Industry Insights

Prior to the Digital Age, the traditional advertising model was fairly cut and dry, with paid placements running across radio, newspapers, magazines, billboards and television. But when websites began to proliferate and, with them, advertising opportunities, us media people got our sticky fingers on it as quickly as possible. Standard banners were placed across websites like stamps on envelopes.

After the initial excitement wore down, people began to view online ads less positively, generalizing them as nothing more than commercial interruptions from what they really wanted to see. If they could fast forward through commercials on VCRs and then DVRs, why should they be held up in their digital experiences? Advertisers had to get smarter in order to capture the attention of a relevant audience and make a brand stand out in a marketplace of options. And as any good media planner will ask, “What’s next?”

While the paid media landscape continues to evolve, brands have increasingly invested in earned and owned media. Earned media includes digital platforms where brands can freely engage with fans or followers through more organic activities, such as page posts, tweets or distributed content. When someone other than the brand shares or comments on brand content within the owned environment, it becomes earned media.

In a recent interview with CSP Magazine, 360i’s Gavin Blawie, VP of Client Strategy, discusses the digital media landscape, emerging trends in consumer behavior and what these mean for brands  both on and offline. Read his full Q&A below.

1. What component of digital media and marketing is biggest on your radar today?

The ability for brands to create original, compelling content that is interesting/cool/entertaining enough to be shared, in regular ways big and small.  The converse is latent but equally powerful – the ability to harness and activate original brand-inspired content being created and shared by consumers on a brand’s behalf.  Either way, it’s the consumer’s judgment call and choice to share or not, and the marketer’s opportunity to accept and work within that reality as the new filter.

2. We’re starting to hear a lot about social commerce. What is it?

Social commerce represents the same connected, always-on network of personal conversations, observations and sharing that now sits atop, within and alongside consumers’ shopping experiences.  Brands can now connect with people online, and as people share more and more of their lives, people routinely post consumer reviews and share shopping experiences for everything from big ticket, considered purchases (“just got the 60” big screen TV”, “great vacation in Jamaica, too bad I stayed at…” etc.) to ordinary, impulse buys (“slice of pizza and a Coke for lunch”).  

These personal updates represent primary insights and selling opportunities shared every day across the social web, and their effects can be seen from the rise of social customer service (the airlines listen to tweets much more than 800 #s) to the ads you’re served online, to the “items recommended for you” next time you log into Amazon. For more on social commerce, download 360i’s latest playbook.

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This summer Jay-Z and Kanye West released one of the most anticipated albums of the year – Watch the Throne (Island Def Jam Records). The promotion behind this collaboration between two of hip hop’s biggest stars showcases how brands can use digital to connect to their audiences and excite them to drive successful results.

Island Def Jam’s strategy allowed the artists to connect with fans ahead of the release, ultimately driving huge sales. By leveraging paid, earned and owned assets and presenting these to the public in an innovative way, Island Def Jam created a unique experience for fans that led to the sale of 500,000 copies of the album within the first week. Watch the Throne also captured the #1 spot on iTunes in 23 countries. In this post, we break down how they did it – and what brands of all verticals can learn from their approach.   

1. Produce great content and build anticipation by making it exclusive.
As anticipation for the release grew, the WTT team released a 10-minute online documentary highlighting the creation of the album. Island Def Jam also released an online teaser trailer of the album’s lead single, “Otis,” which featured Jay-Z and Kanye joyriding in an altered Maybach Mercedes, as a precursor to the video premiere on television. 

Last week, 360i welcomed Christopher Frank and Paul Magnone, authors of Drinking from the Fire Hose: How to Make Smarter Decisions Without Drowning in Information, for a fireside chat on how to better process the endless stream of data that has become a staple of the Digital Age. The event was part of 360i’s ongoing Inspired Speaker Series, which brings together some of the brightest minds across various industries to discuss trends in the dynamic digital landscape.

In their talk, Frank and Magnone emphasized the importance of asking the right questions when making decisions. Often more important than the answers themselves are the questions you ask that effectively shape your strategy or approach to a business challenge. Here are seven questions the authors suggested asking when approaching a challenge:

1. What is the essential question? By asking this question, you can identify the key piece of knowledge you are seeking and determine which information will need (and won’t need) to attain that knowledge.
2. Where is your customer’s North Star? Put the consumer first. What are the motivations, passions, needs and wants of your consumers? Use those insights to derive your business strategy.
3. Should you believe the squiggly line? Be wary of short-term data that can throw you off course. When analyzing numbers over time, be sure to fully understand the context of any ebbs and flows in your performance. How did you competitors fare during that same time frame? Were broader, more macro trends influencing the data? Understanding the full story of the data will allow you to draw better-informed conclusions.
4. What surprised you? What patterns emerged that you did not expect to see? Beyond drawing conclusions as to the change of information over time, or general emerging trends within a research report, Frank and Magnone say that it’s just as important to spot and call out unanticipated findings.
5. What does the lighthouse reveal? Frank and Magnone define “lighthouse” data as the information that will keep you out of danger. You can arrive at this data by determining the pieces of information that are MOST critical to your business, and keeping a close eye on those particular areas.
6. Who are your swing voters? Customers who might switch loyalties to your company offer tremendous opportunity. Identify your potential “swing voters” and mark them as favorable, unfavorable as neutral and tailor different messaging to each group. Revisit the makeup of each of the three groups over time.
7. What? So what? Now what? When analyzing data or crafting business communications, ask you three questions. What? What is the data or information being analyzed? So what? Why should you care about the data? Now what? Which actions can be taken based on the information at hand.

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One of the advantages of building a large, engaged community is the ability to encourage and collect feedback from consumers about your product or brand. Think of it as a free online focus group, where one has the potential to tap into the minds of (in some cases) tens of millions of people – from all over the world.

An eMarketer report released this week supports the notion that consumers want to build meaningful relationships with brands they care about.  Crowdsourcing is hardly a new concept, but leveraging it for product idea generation and allowing fans and followers to be co-creators presents a mutual value exchange for both the brand and consumer.  Per research from Frost & Sullivan (below), the majority of crowdsourcing is used for idea generation.

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PSFK recently interviewed Sarah Sikowitz, Group Media Director at 360i, for its Secrets of a Killer Media Buyer series. The segment below focuses on the essential role of creativity and “constant drive to innovate” in the digital media space. You can read some more insights from Sarah on this subject after the jump.

Secrets Of A Killer Media Buyer: Creativity from Piers Fawkes on Vimeo.

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360i recently conducted an analysis to identify the types of assets and content that consumers include in their branded conversations online. Retail/Fashion and CPG posts were examined, with the aim of understanding how people share online beyond words and how conversations differ from one vertical to the next.

This tweet about an Oreo Blizzard from Dairy Queen is one example of someone mentioning a brand while sharing content (not part of research sample for this report).

So, what did we find? Retail/Fashion discussions generate more frequent re-tweets on Twitter, and while both verticals yield a similar “Like” rate on Facebook, the average CPG post receives more comments on the platform. The differences are also clear when it comes to asset inclusion: Retail/Fashion conversations frequently contain links, while CPG posts are more likely to include a picture. Yet, there’s a unifying thread: influence. On average, consumers who share content and mention either type of brand have more friends/followers than those who do not.

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