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Welcome to the era of customer participation
May/29/2008 05:05 Filed in: DTC
Environment
Consumers are no
longer passive recipients, targets, empty vessels
that are waiting to be filled with marketing
messages, especially when it comes to products that
they put in their bodies and could lead to some nasty
side effects in an effort to stay healthy. Consumer
today are connectors that enhance the conversation of
the brand or, in the worst case, sink the ship before
it has left the port.
What has really puzzled me about the DTC advertising industry is the disconnect between the marketing people and their audiences which keeps getting wider. I mean overall the rate of change and innovation within the marketing and communications industry is still less than the rate of change and innovation outside of it.
What DTC marketers should be asking right now is:
1. Can my brand participate in social media?
2. Can my brand be part of the conversation?
3. Can we continue not to be part of the conversation?
ROI is a four letter word
Results. It’s all about the numbers for the Street. Wall Streets expectations have poisoned what little humanity is left in the ability to engage consumers and customers in meaningful conversation. Almost overnight marketing people have gone from completely unaccountable to completely accountable. DTC marketers are so busy and confused by the need to justify dollars and programs that they have become desperate and don’t have time to truly think about new marketing.
Marketing used to be an art now the MBA’s have turned it into a science. The only problem is that science doesn’t know how to deal with intangibles like emotions, illogical drivers and barriers and fallibility. In short DTC marketing is no longer fun. DTC marketing programs follow the same old template day in and day out. I mean does Pfizer really believe that the ads they are running to counter the negative publicity around Chantix are going to do any good?
Whose driving this bus?
Now I have said here on this BLOG that marketers are no longer in control and that consumers are in control. The reality is that drivers seat on the bus is empty. In the new marketing world conversation trumps communication and there is only partnership.
Consumers have changed irrevocably, and one of the major and most significant symptoms of this change is the zero tolerance they they have for intrusive and bad advertising. Yet DTC marketers spend millions on nightly news casts to do just that for a variety of reasons...all bad.
Generation “i”
Enter generation i. Generation i wants what they have coming and is all about “what are you going to do for me and why should I trust your message”? They are defined not by demographics or psychographics and are not “target segments”. They are less about control and empowerment and more about communal connectedness and consciousness. In short the ordinary individual is able to realize extraordinary aspiration by the virtue of the whole collective (the Long Tail).
Now please don’t sit there and roll your eyes if you work in pharma marketing and say “we know this but we can’t do anything to engage consumers because we’re a regulated industry”. That is pure BS and deep inside you know that. The reality is that your budget is decreasing at at a time when consumers are becoming harder to reach and more fragmented. You can spend $40 million on a traditional reach and frequency campaign but when the new Rx’s don’t come in don’t go to management and say “well it wasn’t enough money we need more to extend the reach”.
Engaging consumers seems like a simple concept yet why do so many marketers have issues with it? Look at the content on most pharma product websites. Is it provocative and talks to consumers rather than down at them? Hell no ! That’s why consumers go to several website to get the information they need to make health decisions. They want to put all the information together and marketers have made that very hard for them to do especially in the pharma marketing environment.
If your legal people are stopping you then perhaps they should be the ones held accountable for failed DTC campaigns. When was the last time someone in DTC marketing invited some legal people to a seminar on new marketing and the Internet? I have yet to meet any legal people at these seminars and believe me they really need to get out and see what is happening on the Web so that they can at last give marketers the green light to take some risk to engage people.
Evolve or die is one of natures laws and unless DTC marketing and advertising evolves soon it will become more and more irrelevant to everyone except agency accountants who collect the checks.
What has really puzzled me about the DTC advertising industry is the disconnect between the marketing people and their audiences which keeps getting wider. I mean overall the rate of change and innovation within the marketing and communications industry is still less than the rate of change and innovation outside of it.
What DTC marketers should be asking right now is:
1. Can my brand participate in social media?
2. Can my brand be part of the conversation?
3. Can we continue not to be part of the conversation?
ROI is a four letter word
Results. It’s all about the numbers for the Street. Wall Streets expectations have poisoned what little humanity is left in the ability to engage consumers and customers in meaningful conversation. Almost overnight marketing people have gone from completely unaccountable to completely accountable. DTC marketers are so busy and confused by the need to justify dollars and programs that they have become desperate and don’t have time to truly think about new marketing.
Marketing used to be an art now the MBA’s have turned it into a science. The only problem is that science doesn’t know how to deal with intangibles like emotions, illogical drivers and barriers and fallibility. In short DTC marketing is no longer fun. DTC marketing programs follow the same old template day in and day out. I mean does Pfizer really believe that the ads they are running to counter the negative publicity around Chantix are going to do any good?
Whose driving this bus?
Now I have said here on this BLOG that marketers are no longer in control and that consumers are in control. The reality is that drivers seat on the bus is empty. In the new marketing world conversation trumps communication and there is only partnership.
Consumers have changed irrevocably, and one of the major and most significant symptoms of this change is the zero tolerance they they have for intrusive and bad advertising. Yet DTC marketers spend millions on nightly news casts to do just that for a variety of reasons...all bad.
Generation “i”
Enter generation i. Generation i wants what they have coming and is all about “what are you going to do for me and why should I trust your message”? They are defined not by demographics or psychographics and are not “target segments”. They are less about control and empowerment and more about communal connectedness and consciousness. In short the ordinary individual is able to realize extraordinary aspiration by the virtue of the whole collective (the Long Tail).
Now please don’t sit there and roll your eyes if you work in pharma marketing and say “we know this but we can’t do anything to engage consumers because we’re a regulated industry”. That is pure BS and deep inside you know that. The reality is that your budget is decreasing at at a time when consumers are becoming harder to reach and more fragmented. You can spend $40 million on a traditional reach and frequency campaign but when the new Rx’s don’t come in don’t go to management and say “well it wasn’t enough money we need more to extend the reach”.
Engaging consumers seems like a simple concept yet why do so many marketers have issues with it? Look at the content on most pharma product websites. Is it provocative and talks to consumers rather than down at them? Hell no ! That’s why consumers go to several website to get the information they need to make health decisions. They want to put all the information together and marketers have made that very hard for them to do especially in the pharma marketing environment.
If your legal people are stopping you then perhaps they should be the ones held accountable for failed DTC campaigns. When was the last time someone in DTC marketing invited some legal people to a seminar on new marketing and the Internet? I have yet to meet any legal people at these seminars and believe me they really need to get out and see what is happening on the Web so that they can at last give marketers the green light to take some risk to engage people.
Evolve or die is one of natures laws and unless DTC marketing and advertising evolves soon it will become more and more irrelevant to everyone except agency accountants who collect the checks.
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