In the digital ecosystem, brand engagement is achieved by continuing the conversation.
I recently attended a seminar put on by the Digital Knowledge Centre in conjunction with the American Association of Advertising Agencies. The topic for the full day event was integrated digital brand strategy. An excerpt:
First aviation marketers should fully grasp the explosion of media channels and how that is impacting the distribution of content. In the modern media landscape brand engagement happens in three categories — bought, owned, and earned media.
Bought media is any media channel in which time or space is rented to display advertising. Its objective is to drive people to owned media channels.
Bought media channels include:
- Radio
- Magazines
- Newspapers
- Online ads
- Outdoor advertising
- Television
Owned media are media channels that are controlled by the brand. These destinations provide a platform to drive marketing messages and tools to create earned media.
Owned media channels include:
- Brick and mortar stores
- Product websites
- Corporate websites
- Direct mail
- Customer Relation Management technology (CRM)
- Mobile websites
- Campaign websites
- Community websites
- Email campaigns
- Tradeshow displays
Earned media refers to first-person commentary and content about the brand posted and shared across a variety of social networks and channels.
Earned media channels include:
- Video sharing – YouTube, Vimeo
- Social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn
- Blogs
- Subscription sites for syndicated social platforms
- Personal pages
- Multi Site Manager (MSM) sites – enterprise with a large number of subsidiaries in various countries sharing similar look, feel and common content.
Judging from the proliferation of owned and earned media channels, it is easy to understand how print newspaper advertising revenue went from $64 billion in 1999 to $20.7 billion in 2011. Naturally, the question that comes to mind is what happened to that $40 plus billion in revenue? One could conclude that print advertising was dropped in favor of online advertising. However, the numbers reveal that with online advertising factored in, combined print and online advertising accounted for just $22.50 billion.
The answer I propose is that there was a fundamental shift in the way people gathered and interacted with content. The “one-to-many” distribution model of information dissemination was usurped by readers taking control and redistributing content on the web forming the foundation for people-to-people marketing.
For the aviation industry, it becomes clear that old school media strategies are not yielding the results required to justify continued investment. Developing a people-to-people content centered strategy of high frequency with permission drives brand value and keeps the relationship going.
Life After Advertising 