In recent years some marketing and advertising strategies have been boiled down into buzz. A couple of the latest are branding, which involves creating and maintaining a brand identity, followed by experiential marketing, which aims at triggering emotional left-brained reactions from consumers versus right-brained reactions.
It’s not that one is better than the other. They can be combined with a variety of other strategies of course, but asking local ad and public relations executives to predict the next new trend or industry buzz brought some mixed responses.
“Honestly, I think everything old becomes new again,” said Tom Sullivan, president of VitroRobertson advertising agency of San Diego and Atlanta. “It used to be that there was TV, print and radio, then everyone was talking about content and interactive. Now I hear people talking about TV and traditional media again.
“Everything else will still be important. The World Wide Web will always be there. The thing is just finding a more balanced mix.”
In the wake of TiVo, which allows television viewers to click through commercials and watch shows on demand, traditional TV networks are moving their “delivery methods” — putting more content or streaming video programming online. But when viewers go online to view a show or a program, they first have to click on the accompanying ad spot, he added.
Product Placement
Kathy Cunningham, president of San Diego-based Advanced Marketing Strategies, which has 21 employees, said she thinks TV advertising will include more product placement and live spots for sponsors within shows.
“We think it will go back to the soap operas,” she said, explaining that in the early days of broadcasting when such midday programming was aimed at housewives it attracted sponsorships primarily among soap manufacturers. Soap commercials ran live during programming and the brands’ names were given ample mention in the scripts.
But public relations clients are becoming increasingly concerned with how to tap into consumer-generated Internet content such as social media sites like YouTube as well as blogs, said Michael Olguin, president of San Diego-based Formula PR, which has 46 staff members in its three offices, including Los Angeles and New York City.
“These are not going away and there’s a much stronger desire now to know how social media plays into brand marketing,” he said. “We treat influencers and bloggers like editors per magazines. That’s how influential they’ve become.”
The principles behind online advertising are no different than “offline,” said Reid Carr, chief executive officer of Red Door Interactive Inc., referring to traditional media. “You want to get your message in front of the appropriate target at the right time and have that target realize that your product or service can meet an unmet need.”
Red Door Interactive has a staff of 35.
Behavioral Targeting
