home improvement that featured only furniture products available on the Wayfair website. Following each episode, viewers were invited to go online and purchase products featured on the show. By subverting traditional advertising in favor of simply making products within the show available online, Wayfair engaged audiences while simultaneously exhibiting the quality of its furniture.
One application of modern technology in marketing is the ability to improve a customer’s perspective of how a product will affect them. Lachut offers up another example of how this looks, this time using the 10th anniversary of Google Translate.
“Obviously Google is interested in getting people to use this app in their day-to-day lives, and what they did was create a pop-up café in New York City featuring four different celebrity chefs to create menus from different areas of the world,” Lachut continued. “The only way guests were able to interact with these foreign menus was by holding their phone over the words and allowing the app to translate for them. It encouraged users to download and get used to that app and create a unique experience through it.”
By providing this interactivity, brands can create engagement opportunities that not only hold the attention of viewers but include them in the experience.