New Media Mania

Thailand-based author Christopher G. Moore has commented on last night’s Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand (FCCT) event “Thailand in the Eyes of Others”. Moore reports that both the all-Thai panel and the questioners in the audience completely ignored the role of new media in the recent troubles in Bangkok:-

“The evening was mainly a Thai critique on the international TV news about how the Thais in political conflict were presented to an international audience. In particular, the panel, as were Thai questioners, were highly critical of TV coverage by CNN and BBC.  [...] The digital world was largely ignored [...] Thousands of images, videos and commentary reached a larger world through the Internet.

“What Thailand in May 2010 has demonstrated is that news that shape international public opinion is no longer limited to TV network news. News coverage has expanded far beyond TV and the traditional print media. The old way of gathering, reporting, accessing and, indeed through comments, participating in the news has fundamentally changed.”

Continue reading ‘All Eyes on Thailand … but not Via New Media?’ »

Consumers and advocacy groups with unprecedented access to media as both receivers and transmitters are asking more searching questions about the economic, environmental, and social impacts of modern society, which economists have traditionally termed “externalities”. A simple question mark over an organization’s negative impacts can quickly escalate into a reputation management challenge. Thus corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become increasingly important consideration for marketing communications practitioners.

This post touches on how organizations augment and/or mitigate “externalities” for which they are responsible, and argues the case for incorporating CSR messages in integrated marketing communications strategies in order to protect reputations, position brands, and promote products. The terms “communicator” and “marketing communications professional”, and “communications” and “marketing communications” are used interchangeably throughout, based on the principle that all communications to and with stakeholder groups and target markets should be managed according to a single integrated communications strategy.

Continue reading ‘Coming in from the Cold: From Externalities to ‘CSR’’ »

Any model, by its very nature, is a simplification of reality in order to aid understanding. Consumer decision-making models are no different.

There are two commonly referenced decision-making models:-

The general four-step model (five steps if one includes the decision itself; and six steps if one includes post-purchase evaluation) is as follows:

1. Needs recognition;
2. Information search;
3. Evaluation of alternatives;
4. Purchase decision;
5. Purchase; and
6. Post-purchase evaluation

Another four-step model is AIDA – awareness, interest, desire, and action – which can also be expanded to six steps by substituting “understanding” and “attitudes” for  awareness, and “purchase” and “repeat purchase” for action; or AIUAPR, as follows:-

1. Awareness
2. Interest
3. Understanding
4. Attitudes
5. Purchase
6. Repeat purchase

This post seeks to identify a few problems with the simple models and will recommend a more holistic and representative version of one of them.

Continue reading ‘Decision Making Over-Simplified’ »

Brands are reputations: A brand bundles everything a person knows, perceives, and assumes about an organization and its products. Brands are also promises (or threats): A brand is a symbol in a person’s mind of the expectations s/he has in dealing with an organization or experiencing its products.

Some would say that a brand is “everything”. Clearly this is not so, for the product or service that a brand represents is not the brand. However, it is arguable that successful branding is a key contributor to the achievement of organizational and marketing aims. This post seeks to identify and briefly describe literature and research that supports, in various contexts, the statement: “Brands are critical to marketing communicators”.

The “Brand” Defined

A brand’s most literal definition, in the corporate world, is of a symbol, word, or mark that represents an organization and its products and differentiates them from competitors. BusinessDictionery.com expands upon that by incorporating the dimension of time: “Over time, this image becomes associated with a level of credibility, quality, and satisfaction in the consumer’s mind (positioning). Thus brands help harried consumers in crowded and complex marketplace, by standing for certain benefits and value.”

Continue reading ‘Branding: Almost Everything’ »

A marketing communications professional will be better equipped to develop coherent and appropriate messages if s/he possesses a deeper understanding of the extent, type, and level of involvement among his/her target groups. Understanding the involvement of one’s target group naturally flows from the foundation marketing principle of knowing one’s customers and meeting their needs.

This post will briefly define involvement and its types; broadly discuss the implications for high- and low-involvement product categories; identify a means of measuring involvement; and discuss the importance of understanding involvement in the context of corporate social responsibility (CSR).

Involvement Defined

Involvement is more than an academic concept. The “mainstream” web-based BusinessDictionary.com, for example, defines the “level of involvement” as the intensity of interest that a buyer shows for a certain product in a particular purchase decision. Involvement has been embraced by marketing practitioners and is increasingly of concern to boards of directors.

Continue reading ‘Terms of Involvement: Know These to Know Your Customer’ »

BusinessDictionary.com defines the “level of involvement” as the intensity of interest that a buyer shows for a certain product in a particular purchase decision. Involvement, as a concept, has been embraced by marketing practitioners and is increasingly of concern to boards of directors.

Cho et al (2005) describes how they have devised a means of testing levels of values-, outcomes-, and impressions-relevant involvement for specific subjects. It seems that these three types of involvement are more inter-related than some scholars may have previously thought.

To simplistically summarize the differences between the three types of involvement:-

1. Values-relevant involvement is related to belief systems. “I want that car because it has a small carbon footprint and it is made in my country.”
2. Outcomes-relevant involvement is related to consequences. “I want that car because it is more economical to run and it supports local jobs and the economy.”
3. Impressions-relevant involvement is related to one’s concern about others’ perceptions. “I want that car because I want my peers to see me as environmentally-conscious and/or as a patriot.”

Continue reading ‘Constructing Messages with Audience Involvement in Mind’ »

The development of a business plan should be based on a customer- (or “publics-”) centric strategic situation analysis, which will include SWOT-PEST analyses. A customer- or publics-centric approach to business design, strategy, policy, and indeed marketing communications, ensures that the organization remains focused on its raison d’être. SWOT-PEST refers to internal Strengths & Weaknesses; and external Opportunities & Threats in the Political/regulatory, Economic/competitive, Social/cultural/media, and Technological environments.

The business plan shall lead with (and be led by):-

1. Mission/Vision
2. Strategic Goals
3. Strategic Objectives

Operating within that broader strategic framework, marketing communications professionals as well as all other strategic management functionaries must continuously be on the look-out for changes or trends that may affect the organization. Changes or trends may be short-, medium-, or long-term. They may have positive or negative consequences for the organization. And they can stem from customers themselves or any of the PESTs. Thus they can be viewed as possible opportunities or threats.

An effective response to opportunities or threats perceived as having significant medium- to long-term consequences may be an overhaul of the business plan, entailing a strategic change of course across the whole organization. An accumulation of smaller changes and trends in a short period of time may also necessitate a review of the business plan. In any case, business plans should be considered “living” documents as they are only as sound as the information available to the author(s) at time of writing.

Continue reading ‘How to Swat Pests: Planning Tactical Marketing Communications within a Strategic Framework’ »

The study of mass communication and media effects on populations has a “natural history” in that it is influenced by the circumstances of “time and place” (McQuail, 2005). Ironically the same can said for media effects themselves. But, according to McQuail, it took four phases in the history of mass communications scholarship to figure this out! I’ll summarise:-

1. All-Powerful. The first phase began at the turn of the 20^th century and lasted until the 1930s. Media was seen by most commentators as all-powerful. This was based on the observation of propagandists’ use of media to influence their respective “masses” during the First World War.
2. Powerful? Yes! No! Yes! Umm, No? In the 1930s, studies inspired by social psychology then led the transition to an empirical enquiry into media effects, which lasted until the 1960s, and collectively failed to draw strong conclusions for or against a theory of an all-powerful media. Specific studies that did draw strong conclusions were often motivated by vested interests or simply badly designed. By 1960, scholars such as Klapper (1960: as cited by McQuail, 2005) were arguing that mass communication “functions through a nexus of mediating factors”, such as the social, economic, and cultural contexts of the receiver. Many variables were at play. Scholarly disillusionment set in during which time media was briefly assumed to be powerless!
3. Powerful Sometimes. The third phase of the history of the study media of effects (1960s and ‘70s) was concerned with trying to explain the relationship between mediating factors and the day-to-day observable influence media does have (to at least some degree) on individuals’ opinions and behaviours. The mediating factors considered grew over time and included such things as the receiver’s degree of exposure to media, his/her disposition and motivation, and, eventually, consideration of the process of constructing a message.
4. Power is Negotiable. The third phase naturally evolved to become the “social constructivist” school of thought, which dominates to this day. This pays attention to how and why messages are constructed by the transmitter, how and why they are construed by the receiver, and the influences acting upon the transmitter, receiver, and everything in between – “a terrain of continuous negotiation”. McQuail calls this “negotiated media influence”.

Continue reading ‘Marketing Communicators are Propagandists! (Or They Want to Be)’ »

The development of a marketing communications strategy, while it may draw from theory learned at universities, must be grounded in the situational and objective reality of the organization. However, there is only one guarantee in any “reality”, and that is change. The common thread in everything the University of Canberra has asked me to read so far is change. Adapt or die; the survival of the fittest. And for the marketing communications professional, the most critical agents for change are past, present and future customers. But even change itself is changeable. It can accelerate or hit the skids, outpace expectations or not move fast enough, incrementally shift or disruptively transform. In order to stay profitable, an organization must anticipate change or at least adapt to it.

Adapt or Die

According to Slywotzky & Morrison (1998), the scramble for market share supported by mass marketing campaigns, which served the post-World War II production-oriented manufacturers well for about two decades, is now a strategy destined to create “no-profit zones”. Going all out for market share entails investing in size, scale, and capacity and leaves an organisation vulnerable to subtle shifts in customers’ preferences and expectations and/or the emergence of disruptive technologies. Smaller, nimbler, or more adaptable competitors, or upstarts unburdened by entrenched cultures, may be better positioned to exploit these changes to make quick gains in more profitable areas. Slywotzky & Morrison identify companies in both high-growth and low-growth industries that have pursued market share at the expense of profitability. And they identify companies that have successfully adapted to remain high-growth, high-value, and highly profitable. Each case offers important lessons for marketers, the main one being: KNOW YOUR CUSTOMER!

Continue reading ‘A Brief History of Change and Marketing Communications’ »

Barack Obama’s fiercest rivals in the race to the White House have still not updated their LinkedIn profiles nearly one-year (51 weeks) since the historic inauguration of the 44th President of the United States.

Despite a fairly impressive new job title, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is still “Candidate at Hillary Clinton for President”:-

And if you were to believe their LinkedIn profiles, Republican Presidential nominee John McCain and his running mate Sarah Palin are still in contention for the top jobs!

Continue reading ‘Presidential Also-Rans Forget their LinkedIn Profiles’ »