A piece in the January 21, 2008 AdWeek/IQ Interactive e-newsletter highlighted for me two increasingly important, and interrelated, facts that apply across the landscape of online marketing disciplines: viral marketing, online marketing, viral advertising or even buzz marketing. The article not only helps to underscore the dramatic changes we are now witnessing in how companies reach and engage their audiences, but also how they are failing to tap into and harness a vast pool of potential influencers by being short sighted and internally-focused.
The first fact is this: the things marketers can do with technology is truly astonishing. The spread of video, incredible animation, powerful graphics and intuitive interfaces on the front end are coupled with powerful, almost all-knowing analytics on the back end. The content is engrossing and often share-worthy, and clearly people want to see it. In fact, a survey by Burst Media shows that 72% of online surfers--they young, old and in between--watch online video content. Which is all, of course, hugely attractive to traditional advertising that continues to search for new avenues to reach their audience...
Which leads to the second fact: just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. The same Burst Media survey shows more than three-quarters of people believe in-stream ads are intrusive, with a large percentage tuning out before they even get to the video content they wanted to watch in the first place. In consumer marketing, this is bad. In B2B marketing, it can mean a very quick death to a campaign in an environment that is no-nonsense and all about getting to the point of a product or service's value.
The conclusion: we are all (even the ad folks when they are at home on their own laptops) screaming, "STOP INTERRUPTING ME! START ENGAGING ME!" in as many ways as we can. If marketers can't hear us, then they're not listening. If they can hear us, and they are listening to us, then they'll know that once they begin engaging us in ways that are relevant and meaningful, it is likely we will become not only brand evangelists, but may even make them better marketers.
