WHY LEAN STARTUP APPROACH TO CONTENT MARKETING STRATEGY IS BETTER THAN ANY OTHER

January 22, 2015

Written by Iryna Velykokhatko

INTRODUCTION

Prior to taking marketing course, I have read a few marketing-related books this fall (I am mostly referring here to “Inbound Marketing”, “All Marketers Are Liars”, “Unleashing the Ideavirus”). Having discovered a great deal of interesting information there, the most important message that I took with me was that content matters.

Regardless of simplicity, this point is definitely brilliant as it requires minimum costs, is relatively easy to implement and yields great results. However, getting into the core of this idea, it got me wondering, what actually makes good quality content, how it fits into online marketing and what strategy to undertake when implementing it?

As the field of marketing is still emerging and constantly changing there is currently no set recipe for creating good content and good strategy for it but rather some suggestions, tips and guidelines. Traditional 4P or 7P approaches do not seem to fully satisfy the need of online marketing related to content especially in the case of early stage companies. In the end it is about trial, error and effective learning – principles, as I discovered, are very much integrated into the concept of lean startup. So why not give a closer look at it and analyze whether it is possible to make a good case for successful content marketing using lean startup approach focusing on companies in the early stages of development?  

THEORY

There is no need to revert to old truth that with the rise of Internet the world has changed and so did marketing. It is important, however, to investigate the nature of this change.

For the first time technology has given consumer a chance to walk away from information that he or she does not want. Due to this we observe a huge power shift from companies to consumer brining to en end the era of outbound marketing. There will no longer be annoying phone calls, junk ads and brochures in our mailboxes or useless emails in our inboxes. Or at least there shouldn’t be (Deighton & Kornfeld, 2009). At the same time, users are starting to take maximum advantage of their power. Using existing social media platforms they are actively engaged in creation of their own content. Much of it is often related to their user experience of different brands which could be both positive and negative and consequently do a great disfavor to companies (Winer, 2009; Kietzmann et al, 2011).

Of course, current state of things alerts marketers. Loss of control over customers poses a serious threat of declining revenues in their eyes and who wants that? But, really, that’s old news. What is more compelling is emerging array of solutions to deal with the challenge brought up by this power shift.  

This is why the field of inbound marketing is becoming widely popular. This approach includes a number of interesting and engaging techniques of customer acquisition (Halligan, Shah, 2009). Content marketing is a great part of it. Recent research conducted by the content marketing institute, suggests that “content marketing is gaining traction at many companies, and some may argue that it is now mainstream. According to the 2013 content marketing research reports for B2Band B2C industries by the Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs, 91 percent of B2B marketers and 86 percent of B2C marketers are using content marketing. In addition, 54 percent of B2B marketers and 55 percent of B2C marketers will increase their content marketing spend in the next 12 months” (Royse, 2012).

So what is good content and what place does it take in marketing? 

According to the Content Marketing Institute (2014), content marketing is defined as “Content marketing is a marketing technique of creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience – with the objective of driving profitable customer action” Content varies in a number of ways. It includes texts, info-graphics, tables, charts, pictures whatnot basically. There are a number of characteristics that fit the definition of good content. For instance, Arabella Santiago (2013), content marketing advocate at Scoop.it suggests that good content is valuable, consistent and dynamic. However, according to Nguyen Quoc Binh “killing content” is interesting, inspiring and relevant (Duc Le M, 2013). Now, go figure how to create something of the sort that combines those features and on top of things satisfies the taste of my target audience and would also help to acquire new customers. 

The challenge becomes even more difficult if to add the notion of content marketing strategy. I mean, let’s say you have put a lot of effort and created, what you would call, a remarkable content. However, there is no expected positive feedback from your customers: no engagement with the content, no sharing, no leads, basically zero response. This is exactly why definition of “good content” might be a great place to start with but not enough to produce desired results. The major problem here is subjectivity. What is believed to be valuable, consistent and dynamic, aka great content, by one group might not be perceived the same way by another one. The challenge might be even more difficult for early stage startups that do not have 100% market assurance regarding their project. Therefore, to succeed one has to start with developing an effective content marketing strategy instead not only great content per se.  

What is a good strategy for creating effective content marketing?

The field of content marketing is relatively new and, therefore, there is no orthodox methodology or proper way of doing it. Traditional marketing strategies that have proven to be effective earlier such as 4Ps or 7Ps are no longer the best choice as they are not taking into consideration power shift that was discussed earlier. So no wonder that content marketing practitioners have come up with a vast array of new techniques and models based on their experience. While not all of them are researched and validated, I believe that their major contribution is in stirring the discussion which will be beneficial for further search.   

Recent publication in the Harvard Business Review on the subject of content marketing strategies by Richard Ettenson, Eduardo Conrado, and Jonathan Knowles (2013) suggests modification of 4Ps. The authors offer S.A.V.E framework that focuses on solution, access, value and education instead of traditional product, place, price and promotion. Offered change is motivated by the need to fine-tune old models based on the changes occurring in the Internet space and with regards to B2B field. In a nutshell, this approach is customer-oriented on the receiving side and holistic on the marketing side as it requires cooperation with sales department in the company (Ettenson, Conrado, and Knowles, 2013)

Another approach is offered by Pulizzi and Barrett (2009) in their recent book. They are talking about B.E.S.T. methodology for B2C markets according to which companies should use behavioral, essential, strategic and targeted, formula when approaching content marketing. Each category has a set of questions, answering which helps creating effective content marketing strategy. Examples of questions include: “How do we want our customers to feel? What effect must we achieve with them? What action do we want them to take? etc.” (Pulizzi and Barrett, 2009). 

The above approaches along with some other ones that are not covered in this paper are useful tools for online content marketing. However, I have spotted two challenges with them. First, they are static. They are useful in mapping out important questions to address for setting content strategy. However, they are not very useful in suggesting what to do next. Or what to do in case there is no desired response from the market? Of course, the answer might deem obvious – you should reconsider your strategy, ask those questions again and adjust the content based on the feedback. The problem is that it makes the process very cumbersome and costly.

The second issue is that these models are complex in their terminology and not straight forward enough. This should not be a problem for professional marketers who know their subject to the core, but this could create a problem for companies in early stages that do not have the means to afford professional marketing assistance or might not even be sure if their product/content is going to evoke customer interest.

As an addition to existing models that would help to address the above issues, I suggest to look into lean startup model and evaluate whether it could be useful.

What is lean startup?

The concept of lean startup was offered for the first time in 2011 by Eric Ries and has been gaining popularity among businesses ever since. In essence the idea seems quite obvious as it is based on early hypothesis testing. The novelty, however, is in the fact that this has not been done in business field ever before! Traditional approach to business dictates the need for thorough business plan, with well-defined marketing and financials (Ries, 2011). Unfortunately plans prone to fail especially when dealing with new and unknown and something that could not be controlled, like markets. This is exactly where leans startup approach comes in so handy.

Lean startup approach has three key principles. First, instead of engaging in complex research entrepreneurs start with a hypothesis and then write it down on the business canvas, focusing on the most essential questions. Second, it uses customer development approach. Entrepreneurs get outside to directly ask customers about product’s features, pricing, distribution channels etc. The key is to be agile and fast by employing minimum viable product concept. Based on the feedback, necessary product adjustments are implemented and hypothesis is pivoted. Third, lean startups use agile development approach working with their customers. This way they develop products iteratively and incrementally with a minimum waste of resources. (Blank, 2013).

So, applying lean startup cycle to content cycle, we the get the model presented below. What is different in this model is that it is simple, dynamic and based on constant feedback from customers. Applying this methodology allows for early hypothesis testing and correction of content based on the results which end up in producing better, more valuable and interesting content. This seems like a very obvious way of doing things, however, this is not always the case as we, as individuals, are often prone to concentrate on extensive planning and in-depth research prior to implementing something. This is not bad of course, but in the Web 2.0 where things happen with the speed of light and where customer has power dominance too much planning might be useless (Hodges, 2014).

<img src="lean-content-marketing.jpeg" alt="Baby Crying" />

Figure 1. Applying lean startup cycle to content cycle (Santiago, 2013)

Instead, according to the model, it is far more effective to research the field and see what competitors are doing and then get to content creation right away. It is important to have it out there, evaluate customer response to it, modify it based on learning experience and repeat the cycle until success formula is retrieved (Santiago, 2013). 

There are a few things about lean startup approach that I find compelling. First of all, it is quite easy and requires minimum expenses. As testing is happening in early stages it does not cost much to modify products or services. Second, lean startup approach is quite universal and therefore suitable not only for early stage companies but also for established sizable businesses. They even have an advantage here in terms of financial and human resources. Finally, you can actually get a meaningful validation of your idea through reaching out to your customers and see whether your business will fail or succeed in the future (Laurie & Harreld, 2013). These are also some of the reasons that could be beneficial in content marketing.

DISCUSSION

When setting off to write this paper, my goal was to explore an area of marketing that I have thought was rather under-searched due to its novelty. In the course of writing I have discovered much new to myself and also tried to establish the link between two different areas: marketing and entrepreneurship through investigating whether it is possible to apply lean startup methodology to content marketing strategy. To sum up, I have discovered the following:

-       The notion of good content is very subjective

-       Existing content marketing strategies are useful in mapping out important questions that should be a part of content marketing strategy but are missing dynamic component  

-       The concept of lean startup adds missing dynamic component and allows more simplistic approach to the strategy

-       In addition lean startup approach offers extra values in reduced costs and accessibility by not professional marketers 

There is still much left to the discussion on the topic in this paper. At the moment most of the information available on the topic of content marketing and content marketing strategy comes mostly from content market practitioners. Therefore, there is lack of scientific research and standardized models in the field.

References

Blank, S. (2013). Why the Lean Start-Up Changes Everything. Harvard Business Review, 91(5), 63-72.

Content Marketing Institute. (2014). What is Content Marketing? Retrieved from http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/what-is-content-marketing/  

Duc Le M. (2013). Content Marketing. Retrieved from http://www.theseus.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/62104/Duc_LE.pdf?sequence=1

Ettenson R., Conrado E. and Knowles J., 2013. Rethinking the 4 P’s. Havard Business Reviews, January/Feburary publication. 01.01.2013. http://eds.b.ebscohost.com/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=2&sid=1846e276-d666-4122-be79-18e30b54f31c%40sessionmgr111&hid=104

Halligan, B., Shah, D. (2009). Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs. John Wiley&Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.

Hodges, A. (2014, February 6). Validating Your Content Marketing Business Case Using Lean Startup Methodologies. Retrieved from http://www.stateofdigital.com/validating-content-marketing-business-case-using-lean-startup-methodologies/

Laurie, D. L., & Harreld, J. B. (2013). 6 ways to sink a growth initiative. Harvard Business Review, 91(7), 82-90.

Kietzmann, J., H., Hermkens, K., McCarthy, I., P., Silvestre, B., S. (2011). Social media? Get serious! Understanding the functional building blocks of social media Retrieved from https://liveatlund.lu.se/departments/BusinessAdministration/BUSN32/BUSN32_2014VT_50_1_NML__1281/Lists/CourseSchedule/Attachments/3/Kietzmann%20et%20al%20social%20media%20get%20serious.pdf

Pulizzi, J. & Barrett N. 2009. Get content, get customers: Turn prospects into buyers with content marketing. 1st edition. McGraw-Hill.

Ries, E. (2011). The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses. Crown Publishing Group.

Royse, 2012) (http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2012/12/effective-content-marketing-habits/)

Santiago, A. (2013). Leaner, better, faster: More impact with your content marketing. Retrieved from http://www.slideshare.net/arabellasantiago/market-campsf-prez

Winer, R., S. (2009). New Communications Approaches in Marketing: Issues and Research Directions. Retrieved from https://liveatlund.lu.se/departments/BusinessAdministration/BUSN32/BUSN32_2014VT_50_1_NML__1281/Lists/CourseSchedule/Attachments/2/new%20approaches%20in%20marketing_Winer_2009.pdf

Threats of Brand management in social media Why Strong Social Media Presence Magnifies Brand Weaknesses and How International Brand Managers Can Address This Part 2

January 19, 2015

Written by Jenni Väisänen 

Demand for Transparency 

Strong presence in social media is a threat for brands due to the fact that all pieces of information, no matter negative or positive, ever published in the Internet, can be found conveniently and quickly with a few “clicks” (Akar and Topcu 2013). The availability of information via Internet has changed the marketing atmosphere and its rules: there are no secrets. Previously companies have been privileged to market brands and sell products to consumers without a true demand to be transparent in their messages and operations, whereas nowadays companies and brands need to be more accurate in their actions. As it seems to be, truth, no matter how ugly, will be tracked down and brought to public, and to social media. This, in turn, has a negative impact on brand equity and reputation. (Awasthi, Sharma and Gulati 2012). (Fournier and Avery 2011)

In case consumers find discrepancies in a brand’s external and internal image, its users and customers can point out their observations quickly in social media. (Awasthi, Sharma and Gulati 2012; Fournier and Avery 2011) Unilever’s famous Dove-case represents ideological differences between Dove and another Unilever-brand, Axe. While Dove fights for Natural Beauty, Axe promotes the idea of a total opposite of a Dove-woman, craving to get a piece of an Axe-man. Women in Axe-commercials are far from Dove-women in terms of their looks: they meet the standards of beauty industry. This created a wide conversation, questioning and threatening Dove’s authenticity. (Singh and Sonnenburg 2012) Pictures 5 and 6 below demonstrate the different perceptions of women between Axe and Dove. These kinds of cases, where a company’s actions are criticized can have a remarkable negative impact on brand reputation (Awasthi, Sharma and Gulati 2012).

The Dove Campaign for Real Beauty, 6 women with a "normal" BMI

Picture 5: Dove Real Beauty

(Dove U.S. Homepage 2014)

Axe Lynx Effect commercial stating "the cleaner you are the dirtier you get". Skinny blonde woman holding bikini top at its place.

Picture 6: Axe Lynx Effect (Claudiu, 2011)

Another example of brand management gone wrong is the case of BP. When the Deep Water Scandal proved that the beyond petroleum -rebranding practices were implemented not throughout the company, but only as a public relations –trick, the brand and corporate reputation were deeply criticised. (Fournier and Avery 2011) This, lack of authenticity and transparency, generated a lot of negative publicity for BP, decreased brand equity, and made the company look like a travesty of an environmentally-responsible firm (Ritson 2010).

Stand for your values

Corporate integrity is not any more dependent on the company operations only, but also on its employees and brand image. In order to establish transparency, authenticity is a key factor. To become authentic, brands need to correspond to what they claim to be, and employees must stand for the same values as the companies they work for. Hence, both product and corporate brands’ external and internal images must correspond with each other, and enhance similar values. (Awasthi, Sharma and Gulati 2012; Fournier and Avery 2011)

Constant criticism 

Consumers have become more critical, and as they are connected in social media, they also interpret brand messages and values as a mass of people. Hence, if a brand message is supported, consumers are prone to show it by “liking” or “sharing”, whereas unaccepted brands are roughly criticized web-wide. Constant evaluation of companies and their brands either work for the brands as networks endorse them, or against them as consumers share negative experiences or pure hatred towards the brand. (Fournier and Avery 2011)

Because social media enables convenient opinion and experience sharing, consumers seek reliable comments on the internet. They perceive other consumers as the most reliable sources of information. (Blackshaw and Nazzaro 2006, cited in Akar and Topcu 2013)  According to Muñiz and Schau (2007), the source of information does not have an impact on the dispersion of it: even consumers’ perceptions about brand-stories, which used to be created by brand managers only, can spread as rapidly as if they were originated by companies (cited in Singh and Sonnenburg 2012). Pitt et al (2002, cited in Fournier and Avery 2011) point out that when negative comments are published, they travel fast and reach a wide audience. Therefore, Homer’s (2008) findings about the relationship between brand image and quality encourage companies to support and protect their brands. He found out that brand image is perceived as a more important factor than the actual quality of a product. (Homer 2008, cited in Awasthi, Sharma and Gulati 2012)

As Dell and Pampers’ have witnessed, trying to control, and moreover, enhance positive brand image, requires resources and time. Dell actually created a new job position for one of its employees, in which he works as a real-time help desk, solving consumers’ problems online (Fournier and Avery 2011), whereas P&G’s Pampers, suffering of mothers’ social media accusations of causing diaper rash to their babies, remained convinced about their new product’s safety. However, it was only until a third party, Consumer Product Safety Commission, was involved to the case, when the buzz around the sensitive issue and angry mothers started to calm down. (Barwise and Meehan 2010; Geller 2010) Below, Picture 7 shows, how experiences regarding Dry Max-diapers were shared through Facebook.

Pampers Dry Max Diapers -anti-brand Facebook site; people sharing skeptical questions.

Picture 7: Dry Max Facebook conversation (Recall pampers dry max diapers! 2010)

Online word of mouth can, at its best, concentrate on promoting a brand and work as a co-operative force in enhancing the brand. However, when world-wide communities focus on attacking a brand, they generate rapid, negative, and widespread electronic word-of-mouth and hence, reputation, by reaching a large number of consumers. Especially strong brands have been associated with “anti-brand sites”, which share negative perceptions about the brand. (Awasthi, Sharma and Gulati, 2012) Krishnamurthy and Kucuk (2009) identify three reasons why specifically strong brands are threatened by communities. First, the more known the brand is, the more attention one can draw and hence, try to influence the industry. Second, as strong brands tend to dominate the market, damaging their image can cause changes in the market shares, and third, the fear of decreased brand equity can make larger companies to listen to boycotters’ requests and mission. (Krishnamurthy and Kucuk 2009)

 Learn, develop, and communicate it!

Constant criticism can, however, encourage companies to learn from their mistakes and lead to an improved brand image, which, ultimately, strengthens brand equity. By listening to consumers’ unhappiness, companies can identify constantly occurring problems with their products and find out their root causes. This can lead to improved products and more satisfied customers. Companies who have been actively communicating online about their learning processes and attempts to compensate claims, seem to be appreciated by consumers. (Fournier and Avery 2011)

Conclusion

Nowadays, strong media presence and publicity have greater than ever impact on brand equity, corporate reputation, and company profitability (Fournier and Avery 2011; Krishnamurthy and Kucuk 2009). Therefore, it is vital to know the new environment and its rules when introducing and managing brands online. As the environment allows people to form strong online communities in which they exchange ideas and experiences, negative brand image is probably one of the most horrifying issues brand managers can think of.  And managing that image is more and more challenging due to the fact that in social media, brand managers do not possess full power over their brands. There, in the jungle, also consumers own the brand and take part in creating it. By realizing the new conditions of survival, learning from others’ (and their own) mistakes, and being constantly aware of the possible consequences of their actions, brand managers can not only survive at the era of online marketing, but also manage their brands successfully, together with consumers.

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<http://eds.a.ebscohost.com/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=1c1f2232-af64-43c7-bfa2-80b71f84a1b4%40sessionmgr4004&vid=1&hid=4210> [Accessed 2 February 2014].

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Pictures:

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Threats of Brand management in social media Why Strong Social Media Presence Magnifies Brand Weaknesses and How International Brand Managers Can Address This Part 1

January 15, 2015

Written by Jenni Väisänen

Nowadays, brand managers focus more and more on marketing online, due to the multiple opportunities it offers. However, to manage brands efficiently in social media settings, marketers need to understand the rules of their new marketing environment. This paper examines survival tactics of brand management in social media in the form of literature review. Based on Fournier and Avery’s article (2012) about the evident characteristics of social media and their impact on brand management practices, this paper discusses four factors, which can threaten brand management by magnifying their weaknesses, and ways to overcome them. The factors are characteristics and demands which have risen at the era of online marketing. They are 1) power of social collective, (2) entertaining parodies, (3) demand for transparency, and (4) constant criticism. Depending on the way these characteristics are addressed by brand managers, they can work either as an endorsement or threat to branding practices in social media.

Introduction

Today, being present in social media is necessary for most companies, as it provides possibilities to connect and create relationships with various groups of stakeholders. Intensive use of Web 2.0 technologies in marketing pays off, as it has a remarkable impact on company reputation, profitability and market share, when properly implicated. (Bughin and Chui 2010; Kietzmann et al 2011) Because web 2.0 is regarded as a door-opener for two-way communication and information sharing (Filho and Tan 2009, cited in Akar and Topcu 2013), including it to the traditional marketing mix provides various new platforms for marketing activities (Winer 2009). Akar and Topcu (2013) define social media marketing simply as a tactic to promote both company and its brands via different social media channels, such as Facebook, Twitter or Youtube.

Despite the opportunities social media marketing has to offer, brand managers need to realize that there is a thin red line between success and failure, when a brand is presented in social media. Rapidly spreading electronic word of mouth (Akar and Topcu 2013), powerful consumer activism within online communities (Cova and Pace 2006), and co-creation process of brand image (Singh and Sonnenburg 2012) do not run only with positive energy. If brand managers lack understanding of vital rules in the jungle of social media marketing, strong brand presence and visibility can turn into a threat for the brand. Negative brand reputation spreads fast in social media, which can have serious impact on sales and even survival of a company (Kietzmann et al 2011). As the prerequisite of social media is that it was created for people – not for marketers nor brands- companies should be aware that they are to walk on their toes in the online jungle. (Fournier and Avery 2011)

Fournier and Avery (2011) summarize four phenomena in social media, which brand managers ought to take into consideration when marketing online. They are (in other words than Fournier and Avery, 2012, presented) (1) power of social collective, (2) entertaining parodies, (3) demand for transparency, and (4) constant criticism. As social media has changed the landscape of marketing practices remarkably, resulting in “traditional” marketing techniques becoming invalid, it is important for companies to understand conditions of their new marketing environments (Awasthi, Sharma and Gulati 2012).  These phenomena, help to clarify the root causes of the benefits, without forgetting the threats, of having strong social media presence. (Fournier and Avery 2011)

Purpose of the study

The purpose of this paper is to understand, why social media as a marketing landscape is challenging for brand managers. The aim is to encourage learning from others’ mistakes, and discuss some ways to address the dilemmas. This paper is divided into two parts; in the first part, focus is to discuss the power of social collectives and parodies, whereas the second part concentrates on how companies should handle demands to be transparent and constant criticism.

Magnifying and managing brand weaknesses: need for belongingness and entertainment

Power of Social Collective 

Social media answers to peoples’ need of being accepted and feeling the sense of belongingness through its various communities, virtual friend-making and social bonding. By “liking” their friends’ updated statuses and “joining” different groups, people connect with each other conveniently. Online communities offer a place for like-minded people to share their opinions, photos and experiences, which enhances the feeling of belongingness. (Fournier and Avery 2011) Picture 1 below demonstrates, how many people Nike reaches via Facebook.

Nike Facebok coverpage, with 16,508,118 "likes".

Picture 1: Nike social media –Facebook (Nike 2014)

Marketers have traditionally been able to bring brands and their messages to the awareness of consumers, possessing full control over the message, but social media has changed this. Today, managers are creating their brands together with consumers by sharing experiences and opinions. Because this new type of branding process is dependent on consumers’ opinions and perceptions of the brand image, managers need not only to listen carefully what their customers are saying, but also engage consumers into the co-creation of their brands. This two-way communication has changed the ideology of branding online completely. (Corstjens and Umblijs 2012; Fournier and Avery 2011; Singh and Sonnenburg 2012) 

The fact that consumers may connect different characteristics to a brand than the previous owner, brand manager, can cause problems to the company and threaten the brand image (Fournier and Avery 2011, Corstjens and Umbljis 2012). Singh and Sonnenburg (2012) suggest that instead of trying to control the brand message too much, brand managers should concentrate on guiding consumers’ comments to support and endorse the original brand-story. According to Singh and Sonnenburg (2012), some corner stones of the new way of brand management are to switch focus to the process instead of the output and understand the role of “tension” in brand-creation.

Switch focus to the process, not to the output

As the core idea is to co-create brand-stories together with consumers, they need to be encouraged to participate into the process. Brand managers need to accept that brand image will be affected by different kinds of experiences and stories shared by individual consumers, which, in other words, means that there is no “one storyline” or “one image” of a brand. What brand managers can and should try, is to guide shared comments to reflect the desired brand concept. This can be done by e.g. engaging, provoking and seeding. Engaging can be done by encouraging different opinions and by challenging new stories, whereas provoking by addressing emotional topics for discussion. Seeding is a tactic to encourage co-creation in multiple social media platforms (Shau, Muñiz, and Arnould 2009). Additionally, brand managers should provide a suitable social media platform for consumer-discussions. (Singh and Sonnenburg 2012)

Realize the role of “tension” in branding

In order to activate consumers to participate in branding, marketers must provide tension to the story. Tension as a concept has been divided into three categories: internal, personal and external. Internal tension rises from the need to look into the mirror and identify oneself, whereas personal tension lies in the differences between people. By external tension, the issues between people and their environment, nature and even supernatural, are brought up to discussion. When holistically practiced, all sources of tension are discussed in a brand co-creation process. Hence, tension is the driving force to generate consumers’ emotional engagement to the brand story. (McKee 1998, in Singh and Sonnenburg 2012) Below, in Picture 2 it is visible how Ben&Jerry’s Icecream creates tension at their Facebook site: they promote well-being of cows and ask, which flavour their consumers prefer on “Belly laugh day”.

Ben&Jerry's ice-cream highlighting the importance of happy cows and asking flavour preferences, i.e. creating tension.

Picture 2: Ben&Jerry’s social media -Facebook (Ben&Jerry’s 2014)

The curse of co-creation is that it makes branding uncontrolled: if consumer societies’ opinions collide with brand’s mission or values, solving the emerging problems can be challenging. (Fournier and Avery 2011) A good example of a mismatch between consumers’ and brand managers’ perceptions of a brand is Frito-Lay’s: brand managers enhanced environmentally-friendly values in product development, whereas consumers considered “convenience” as a more important factor. The brand had to give up its ecological packaging material in order to meet customer wants: a package with less-rasping sounds. (Brady 2010, cited in Fournier and Avery 2011)

Entertaining parodies

Yet parodies about brands are not a new invention, spoofing has emerged as a form of entertainment in social media. Parodies about different brands and advertisements have become normal in different social media platforms, such as Youtube. Previously parodies were distributed mainly by professionals, but nowadays anyone can entertain others in social media. In general, brands and advertisements offer a variety of themes to make fun of. (Fournier and Avery 2011)

The Dove Beauty 'Sketches' ad has been parodied in terms of men's face. Sketches are completely different as men see themselves as more attractive than they are.

Picture 3: Dove sketches parody –men. (Adweek 2013)

When consumers use parody in order to attack a brand and in order to humiliate it, it is time for brand managers to get restless. Rude parodies concerning the core values and positioning can be particularly damaging for any brand. (Fournier and Avery 2011) After Dove’s Real Beauty campaign was launched, some parodies were uploaded into Youtube. They were made about men, with the same idea as “sketches”-video: men were drawn on the basis of their description about themselves, and then, on the basis of another person’s description. The descriptions concerned, depending on the spoof, their faces or their testicles. (AdhocVids 2013; Irakli Kopaliani 2013) Pictures 3 and 4 demonstrate the two parodies.

The Dove Beauty 'Sketches' ad has been parodied to put testicles front and center.

 Picture 4: Dove sketches parody –testicles. (Ma, 2013)

    Be fun if you can –and if not, know your audience

If the brand identity supports the idea of being funny, some marketers themselves can use the idea of silliness and implement “parody” as a selling tactic before consumers do. Indeed, there are some brands who sell by being funny, such as Blendtec. Even though the idea of a kitchen blender is not entertaining, commercials made it funny by blending almost anything. (Fournier and Avery 2011) However, if the brand image does not convert into a funny story, brand managers should realize that their online marketing activities can reach anyone. Even though target group is defined, social media allows other people, who do not even consume the product, share their point-of-views and therefore, have an impact on the co-creation of the brand. (Singh and Sonnenburg 2012)

Demand for transparency and constant criticism are discussed in part 2.

Internet’s development impact on consumers’ behavior in past 10 years and recommendations for marketers’ to adapt successfully

January 12, 2015

Written by Monika Vaiciulyte 

Purpose of the article

There is no denying the fact that the Internet has made a huge development and terrific impact on our daily lives. The main purpose and objectives of the Internet have been changed and adapted partly by society itself and partly by the technological shifts. Business units and entrepreneurs saw it as an opportunity and started to explore the possibilities lying there. The adaptation had to be accepted not only by the managers but from the consumer’s side as well. In this paper the first part is going to focus on the consumer’s changes issue and the second part is going to emphasize on the ways how marketers can adapt to these changes and recommend ways to do it. Including the shift from Web 1.0 where consumer was just the receiver of information and Web 2.0 where the communication and relationships started to matter. Gained experience and understanding of how Internet works allowed consumers to actively participate in the marketing process and be a big part of brand building.

This article is going to present the main changes of the Internet and its impact to the consumers’ behavior, grounded by the statistics available on this theme. Later, the recommendations for marketers will be presented, conducted from the peer articles reviews.

Development of the Internet in last 10 years and consumers’ behavior changes

Growth

Talking about the changes in the Internet I will follow J. Macdaniel (2012) suggested changes that were made upon the usage of Internet during the last ten years. 

The biggest one and the most obvious is the change in the number of users; the growth of Internet usage is just impressive – from more than 500 million Internet users worldwide to 2.7 billion people using it in 2013 which estimates 39% of the world’s population in total. At 2013 Europe was the region with the highest Internet penetration – 75%, while the Americas had 61% penetration (ITU, 2013).

This growth of course was followed by the business development and shift to the Internet as well. The major growth of websites number was witnessed and the statistics say that in 2002 there were roughly 15, 6 million websites and till the 2011 the number grew to 366, 8 million (Statistic brain, 2012). Of course this affected the amount and variety of information available for the users as well as the opportunities created and services available.

After considering the growth of Internet facilities available the next logical step is to review the availability of the broadband access; that leads to the conclusion that Internet, at the beginning was mostly related with work and its needs; just after a while it moved to the households, letting people to use it in a daily life basis as well as for entertainment. As the statistics are providing, nowadays 41% of the world’s households are connected to the Internet, but the region with the highest amount of household connected is still Europe (ITU, 2013). Considering this, it is logical to say that for users the shift from Internet as a work tool was made towards Internet as a daily life supporter.

Meanwhile, while Internet was developing, a growing platform of e-commerce has made its appearance. In 2012, the B2C e-commerce reached 1 trillion dollars, which means that in only one year it grew 21.1% in total. According to the statistics North America was in the first place of e-commerce sales, closely followed by Asia-Pacific region, which in 2013 was expected to outrun North America. Internet accessibility and high penetration in all regions led to the change of consumption habits. As it is visible from the statistics, contemporary consumers are more relying on e-commerce. Authors Ahuja, Gupta and Raman (2003) researched the motivations for the consumers to shop online and the most trending ones were – convenience, better prices, time saving and availability.

Technological changes

A huge step that moved Internet usage and its applications to the next level was the ability to access Internet through the mobile phone. According to the statistics in 2013 the global active mobile broadband subscriptions reached more than two billions. This is 29, 5% of the general population and in these area developing countries outrun the developed countries (mobiThinking, 2013). As it is observed by Kaplan and Haenlein (2010) mobile Internet access in developing countries gives the opportunity to brands and marketers to reach the audience and expand the market shares in certain areas. Mobiles or so-called smart phones are being used not just for searching information and checking e-mails, but also for social media purpose and entertainment. This had a high impact on the Internet usage time and accessibility.

By the time Internet users became more sophisticated and demanding they needed to localize their search results and companies needed geographically targeted consumers; this need was covered by an online service called Google Local (J. Macdaniel, 2012). After a while, as the Internet and its users were developing, Google started to use intuitive or personalized advertisements, composed according to the e-mails content and users search information. Improvements are being done here constantly as the technological side allows specializing and understanding every consumer as a unique personality (B. Rangen, 2011).

The most influencing change that implemented the environment of the Internet itself was the appearance of various social platforms. Moreover, it had a tremendous influence on users’ interactions and activity online. The emergence of blogs, forums and other platforms where people can create virtual communities and interact with each other empowered users to let the particular brand or company to the community or not. It is the place where users have the power and are able to set up the so called “game rules”. For example fashion bloggers who became famous and powerful because of their social media usage or the companies that created buzz around their brand using videos that became viral, like Vodafone flash mob in the Heathrow airport. As Fournier and Avery (2011) are explaining in their article – brands rushed into the social media, expecting that users are waiting for their one way messages and more information about products; but that was not the case. People came to social media to hide themselves from marketers and were not willing to let them in, using the traditional marketing methods.  

The infographic to visualize changes discussed above can be found here.

First step to successful online marketing implementation

In this part the attention is being paid to the social media and its usage by marketers, because this is the area where the influence for consumers could be made, not taking into consideration traditional online advertising methods, like banners and pop ups.

The understanding of Internet changes and their influence on current or potential clients is crucial for successful e-marketing. Being aware of the consumer activities and attitudes is not enough. New marketers need to know the whole social media ecosystem, to be able to create and maintain flawless strategy and not getting lost with the messages spread to their consumers. As  Hanna, Rohm and Crittenden (2011) are explaining in their work, one of the biggest mistake that a company can do is to treat all the platforms separately and not synchronized with each other and with marketing strategy. However, Internet based marketing cannot be treated as a substitute for the traditional marketing. Marketers need to understand that in social media there is no monologue, consumers are receiving the messages and deciding to start a dialogue or ignore it.

Social media platforms as a connected online environment

Social media usage for better consumers’ understanding

After understanding the social media environment and the principles of how to manage it as a system, it is time to dig deeper into the usage of it. Knowing the tendency that Internet users are keen on spending more and more money online and trusting e-commerce, marketers can conduct the online shopper’s segmentation as it is suggested by Aljukhadar and Senecal (2010). Used to identify characteristics of buyers segments it could help marketers make a decision to move part of their sales online, provide 24/7 online shopping support or any other service to encourage and lead consumer to purchase action. In this case author’s example can be used when the emails inviting consumers to shop in actual shop were used by providing a special discount offer.

Similarly, the social media networks can be used to illuminate consumer world and create better understanding about their environment and problems they are facing (P. Barwise, S. Meehan, 2010). It leads rather more to innovating than instant growth of the sales, but at the long perspective, solving consumer’s problems and making certain things easier, more comfortable or even more entertaining, might drive sales up eventually and create positive brand/company reputation.

Moving even deeper in the online marketing, the analyzed Internet development and usage changes are showing that mobile connection with Internet is growing fast and that needs to be observed and considered by marketers too. Firstly, it can help to gather information in real time; for example from check ins and comments made during the visit, till the particular emotions that a person felt there. Combining this knowledge together with the modern technologies, marketers can reach a great communication level, which might feel like one- to-one marketing and give back some power to the companies (Andreas M. Kaplan, 2012). The author also presented the 4 I’s (integrate, individualize, involve, initiate) model that can be used as a powerful tool by marketers to create, engage and implement relationships with their consumers.

When talking about the creating of relationships, it is necessary to mention that certain loyalty for the brand or company in social platforms can grow into the online communities that could provide incredibly valuable advertising, through e- word of mouth, straight to the potential and undecided consumers. The consumers themselves might create the content and perception of a certain brand.  This is one more niche that marketers can explore and use to improve relations with Internet users.  Collaboration with consumer’s communities is also being discussed by Antorini, Muñiz, Jr. and Askildsen (2012) who are providing the example of Lego group when the desire to collaborate came from its adult users. The main idea and lesson taken from this case is that after observing people’s want and aspiration to participate in the product creation or development, Lego management provided them with the communicational platform and gave them the tools in order to collaborate with the company. In this way marketers might get not only the valuable ideas for the future product lines and implementations, but also collect information about their users. Some particular expertise knowledge helping to develop and innovate could be gained too. Consumer generated content can be developed and empowered by using Muñiz Jr. and Schau (2011) proposed steps :

• Systematically employ consumer created content in their long term marketing campaigns;
• Consider the role of the firm in facilitating prolonged CGC endeavors;
• Actively encourage collaborative CGC.

However, consumer skills should be examined before investing a lot of time and money to this process.

Conclusion

Having observed the main developments of the Internet (growth and technological) and its effect on the consumer behavior the recommendations for the marketers have been made.

The most important thing in this constantly changing and vital environment called Internet is to keep scanning the periphery for the new technologies coming, appearance of the new social channels or other signals that the environment is likely to make a shift again. As Day and Schoemaker are claiming – being aware of the signals from environment that can have an effect on marketing and business itself, might provide not just understanding about threats on the way, but enlighten the opportunities as well.

The recommendations for marketers are:

• Before jumping into the online and social media marketing to be aware of its environment and understand that it works as a system;
• Conducting the online shoppers segmentation might help to characterize consumers;
• Using social media channels can help to illuminate the so called consumers world;
• Spotting the new coming Internet usage trends – as for now it is mobile Internet usage and try to implement in marketing plan;
• Provide consumers the opportunity to participate and be part of the brand. Provide a platform and facilitate this process.

To sum up, it is just a small list of recommendations for the marketers to implement. In order to achieve success, investment of time and practice is needed.

Reference list

Ahuja, M., Gupta, B., Raman, P. (2003). An empirical investigation of online consumer purchasing behavior. Communications of the ACM - Mobile computing opportunities and challenges. 46 (12), p145-151.

Aljukhadar, M., Senecal, S. (2011). Segmenting the online consumer market. Marketing Intelligence & Planning. 29 (4), p421- 435.

Antorini, Y. M., Muñiz A. M. Jr., Askildsen, T.. (2012). Collaborating with Consumer Communities: Lessons From the Lego Group. MIT Sloan Management Review. 53 (3), p73- 79.

Barwise, P., Meehan, S. (2010). The one thing you must get right when building a brand. Harvard Business Review. p80- 84.

Day, G. S., Schoemaker, P. J. H. (2005). Scanning the periphery. Tool kit. Harvard Business Review. Noverber, p1- 13.

Dyer, P. (2013). How the Internet has Changed in the Last 10 Years [Infographic]. Available: http://www.pamorama.net/2012/10/06/how-the-Internet-has-changed-in-the-last-10-years-infographic/. Last accessed 12th Feb 2014.

eMarketer. (2013). Ecommerce Sales Topped $1 Trillion for First Time in 2012. Available: http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Ecommerce-Sales-Topped-1-Trillion-First-Time-2012/1009649. Last accessed 6th Feb 2014.

Fournier, S., Avery, J. (2011). The uninvited brand. Business Horizons, Kelley School of Business, Indiana University. 54, 193-207.

Hanna R., Rohm A., Crittenden L.V. (2011). We’re all connected: The power of the social media ecosystem. Business Horizons, Kelley School of Business, Indiana University. 54, p265- 273.

International Telecommunication Union. (2013). ICT Facts and Figures. Available: http://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Statistics/Documents/facts/ICTFactsFigures2013-e.pdf. Last accessed 6th Feb 2014.

Kaplan, A. M. (2012). If you love something, let it go mobile: Mobile marketing and mobile social media 4x4. Business Horizons, Kelley School of Business, Indiana University. 55, p129- 139.

Kaplan, A. M., Haenlein, M. (2009). Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of Social Media. Business Horizons, Kelley School of Business, Indiana University. 53 (1), p.59- 68.

Macdaniel, J.. (2012). 10 Years, 10 Ways The Internet Has Changed and Changed Us. Available: http://www.1stclickconsulting.com/blogs/1st-click-works/2012/04/02/10-years--10-ways-the-Internet-has-changed--and-changed-us. Last accessed 6th Feb 2014.

mobiThinking. (2013). Global mobile statistics 2013 Part B: Mobile Web; mobile broadband penetration; 3G/4G subscribers and networks. Available: http://mobithinking.com/mobile-marketing-tools/latest-mobile-stats/b#mobilebroadband. Last accessed 6th Feb 2014.

Muñiz, A. M. Jr., Schau, J. H. (2011). How to inspire value-laden collaborative consumer-generated content. Business Horizons, Kelley School of Business, Indiana University. 54, p209- 217.

Rangen, B. (2011). Gmail Plans for More Intuitive Ads. Available: http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2049807/Gmail-Plans-for-More-Intuitive-Ads. Last accessed 10th Feb 2014.

Statistic brain. (2012). Total Number of Websites. Available: http://www.statisticbrain.com/total-number-of-websites/. Last accessed 6th Feb 2014.

A Facebook guide on web 2.0

January 8, 2015

Written by Mathias Miller Thorneman

Abstract

The web has changed dramatically from web 1.0 to web 2.0. The change has been rapid, and has implicitly and explicitly implied a plethora of changes for both consumers and marketers. The consumer has been emancipated, given a voice and has consequently become a force, which has dethroned the marketers, and deprived them of their dominance. The tools that made this possible were the advent of social platforms that exist in variations on web 2.0. The various platforms offer a differentiated utilization scheme; herein the social networks are of particular interest. Based on the particular interest on social networks a Facebook guide is constructed to allow an eased and more successful employment of the social network.  The Facebook guide employs specific emphasis on understanding how the media functions, but also to development and control of posts and content.

Purpose

The purpose of this article is to shed light on what the Internet is today and to explore and understand the platforms web 2.0 offers. Hereafter the article will address and act as a guide for construction and development of social media communication with a particular focus on the platform Facebook. To accommodate the questions at hand in an optimal manner the composition of data for this article is based on academic litterateur, journals, blogs and lastly examples are applied to illustrate and underline points, in particular for the Facebook guide.   

The birth of contemporary Internet

Since the birth of the Internet the online aspect of our lives have become evermore consuming, and far reaching. The impact of the Internet has without doubt left deep marks, and forever changed the way we communicate, shop, work, and search for information. Norms that existed for millennia evaporated at the speed of light with the introduction of web 1.0 (Hanna, Rohm & Crittenden 2011), and a new era proclaimed it’s importance by the introduction of communities (Seraj 2012), blogs, micro-blogs and social networks (Weinberg & Pehlivan 2011), namely a era characterized by a reciprocal flow and co-creation of information (Singh & Sonnenburg 2012). In geeky circles this era is referred to as web 2.0 (Weinberg & Pehlivan 2011).  Collectively this myriad of platforms wherein co-creation (Singh & Sonneburg 2012, Hanna, Rohm & Crittenden 2011) takes place is referred to as Social Media. Within these social media platforms consumers are now advocating events, brands, products and experiences though an electronic word-of-mouth (eVOM) which have become significantly important (Akar & Topcu 2011). Thereby, emancipating the consumer and empowering him/her to play a decisive role in the success or failure scenario, which unfolds before the marketer on the web 2.0 (Papasolomou & Melantbiou 2012). By understanding, listening and co-creating knowledge and content with consumers through social platforms marketers have an unprecedented opportunity to strike gold, eureka!, by meeting consumer needs (Chrisodoulides 2009, Hanna, Rohm & Crittenden 2011).  Consequently this has let consumers to expect that they will play an active part in the media process (Hanna, Rohm & Crittenden 2011), and left the marketer in a role where he must fit in rather then dominate (Deighton & Kornfeld 2009).

With an understanding of what contemporary Internet offers consumers and marketers, focus is directed towards the platforms that facilitate the revolution web 2.0 ushered in. Therefore a closer examination of the platforms is conducted.

Flourishing platforms on web 2.0

The many platforms web 2.0 offers segmented into four primary categories, namely blogs, communities, micro-blogs and social networks (Weinberg & Pehlivan 2011).  Although the platforms operate and co-exist simultaneously on web 2.0 the purpose of the user and marketer utilization of the platforms differ dramatically. In the box below utilization purposes are displayed.

The box above is based on Seraj 2012, Weinberg & Pehlivan 2011.

As exhibited in the box above, there are various overall and sub decisions to be made prior to engagement of web 2.0. The importance and the potential of these platforms are becoming widely recognised, as they offer a unique opportunity to monitor, engage, share, collaborate with, which in turn hopefully leads to (brand) evangelism (Weinberg & Pehlivan 2011). But what is it these platforms offer the consumer on web 2.0? In accordance to Deighton & Kornfeld (Deighton & Kornfeld 2009) a five category scale is suggested, wherein one factor is of particular interest, namely Cultural Exchange. Cultural Exchange implies that the marketer aspires cultural production, which is then incorporated in groups or by individuals (Deighton & Kornfeld 2009). A recent example of this is Coca Cola’s online ‘Share a coke’ campaign which has been widely spread throughout all of the four platforms: micro-blogs, communities, blogs and social networks. Through the campaign users are encouraged to share a digital Coca Cola with friends.

A phenomena like Facebook is perceived to one of the most potent social media platforms as Facebook in particular enables cultural exchange, and functions as a facilitator of identity projection, and collective ascription of meaning and identity (Deighton & Kornfeld 2009).  

In sum, this article has suggested that web 2.0 have catapulted consumers and marketers into a more egalitarian paradigm that is nourished and rejuvenated through various platforms. In addition, it was suggested that especially platforms that presented possibility of cultural exchange were in particular potent. To provide a deeper understanding of the utilization of a potent platform (Deighton & Kornfeld 2009) in praxis the following section will function as a guide to social network platform, namely Facebook (www.facebook.com).

The Facebook guide will serve for inexperienced and novice marketers to avoid the contemporary pitfalls on Facebook and to seize and obtain most possible “bang for your buck”.

The Facebook guide

The focus of this guide will be on Facebook as it is the largest, and the most utilized platform, in addition Facebook is subject to increasing utilization from users (Bayer 2014). Furthermore, consumers on Facebook who becomes fans/followers tend to be more loyal; more open for information, visit the brand store more and generate (e)VOM (Vries, Gensler & Leeflang 2012). Having underlined the importance of the platform the Facebook guide will now proceed to examine a number of considerations a marketer will have to be aware off when interacting with future fans and followers.

Understanding Facebook

The first step of the Facebook guide is to develop an understanding how Facebook functions. With Facebooks new algorithm brands can no longer rely on somewhat random fans or followers (Pedersen 2014). The new fan or follower must now live up to a complex range of criteria, which will make Facebook rate the fan/follower interested in your brands material. In short, although your fan-base may be 10.000, only 1.000 may actually see your post, as Facebook estimates the rest to be uninterested in your post (Pedersen 2014). This Facebook guide therefore suggests and underlines the importance of intense focus on content that will intrigue your brands loyal fans/followers (Magid 2014).  Furthermore, the algorithm also emphasizes the importance of shares, likes and comments of your post. By having your fan/follower base share, like and comment on your post Facebook will perceive your post as more important and relevant and hereby increase the posts range. This fact becomes particular interesting when taking Metcalfe’s law into consideration. Metcalfe’s law suggest that the value of a social network increases in proportion to the square of its connections (Hanna, Rohm & Crittenden 2011).

Adding ‘likes’ to your post

In accordance with quantitative research the number of likes on your post can be affected by the vividness of the post (Vries, Gensler & Leeflang 2012). By submitting content in the form of an embedded video (Magid 2014) or more participation oriented material, such as a contest. Another mean of attracting ‘likes’ to your post is by making it more attractive, by trying to get positive comments on the post (Caballero 2014).

Adding ‘comments’ to your post

An effective method of comment generation can be by taking advantage of the intuitive human, simply by posting a question many are drawn to provide an answer. Regardless whether the post reply is positive or negative the amount of post interest is believed to rise (Vries, Gensler & Leeflang 2012). In addition, it is advised that the marketer remains in sight for the fan/follower, and encourages and acknowledges the fan/follower with incentive, whether it be a ‘thanks’ or a ‘giftcard’ (Sandes & Urdan 2013).

Content control

An important aspect of this Facebook guide is how to manage your post content. Without a prober post content management one can rapidly experience hijacking or harsh critique (Singh & Sonneburg 2012). In layman terms a notion of ‘tension’ between marketer and fan/follower is suggested, wherein personal, internal and external tension exist (Singh & Sonneburg 2012). The essential outcome is to aspire a captivating brand by continuous re-assessing bonds of tension, and utilizing more types of tension simultaneously. In example this entails providing excitement, provocation and challenging the fan/followers perception, hence adding to the cultural exchange (Deighton & Kornfeld 2009).

Aber dabei….

Ironically, what makes your post more attractive to ‘likes’ consequently decreases the attractiveness in relation to ‘comments’ and vice versa. As such the marketer must be aware when designed posts, will the post be ‘like’ or ‘comment’ oriented? Perhaps a combination between the two can work? Regardless of choice the marketer must be conscious about the potential a well designed post has, raising the correct question, attracting your brands core fans/followers and seeing your message spread like rings in the water. Moreover this process allows for collection of data and increased understanding of your audience (Chrisodoulides 2009, Hanna, Rohm & Crittenden 2011).  Conversely the marketer most also be aware that receiving negative comments is not necessarily equal to failure or misunderstanding of this Facebook guide. Through negative comments much can be learned about thoughts, desires and feelings about your brand. It is therefore paramount that negative comments are not perceived as a failure or irrelevant and annoying noise, but rather as a chance to learn and collaborate with your fans/followers (Vries, Gensler & Leeflang 2012). It is only a failure if you fail to learn from it! Moreover, marketers whom decide to apply facebook must also consider that the platform is relatively often subject to algorithm alteration, which explicitly manifests itself as re-strategizing for marketers. Thus it is a media that requires continuous care and attention to remain valid.

Conclusion

The consumer have been emancipated and given a voice on web 2.0. The marketer is now dependant on sharing, listening and collaborating with the consumer. An array of opportunities has arisen for the consumer, but also for the marketer. In effect these opportunities unfold upon platforms on web, and in this article the social networking platform Facebook was targeted due to its relevance, popularity and unique features for content. Through the Facebook guide it was concluded that an understanding of Facebook as a platform is paramount in order to launch a successful campaign. Moreover there was shed light upon the do’s and don’ts when marketers are aiming for ‘likes’, ‘comments’ and content control and the oxymoron it is to master all at once.  Lastly it was concluded that negative fan/follower ‘comments’ are opportunities for further learning about your consumers.

Reference list

Articles

Akar, B, Topsu, (2013), “An examination of factors influencing consumers’ choice of social media marketing”, Journal of Internet Commerce, 10(1), 35-67.

Chrisodoulides, G. (2009), “Branding in the post-internet era”, Marketing Theory, 9, 141.

Deighton, J. and Kornfeld, L. (2009), “Interactivity's Unanticipated Consequences for Marketers and Marketing”, Journal of Interactive Marketing, 23, p. 4-10.

Hanna, R., Rohm, A. and Crittenden, V. (2011), “We’re all connected: the power of the social media ecosystem”, Business Horizons, 54, 265-273.

Papasolomou, I.  & Melanthiou, Y. (2013), “Social Media: Marketing Public Relations ‘New Best Friend”, Journal of Promotion Management, 18(3), 319-328.

Sandes, F.S. & A. T. Urdan (2013), ” Electronic Word-of-Mouth Impacts on Consumer Behavior: Exploratory and Experimental Studies”, Journal of International Consumer Marketing, 25(3), 181-197.

Seraj, M. (2012), We Create, We Connect, We Respect, Therefore We Are: Intellectual, Social, and Cultural Value in Online Communities, Journal of Interactive Marketing 26, 209–222. *

Singh, S. & S. Sonnenburg (2012), Brand Performances in Social Media”, Journal of Interactive Marketing 26, 189–197.

Vries, L. & S. Gensler & P. S.H. Leeflang, (2012),” Popularity of Brand Posts on Brand Fan Pages: An Investigation of the Effects of Social Media Marketing”, Journal of Interactive Marketing 26, 83–91.*

Weinberg, B.D. and Pehlivan, E. (2011), “Social spending: managing the social media mix”, Business Horizons, 54, 275-282.

Web pages 

Bayer, Jay. (2014). 3 ways to fight facebooks algorithm and customize your feed. Available: http://www.convinceandconvert.com/facebook/3-ways-to-fight-facebooks-algorithm-and-customize-your-feed/. Last accessed 13-02-2014.

Caballero , Luis. (2014). marketers make facebooks algorithm. Available: http://adage.com/article/digitalnext/marketers-make-facebook-s-algorithm/291050/. Last accessed 13-02-2014.

Magid, Larry. (2014). Facebook tweaks newsfeed algorithm again .Available: http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrymagid/2014/01/21/facebook-tweaks-news-feed-algorithm-again/. Last accessed 12-02-2014.

Pedersen, Hedegaard Lars. (2014). Fusk med Facebook annoncer. Available: http://markedsforing.dk/artikler/digitalt/fusk-med-facebook-annoncer. Last accessed 14-02-2014.

How social media are changing Television, with a focus on Twitter

January 5, 2015

Written by Alessio Stringari

Introduction

In the last few years internet and social media changed completely our daily lives. The way in which we relate with other persons has radically mutated since the introduction of social media like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Nowadays news travel at the speed of a tweet, everyone with its smartphone has become a reporter, with just a finger touch users can spread news about accidents, natural phenomenon, sport etc. These innovations not only are changing people’s lives but also the “old” mass media have to adapt themselves in order to “survive” in this new environment. According to Hermida & Thurman (2008) websites such as YouTube, MySpace and Wikipedia enable any user to upload videos, comments, photos and much more online, becoming what is defined as User Generated Content (UGC). At this point newspapers, broadcasters, radios have to make a decision: embrace this new technological and social development or risk to face shrinking figures in the number of customers.

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to analyse how social media and in particular social networks like Twitter are changing the principal mass media or rather the television. The approach of this essay is composed of a first part based on a literature review to examine the existing works concerning this phenomenon and in the second part the focus is on three different case studies that aim to explore deeply the potentiality of social media in the Television business.

Literature Review

As often happens with new technologies and internet related innovations also the terms social media and social networks are frequently misunderstood or used as a synonym. Although this implication is wrong because the two terms have different meanings that now we are going to define. Social media as claimed by Kaplan & Haenlein (2010) is a set of different internet applications established in the Web 2.0 environment that allows the creation and sharing of User Generated Content. Furthermore as stated by Mangold & Faulds (2009, p.358) “Social media encompasses a wide range of online, word-of-mouth forums including blogs, company-sponsored discussion boards and chat rooms, consumer-to-consumer e-mail, consumer product or service ratings websites and forums, Internet discussion boards and forums, moblogs (sites containing digital audio, images, movies, or photographs), and social networking websites, to name a few”. Therefore social networks like Twitter, Facebook and Google+ are just a slice of a broader entity named Social Media.  The cases in the coming part are based on the social platform Twitter, therefore in this section we explain what this website is about and how does it work.

Twitter is a social network and microblogging website founded in 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Noah Glass, Evan Williams and Biz Stone. This particular social media “allows people to publish (tweet), reply to, and forward posts that cannot exceed 140-characters in length” (Smith, Fischer & Yongjian 2012, p.103).  Every user has a profile page, where is possible to find all the texts or “tweets” sent by this particular user. Although Twitter is not limited to publish something in your personal board, every tweet has the capability to reach potentially every person registered on Twitter (except the case of private profile, in that case only the followers can read the tweet).

One of the main characteristic of Twitter is the use of the so called “hashtag”, that means writing the word or argument that interest you and put at the beginning the # symbol. In this way you can show to your followers that you are talking about a specific topic and by clicking on the hashtag you are able to see all the tweets regarding this topic.

A research conducted from Jansen et al. (2009) shows that 19% of the tweets analysed mention either a company, organization or product brand. Furthermore 20% of these tweets are about expressing opinion, personal point of view, positive and negative feedback about brands, company or products. This figure shows how the word-of-mouth generated on Twitter and other similar social network can have a significant impact on the companies mentioned.

Over the centuries word-of-mouth (WOM) has been considered as a vis-à-vis conversation between customers, consumers about a product or a service experience (Sen & Lerman, 2007). Yet we now live in a high technological environment, where WEB 2.0 is at hand from morning to night; for WEB 2.0 we meant all the “computer network-based platforms upon which social media application/tools run or function.” (Weinberg & Pehlivan, 2011). Consequently we have to distinguish between the old-fashioned WOM and the brand new Electronic WOM, eWOM include any comment, both positive and negative, made by current, potential or past consumer about a specific company, product or service through the use of Internet and WEB 2.0 based applications (Hennig-Thurau et al., 2004).

Focusing on the television business, one of the daily choices of every viewer is about which television shows, news and broadcaster decide to pick. As suggested by Romaniuk (2007) one of the common assumption about WOM is that dissatisfied people share more their negative experiences compared to satisfied users, in order to prove it the author analysed  the effect of WOM in the selection of different tv shows. The results indicate that the reach of WOM was mostly low, but positive word of mouth was prevalent and likely to influence people compared to negative word of mouth. 

Nowadays in the modern environment, more and more power is gained by the “WOM 2.0”, and Twitter, due to the characteristics discussed before, can be selected as the ideal social media where people are able to share their opinions. As mentioned by Hanna et al. (2011), interactive technologies enabled the change from a passive WEB 1.0 model to an active and participant WEB 2.0, where consumers are both the initiators and receivers of information and contents. In the following section we are going to analyse how practically social media are changing television, using examples from TV shows, sitcoms, Breaking News and the social network Twitter.   

Case studies

I.         TV Shows

Taking a cue from the inspiring article of Hanna et al. (2011) we are going to examine how the Twitter community, without any organised campaign, can affect a TV show. In the mentioned academic research it has been analysed the effects of a social media campaign on the American music show Grammy Awards, which helped to achieve the best ratings in years. The show was nominated program of the week with more than 26 million viewers and an increase of 32% in the profitable segment of 18-34 year old.

Otherwise the example chosen for this paper is the Italian Music Festival of Sanremo, the most important music award in Italy, first broadcasted in 1951 which in the last years experienced shrinking number of viewers and low percentage of young audience.

The purpose of this case is to prove, or at least show, that eWOM can impact the viewing results of a TV show even without any organised campaign from the show producers.

During the 2012 edition (in the years prior to 2012 Twitter was barely known in Italy) more than 244.000 tweets were using the hashtag #sanremo, with an average of almost 50.000 per evening (source: tech.fanpage.it). As shown in the table below, the red lines representing the number of viewers (in thousands) have a similar trend as the blue line which stand for the number of tweets mentioning #sanremo. Even we can only assume there is a positive correlation between the number of tweet and the number of viewers, additionally we have to consider that #sanremo related words were in the Twitter trend topics during all the Festival days and that created even more eWOM.

img “stringari_image” alt=”Sanremo data 2012"

Source: techfanpage.it

II.         Breaking News

Compared to other Social Media like Facebook or YouTube, Twitter is considerably faster and straightaway. Many political leaders now communicate theirs ideas and statements first on Twitter, for instance Enrico Letta (Italian prime minister), on the 13th  of February 2014 posted on Twitter that he was going to resign as prime minister the following day. Twitter hence has become one of the main sources of information for news broadcaster all over the world; it is not possible for them to avoid it, they are “compelled” of using Twitter both in order to get news and share news.

Another major example of the capability of Twitter is during extraordinary events like earthquakes. Taking once more Italy as a model, during a recent earthquake that hit a region in the north east, Twitter was the first source of information, with users promptly tweeting using the hashtag #terremoto (earthquake in Italian). Even before the office of Geology released any press report about the epicentre and power of the seism, it was possible through the number and geolocalization of the tweets attest quite precisely where the earthquake hit most. Moreover Twitter was not just a social media, it has been used to help rescuing persons from remote zone where the landline communications were damaged.

img “stringari_image1” alt=”terremoto hashtag earthquake”

Source: Focus.it

  III.         Sitcoms 

Previously we analysed how social media transformed TV Shows and Breaking News, but also TV series have been affected by this innovation. When any of the most famous sitcoms like “How I Met Your Mother” or “The Big Bang Theory” are aired, on Twitter the spectators immediately start to comment their favourite scenes using the dedicated hashtag and at the same time interact with other fans to share their personal opinions. But since not all the viewers of a sitcom are able to watch it live, the phenomenon of the “spoilers” grown considerably in importance, for spoiler it meant the fact of commenting in a place (for instance Twitter or Facebook) where other persons interested in the show could be “spoilered” by reading some comments that will break the surprise effect.

Can broadcasters do more other than invite people to comment using the dedicated hashtag? Yes, they do, an interesting sample is the exploiting of Twitter from the producer of “The Big Bang Theory”, whom created for each character of the sitcom a personal Twitter page (using the artistic name) that allows them to enhance eWOM even in the days that the TV series is not aired.

img “stringari_image2” alt=”Sheldon Cooper Twitter”

Source: Twitter.com

General Discussion and Conclusion

Even if the aim of this paper was very challenging, I found this topic particularly interesting to research and the analysis of a phenomenon like social network could be rewarding and demanding at the same time. The findings show that television is not fastened in the “World 1.0”, it is moving following the latest social trends, especially in order to not lose younger audiences.

As mentioned by Chorianopoulos & Lekakos (2008) Television is moving towards a concept of Social TV, where viewer are not passively watching contents but they are actively participating and interacting. This could be achieved thanks to the latest technologies, such as interactive televisions or more often via smartphone and social media applications.

Albeit Twitter is not the social network with the largest number of users, it is growing at exponential rate all over the world, and as shown in the previous cases is having a remarkable effect on the television galaxy, definitely changing it. 

References

Chorianopoulos, K. & Lekakos, G., 2008. Introduction to social TV: Enhancing the shared experience with interactive TV. INTL. JOURNAL OF HUMAN–COMPUTER INTERACTION, 24(2), pp. 113-120.

Focus.it, n.d. [Online]
Available at: http://www.focus.it/scienza/dove-si-e-sentito-il-terremoto-21062013_7844_C12.aspx
[Accessed 10 February 2014].

Hanna, Rohm & Crittenden, 2011. We're all connected: the power of the social media ecosystem. Business horizons, Volume 54, pp. 265-273.

Hennig-Thurau, Gwinner, Walsh & Gremler, 2004. Electronic word-of-mouth via consumer-opinion platforms: what motivates consumers to articulate themselves on the internet?. Journal of interactive marketing, 18(1), pp. 38-52.

Hermida, A. & Thurman, N., 2008. A Clash of Cultures. Journalism Practice , 2(3), pp. 343-356.

Jansen, Zhang, Sobel & Chowdury, 2009. Twitter power: tweets as electronic word of mouth. Journal of the American society for information science and technology , Issue 60, pp. 2169-2188.

Kaplan, A. M. & Haenlein, M., 2010. Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of Social Media. Business Horizon, Issue 53, pp. 59-68.

Mangold, G. & Faulds, D., 2009. Social Media: the new hybrid element of the promotion mix. Business Horizons, Issue 52, pp. 357-365.

Romaniuk, J., 2007. Word of mouth and the viewing of television programs. Journal of advertising research, pp. 462-471.

Sen, S. & Lerman, D., 2007. Why are you telling me this? An examination into negative consumer reviews on the web. Journal of interactive marketing, 21(4), pp. 76-94.

Smith, A., Fischer, E. & Yongjia, C., 2012. How does brand-related user-generated content differ across Youtube, Facebook and Twitter?. Journal of interactive marketing, Issue 26, pp. 102-113.

Techfanpage.it, n.d. [Online]
Available at: http://tech.fanpage.it/twitter-i-dati-finali-del-festival-di-sanremo/
[Accessed 10 February 2014].

Twitter, n.d. Twitter.com. [Online]
Available at: https://twitter.com/
[Accessed 10 February 2014].

Weinberg, B. & Pehlivan, E., 2011. Social spending: managing the social media mix. Business Horizons, Issue 54, pp. 275-282.

BRAND BUILDING BY CROWDFUNDING

January 1, 2015

Written by Master Student at Lund University

Introduction

When creating a new venture, a successful establishment of the brand is a crucial activity in customer acquisition process and order to create a favourable reputation (Bresciani & Eppler, 2010). Small enterprises generate economic growth and create working opportunities to the society. However, banks are often reluctant to take risks and venture capital firms looking for bigger companies and require quick results. This denotes difficulties for new ventures to obtain financing through traditional approaches and to even get started with the business idea (CrowdCube, 2013). Moreover, with today’s noise in the market sphere, it is extremely important for the new venture to stand out and build a brand in order to survive. There are several channels where entrepreneurs can promote and communicate their brand. As the new media landscape opens up for opportunities it also raises challenges, such as building establish a brand in a short time and send a consistent message regarding the brand value (Winer, 2009).

A relatively new path to get funding and market validation in an early stage is through crowdfunding. In this short paper, I will examine the topic of crowdfunding as a tool to build brand awareness through social media channels. In order to observe this further, I aim to define the area of crowdfunding, start-up branding and the essence of word-of-mouth in an online setting. Additionally, I will base the discussion trough thoughts from an entrepreneur that started a venture through a crowdfunding campaign.

The basics of crowdfunding

Crowdfunding platforms occur over several sectors from non-profit purposes to consumer products to music and film production. Commonly, these platforms consist of three actors; the receiver seeking financing, the public financing platform and the individuals that provides with financial support. The crowd platform acts as a link between the project and the financers (Ordanini et al., 2011).  Crowdfunding can take various forms such a donation, reward or pre-emption or capital model through equity or loans (Hemer, 2011). Belleflamme, Lambert and Schwienbacher (2007, s.7) defines the topic as ”Crowdfunding involves an open call, essentially through the Internet, for the provision of financial resources either in form of donations (without rewards) or in ex-change for some form of reward and/or voting rights in order to support initiatives for specific purposes". Belleflamme, Lambert and Schwienbacher (2011) indicates that there are three main reasons why people engage and support crowdfunding; following the process of a new product that never been launched, a pre-order of a certain product before it reaches the mass-market and identify themselves as privileged financers that partake in a community.

Brand your start-up

According to Rode and Vallaster (2005) studies of branding is a very unique phenomenon in the context of start-ups and claim that further researches in this area is necessary. This is further discussed by Bresciani and Eppler (2010), claim the field of branding on new ventures to be an under-explored area and its marketing strategies cannot be directly copied of established firms for success. For example, start-up branding distinguishes from established firms in terms of no rooted identity, spread reputation and lack of organizational structures (Bresciani & Eppler, 2010). Additionally, the limited resources such as capital, knowhow and time are also typical issues for new ventures.

Since the entrepreneur is responsible for many areas of the business, Barbu et al. (2009) findings were showing that the marketing strategies mainly surrounded sales. This research declared that the branding strategies were hard to overcome due to lack of managerial competence. Moreover, almost all start-ups are focusing on one product or service. In the context of small ventures, Resnick and Cheng (2011) claim the firm’s branding cannot be separated from the owner’s personal brand. As product and entrepreneur cannot be distinguished from the each other, the branding could be seen as one. 

Social Media Branding

The web is a unique social environment with the ability to link a piece of content to another, which creates content webs that contain value (Akar & Topsu, 2013). Social media is applicable in various fields from customer management, market intelligence and research to public relations and promotions. Social media is today a vital tool for marketers from both small and large firms to spread their message to customers. An advantage of social media branding is the possibility to gain effective and relatively cheap customer insights such as feedback, attitudes and analyse customer movements (Barwise & Meehn, 2010). 

From the consumers’ perspective, social media provides the ability to generate and share information about firms and products, influence buying behaviour and a vast effect on brand reputation. When a firm is present on social media communities, it’s possible for the customer to interact around the clock. From the firm’s perspective it is, according to Barwise & Meehan (2010), essential but hard to sacrifice control of the brand’s channel. Word-of-mouth regarding customer opinions are perceived to be more trustful in comparison to the firms marketing efforts (Akar & Topsu, 2013). Thus, social media has a great (positive or negative) impact on the firms sales and as claimed by Kietzmann et. al (2011), ultimately the impact on the firms continued existence. Moreover, Singh and Sonnenburg (2012) examine the essence of co-creation storytelling, which implies that the customer can actively affect the content and distribution of the message. This active participation forms a feeling of belonging to a community. The firms should consequently focus on generate connection among its followers, rather than promote its brand and commercials.

The Crowdfunder Discussion

Due to the time frame for this project I concluded that a convenience sampling would be most suitable. This sampling process is a non-probability sampling process that entails my accessibility to the respondent, thus I highlight the lack of generalizability (Bryman & Bell, 2011, p. 190).

An interview was held with an entrepreneur of a new consumer product that crowdfunded during ten weeks in 2013. The entrepreneur recalls the starting phase to take a long time, since the idea needed to be clearly conceptualized before the crowdfunding campaign. The campaign was the first representation of the product, “Since we’re aiming at the ‘ordinary people’ we wanted to see if the backers (people that found in an idea) liked it first” the entrepreneur said. When I ask about their branding strategies, my respondent is hesitating a bit before saying, “We got our concept, however crowdfunding will help supporters to create the brand and we will to some extent adapt accordingly”.

My interpretation after this discussion is supported by (Bresciani & Eppler, 2010) in the sense of lacking organizational structure and a rooted identity. The entrepreneur continues, “The invisible presence in social media before the crowdfunding launch was an active choice”. Social media accounts for the start-up was created just before the launch, “We wanted to come from nowhere and ride on the wave”.

The advantage of a crowdfunding campaign is the ability to get natural spread. “Our campaign becomes very intimate, since the viewers can grasp our passion about our project. If we did a more traditional commercial, it could be harder to portray or vision”. The entrepreneur is thinking in the same terms as Singh and Sonnenburg (2012) regarding the focus on the content story and not the brand itself. The entrepreneur continues with the importance of gaining trust and let the customers’ out from a passive role, “Our campaign is not an advertisement, or we can pass the “filter” being perceived as one because we simply ask for cooperation and engagement”.

Learning and conclusion

Crowdfunding has indeed redesigned the innovation sphere. Small venture should interact as a personal friendship during the brand building process, which is a strategy that is impossible apply by big firms. That would enable the entrepreneurs to not fear the loose of control, since the customers feel that the venture is theirs. Crowdfunding is a great tool for start-ups to get market validation at an early stage and engage personally through social media channels. Furthermore, I believe that crowdfunding opens up for the entrepreneur to faster form their brand identity. Additionally, crowdfunding has the possibility to build brands before the start-up is created, potential customers help with feedback, money and engagement to build the final product. Thus, the main drawback is the possibility of unique product to be copied. Social media has the ability to facilitate the creation of meaning and highlight the uniqueness of each brand only if start-up finds the formula to consumers’ heart. The challenge remains to target the individual consumer and at the same time please the collective mass. A crowdfunding campaign is made locally and convey a personal feeling, that can be spread and engage globally. To conclude, social media enable start-ups to build personal networks based on small communities around the brand and through crowdfunding the chance of spreading faster increases- This text demonstrate that social media presents the start-up firm the opportunity to tap into the enormous collective intelligence available on the web to build the brand further.

References

Akar, B, Topsu, (2013), “An examination of factors influencing consumers’ choice of social media marketing”, Journal of Internet Commerce, 10(1), 35-67. 

Barbu, M.C., Ogarcă R. F. & Barbu M.C.R. (2009). Branding in small business. Management & Marketing. Vol. VIII. Special issue 1/2010, pp. S31-S38.

Barwise, P. and Meehan, S. (2010), “The one thing you must get right when building a brand”, Harvard Business Review, December.

Belleflamme, P., Lambert, T. & Schwienbacher, A. (2011). Crowdfunding: tapping the right crowd. Center for Operations Research and Econometrics, Discussion paper  2011/32.

Bresciani, S. & Eppler, M. J. (2010). Brand New Ventures? Insights On Start-Ups’ Branding Practices. Journal of Product & Brand Management. Vol.19, Issue. 5. pp. 356 – 366. 

Bryman, Alan. & Bell, Emma. 2011. Business Research Methods Third Edition. Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press

CrowdCube, 2013. Vad är Crodwfunding. Available online:

http://blog.crowdcube.se/vad-ar-crowdfunding/ [Accessed 10 feb 2013]

Hemer, 2011. A snapshot of Crowdfunding. Available online: http://www.isi.fraunhofer.de/isi-media/docs/p/de/arbpap_unternehmen_region/ap_r2_2011.pdf [Accessed 10 feb 2013] 

Kietzmann, J.H., K. Hermkens, I.P., McCarthy & B.S. Silvestreet (2011), “Social media? Get serious! Understanding the functional building blocks of social media”, Business Horizons, 54, 241—251.

Ordanini, A., Miceli, L., Pizzetti, M., & Parasuraman, A. (2011). Crowd-funding: transforming customers into investors through innovative service platforms. Journal of Service Management, 22(4), 443-470.

Singh, S. & S. Sonnenburg (2012), Brand Performances in Social Media”, Journal of Interactive Marketing 26, 189–197.

Rode, V., & Vallaster, C. (2005), “Corporate Branding for Start-ups: The Crucial Role of Entrepreneurs”, Corporate Reputation Review, 8 (2), pp. 121-135 Schmeisser w.,  

Resnick, S., and Cheng, R., 2011. Marketing in SMEs : A proposed ‘4 Ps’ model. Academy of Marketing: Annual Conference, July 2011.

Winer, R.S. (2009), “New communications approaches in marketing: issues and research directions”, Journal of Interactive Marketing 23, 108-117.

Heritage brands storytelling by viral marketing in social media Part 2

December 29, 2014

Written by Onsurang Siripiyavatana

Case and discussion

To illustrate how heritage brands develop viral storytelling in the era of social media where the power of sharing and the perception of brand value are in the hands of consumers. The examples of Thai Life Insurance and Volkswagen will be analyzed from heritage perspective as well as consumer orientation.

Branding in social media era is not only about creativity but also facilitating conversations around the brand. From the heritage perspective, roots down to brand promise and brand essence, heritage brands have track records and many stories to introduce to the audience. Heritage brands have demonstrated successful relation to consumers in the past through its core values and heritage essence hence, it should be able to modify and re-tell the story given the current marketing landscape and the way to stand out in the crowd is to make the brand’s story go viral. In order to go viral, a brand must choose the right story to tell and craft around it, brands must know their targeted audience, learn what the consumers are care about most and do more of that. The new version of the heritage stories provide relevant factor that is consistent to the brand’s core and hence consistent heritage brand image that yield trust, caring and authentic impression to the targeted audience. Thai Life Insurance (TLI) is a heritage brand that is still much relevant today, the key behind this is to take simple product and to promote it by relating the most relevant human emotion to the product. TLI exploited sensitive human emotions and develop extremely effective marketing tool, namely advertisement campaign. The emotional ads have made the brand memorable and placed securely on top of the mind of the consumers.  Take the “Silence of Love” advertisement campaign for example, without directly mentioning about the insurance product, the story of the commercial states: the kids are sometimes ashamed of their parents, but it is their parents who care for them no matter what. The overall tone of the ad is sad and touching which provoke all the positive emotions full of caring, love, family bonding and honesty are then translated into more down-to-earth message: if you care about them, insure them. The “Silence of Love” ad is not the first in the series of TLI emotional advertisement campaign, but it definitely creates a consistent message, and adds to consistent brand story and relevant brand image through the co-creation with the consumers who were impressed by the message delivered. The company made the ads public by broadcasting it through Thai television channels as well as in YouTube. The first channel of distribution is costly but it opens to wider audience and definitely worth it, amongst the crowd of television ads “Silence of Love” gains much attention from audience and creates a viral offline word of mouth impact. In parallel, the company makes the ads available in YouTube to create online viral with a potential to reach endless consumers since they are much more likely to view an advertisement if it is communicated to them from someone they know and not a company.

The language spoken in the ads was Thai, the company later provide English subtitle to enhance the understanding and hence emotional engagement of international audience.

<img src=”Siripiyavatana_image1.jpg” alt=”Silence of Love Thai Life Insurance Advertisement”>

Figure 1) Silence of Love-Thai life insurance commercial (Thailifechannel, 2011)

As a result “Silence of Love” becomes viral because TLI does it right by understanding the culture and know what the consumers want and how to approach it for example Thai audience have the characteristics of sympathetic, sensitive, like to chit chat, social media addict and easy going. The brand works hard to give people something they are willing to talk about, something they can relate to. The series of emotional ads is a catalyst and the tool that the brand use to consciously and continually bake word of mouth into its product. The company gives consumers a reason to talk about its product part of its culture, not just marketing.

Heritage brands on the other side of the world also work hard to understand consumer and find the relevant in brand storytelling. Rules, regulations and restrictions of international marketplace are different, let alone the consumer diversity. A successful marketing story of the brand from one country may not even gain recognition in another country for example Dove’s real beauty campaign was a viral success in the US but the same campaign fails to market in China (Chiu, C., Ip, C. and Silverman, A. 2012). That’s why social media marketers have to be creative and specific, matter to one person first, speak to that person. Volkswagen’s The Fun Theory is a good story of viral success in social media. Volkswagen launches a campaign through The Fun Theory website with the slogan “Be it for yourself, for the environment, or for something entirely different, the only thing that matters is that it’s change for the better”. The brand invited creative people to come up with their ways of making everyday activity more fun.  The Fun Theory campaign is brand’s storytelling tactic that relates to consumers in a given current marketplace and brand’s core messages of being innovative, offering enduring value and responsible (Volkswagen, 2012). One of The Fun Theory award is “The speed camera lottery” the idea behind this is to get more people to obey the speed limit by making it fun to do, this idea was made a reality in Stockholm, Sweden. The Speed Camera Lottery device would photograph all drivers passing beneath it. A portion of the subsequent fines levied against speeders would be pooled in a lottery, with a random winner periodically drawn from the group of speed-limit adherents. The result of this campaign is impressive, according to Volkswagen, average speed before the installation of the Speed Camera Lottery sign on a multilane street was 32 kilometers per hour. That figure dropped to 25 kilometers per hour during a three-day test, despite the device’s inability to issue financial penalties.  The short films documenting the projects went viral and it invokes positive brand association in relation to the audience. By making boring thing such as obeying the traffic rules fun and instead of getting punishment for disobeying the rule, people get rewards by obeying the rules. The idea not only reflects upon brand heritage and story but also score high in the relevant scale of contemporary marketplace. The consumers are engaged in the campaign from sending their ideas in for the competition and the trials is seen as a little excitement added to consumers’ everyday lives without provoking frustration to the pedestrian. The brand uses an excuse of promoting safety for positive brand associations and gain awareness. The Fun Theory is a storytelling strategy that embraces the heritage and stays relevant in the consumers’ minds in the current era of social media. The continual success of the campaign endures the heritage for tomorrow.

<img src=”Siripiyavatana_image2.jpg” alt=”The Speed Camera Lottery The Fun Theory by Volkswagen”>

Figure 2) The Speed Camera Lottery- The Fun Theory by Volkswagen (Rolighetsteorin, 2010)

Conclusion

Heritage brands have developed the brand story over a period of time, the time required for the consumers to absorb and digest the story. However in an ever changing marketing landscape of social media era, the ability to adapt and fit in poses a challenge on heritage brands to stay relevant in consumers’ minds. They key to relate to consumers while maintaining brand’s heritage is to understand consumers and focusing effort to change how people feel before trying to change what they do. As illustrated by Thai life insurance case, telling simple emotional stories work well in relating the brand’s heritage to consumers. The brands deal with customer-centric orientation in an emergence of social media and act as facilitators. Storytelling facilitates conversation amongst customer community and it is brand’s job to give people a story that they are willing to talk about. By this method, consumers become co-creators of the brands as they influence the transmission of messages by getting involved in the viewing, commenting and sharing through social media or even directly helping to create a story, as illustrated by Volkswagen’s The Fun Theory where consumers get involved in the process from the beginning to submit their ideas, take part in trials and sharing the story.

More specifically, while keeping to the heritage, brands have to invite consumers into the branding process in order to stay relevant and this can be achieved by telling a consistent series of compelling story, stories that keep going viral. The businesses that succeed outrageously are not just founded on ideas that are shared in a split second; they are grounded in what matters to their customers throughout the long heritage. The track record and relationship between a brand and its consumers are parts of the heritage that they co-created and stay relevant until now. The key for an enduring heritage is to make giving people a reason to talk about your products and services part of brand’s culture, not just marketing.

References

Aaker, D. A. (1996). Building Strong Brands. New York NY: The Free Press.

Aaker, D. A. (2004). Leveraging the corporate brand. California Management Review, 46(3), 6–18.

Barwise, P. & Meehan, S. (2010) The One Thing You Must Get Right When Building a Brand, Harvard Business Review, December 2010

Cambridge University Press (2011). Cambridge Business English Dictionary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Chiu, C., Ip, C and Silverman, A. (2012), “Understanding social media in China”, McKinsey Quarterly, 2, 78-81.

Fournier, S. & Avery, J. (2011) The uninvited brand, Business Horizons (2011) 54, 193—207

Hamm, J. (2013). Why Agencies and Brands Need to Embrace True Storytelling Branded content is not the same thing. Adweek Magazine, [online] Available at: < http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/why-agencies-and-brands-need-embrace-true-storytelling-152534> [Accessed 10 February 2014]

Jiwa, B. (2013). Fortune cookie principle. Perth: The Story of Telling Press

Liebrenz-Himes, M., Shamma, H., & Dyer R.F. (2007). Heritage Brands- Treasured Inheritance Or ‘Over the Hill’. Charm, 2007.

Merchant, A., Rose G.M. (2013). Effects of advertising-evoked vicarious nostalgia on brand heritage, Journal of Business Research, 66 (12), p.2619-2625

Moser, M. (2003). United We Brand. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

Rolighetsteorin, (2010). The Speed Camera Lottery, The Fun Theory. [video online] Available at: < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iynzHWwJXaA#t=106> [Accessed 13 February 2014]

Seybold, P. B. (2001). The Customer Revolution. New York, NY: Crown Publishing Group.

Singh, S., & Sonnenburg, S. (2012) Brand Performances in Social Media, Journal of Interactive Marketing 26 (2012) 189–197

Thailifechannel, (2011). Silence of Love (Official English Subtitle), TVC Thai Life Insurance. [video online] Available at: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZMX6H6YY1M> [Accessed 13 February 2014]

Trusov, M., Bucklin, R.E., & Pauwels, K. (2009). Effects of Word-of-Mouth Versus Traditional Marketing: Findings from an Internet Social Networking Site. Journal of Marketing, 73(5), 90-102.

Urde, M., Balmer, J., & Greyser, S. (2007) Corporate brands with a heritage, Brand Management, Vol. 15, No. 1, 4–19 September 2007

Vargo, Stephen L. and Lusch, Robert F. (2004) Evolving to a New Dominant Logic for Marketing, Journal of Marketing 68(1), p. 1–17

Volkswagen, (2010). The Fun Theory. [online] Available at: < http://www.thefuntheory.com/> [Accessed 12 February 2014]

Volkswagen, (2012). Annual report 2012. [online] Available at: < http://annualreport2012.volkswagenag.com/managementreport/value-enhancingfactors/salesandmarketing.html> [Accessed 12 February 2014]

Winer, R. (2009) New Communications Approaches in Marketing: Issues and Research Directions, Journal of Interactive Marketing 23 (2009), p. 108–117

Woerndl, M., Papagiannidis, S., Bourlakis, M., & Li, F. (2008). Internet-induced marketing techniques: Critical factors in viral marketing campaigns. Int. Journal of Business Science and Applied Management, 3 (2), 34-45.

Heritage brands storytelling by viral marketing in social media Part 1

December 25, 2014

Written by Onsurang Siripiyavatana

Introduction

Powerful stories always link to the heart and mind of people. Well-crafted stories reach out to the audience, making each and every story unique for the individual. Audiences develop their own imagery and co-create the brand. Heritage brands are rich in track records and longevity; they have good stories to tell. Storytelling is an opportunistic marketing tool for heritage brands, if marketers package it right.

However, heritage brands come with the ‘sincerity’ characteristics of being honest, authentic, trustworthy, caring and unassuming (Aaker, 1996). The model of heritage brands view the consumer as passive commodity but it is no longer relevant in the social media era.

In the social media era, companies are now evaluated by much more than their products. It is the era where brand’s values and emotions they evoke are narrative material (Hamm, 2013). It’s indisputable that the best way to link the brand’s idea with an audience’s emotion is by telling a compelling story (Hamm, 2013). Moreover, the opportunities of hyper-connected and social consumer as well as new distribution platform enable rapid sharing of information and contribute to the effectiveness of viral marketing. Viral marketing, by Cambridge Dictionaries Online is defined “A marketing activity in which information about a product spreads between people, especially on the internet” (Cambridge University Press, 2011). Trusov et al., (2009) state that customer involvement is crucial for company’s survival in the social media era and viral marketing is a necessary tool to gain attention in a cluttered marketing environment.

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine and analyze how heritage brands keep the heritage story relevant in an era where social media is increasingly important and how they utilize viral marketing to elevate the consumers to brand’s value co-creator. Two heritage brands’ storytelling strategy via viral marketing are examined, namely Thai Life Insurance and Volkswagen. These brands are of irrelevant categories and of different base location, one in service another in automotive, one in Asia another in Europe. The two distinct examples are selected to give evidence of powerful storytelling regardless of circumstances.

How the organizations with strong heritage brand strategy manage to stay relevant in the social media era? How they embrace storytelling and make use of viral marketing? What are the keys for success? This is focus questions of the paper. A summary will be given to how heritage brands can adapt and create a sustainable competitive advantage in the cluttered social media environment, “as our new brands of today turn into the heritage brands of tomorrow” (Liebrenz-Himes, 2007) 

Who write the brand storyboard in social media

A brand story is more than content and a narrative. The whole picture of the storyboard is made up of facts, feelings and interpretations, which means that part of a brand’s story is not told by brand owner (Jiwa, 2013). As mentioned by Winer (2009), the communication of brand story has changed and with the emergence of social media, the power of storytelling shifts from the hands of brand owner to the consumer through user-generated brand content. According to Vargo and Lusch (2004), the three ingredients central to co-creation of brand story are networks, relations, and interactions— which are enabled through discussion forums, blogs, community platforms, and news-sharing sites. In the landscape of open source branding, Fournier & Avery (2011) used the metaphor of “un-invited brand” to address how branding through the internet is viewed upon by the consumer. The authors claim that the social media was made for people, not for brands. Hence the people, more specifically the stakeholder, is all it matter in the age which the context of social collective, transparency, criticism and parody are relevant.

Storytelling involve a narrator and listener however, because of the two ways interaction nature of social media, both the consumer and brand owner can play the role of a narrator and that of a listener, resulting in an interactive co-creation driven by the participants. Consumers evaluate products or brands online and influence other consumer’s perception, give consumers an active role in branding and storytelling process (Singh & Sonnenburg, 2012). Hence the brand storyboard in social media era is crafted by interlinked content and co-creation of brand from interrelated stories is the key.

Brand heritage and the ability to make use of viral marketing to stay relevant

Brand heritage is a dimension of brand’s identity found in its track record, longevity, core values, use of symbols and organizational believe that its history is important.
Heritage brand make use of its history as a key component in brand identity and value proposition. Many brands have heritage but did not make use of it are not heritage brands (Urde, Greyser, & Balmer, 2007).  Heritage brand appeals to its current and past consumer, and if it continues to appeal to future consumers, its heritage continues to be a key asset of the overall brand equity (Liebrenz-Himes, 2007).  Aaker (1996) highlights that identity equity in heritage brands is extremely strong and valuable, the brand’s footprints add sincerity and differentiation, especially as the brand’s history and origin are re-interpreted in contemporary time (Aaker, 2004). Benson (2005) notes that heritage brands convey their heritage in a form of storytelling and the key that these brands all have in common is that they have had the time to build a meaningful and relevant past – a heritage. Barwise & Meehan (2010) also see this as an opportunity for heritage brands and that they should exploit the social media and revise the marketing playbook rather than rewriting it—meaning brands should strive to go viral, but protect the brand.

What makes a heritage brand stay relevant from generation to generation is the ability to respond to changing marketplace. Researches point out that the existence of successful brands has to be built on strong core values (Seybold 2001, Moser 2003) that consumers can relate. Seybold states “Your customer’s experience with your brand includes how that customer feels when he is in you brand’s presence” (Seybold, 2001). Hence, it all comes down to the “feelings” or consumers’ emotional engagement. In a diverse marketing landscape of today, the challenge facing heritage brands is to deliver the message and to appeal to the younger generations and stay relevant in changing marketplace. A study by Merchant & Rose (2012) confirms the positive impact of advertising-evoked vicarious nostalgia, a longing for a period that an individual did not personally live through, on brand heritage as “Promoting brand heritage bonds the consumer to the brand by enhancing trust, reinforcing perceptions of stability, creating positive emotions, and communicating the consistency of the brand’s promise over time”. According to Woerndl et al.(2008) the critical characteristic of successful viral marketing is the ability to reach out to the targeted audience and emotionally engaging message content.

Continue reading: case discussion 

NEW MEDIA, OLD PROBLEMS

December 22, 2014

Written by Dylan Sellberg

Information is knowledge. In 2014, the biggest marketing firms all the way to the National Security Agency (NSA) all want to understand who the people of the world are, and more importantly what they are interested in. But, the real question is what do these companies want to do with your information and how will they leverage it? 

There are now over 1.15 billion Facebook users and over 550 million registered users on Twitter. That’s a lot of people, translating into a lot of untapped advertising dollars. So, I set out to see exactly where these advertising dollars were being spent.

Data collection began on January 30th, 2014. The collection would last for 14 days and the task was simple, record every advertisement I saw on my Facebook and Twitter feeds. Not only were the advertisements recorded, they were also checked for relevant metrics of effective advertisement; the company who they were advertising, my interest in a given advertisement, whether or not the advertisement was recommended through my network, and the advertisement’s relevance to my demographic were all considered.

Back in 2011, the term native advertisement didn’t exist. Marketers used the context and content of a page to target their audience (Aljukhadar, Senecal 429) as opposed to their users, to determine which advertisements should be placed where. This new media has been categorized using two characteristics: 1) interactivity and 2) digital, (Shankar and Hollinger, 2007) both of which are inherently present on both Facebook and Twitter. In this new media, there are three groups of advertisements. Intrusive where the consumer is “interrupted” (Godin, 1999) by advertising, non-intrusive where the consumer chooses to receive the communications, and user generated where the consumer actually creates the communications.  From what was recorded in the study, Facebook and Twitter advertisements would fall under the category of non-intrusive. While they do clutter a timeline with information that was not consensually signed for, they do so in a manner that blends and adheres to the look and feel of the page. Over the course of two weeks, a total of 182 of these non-intrusive advertisements were recorded across Facebook (135) and Twitter (47). 

FacebookvsTwiter

Was it interesting?

For the sake of this study, although ambiguous, I categorized an ‘interesting’ advertisement as one that would typically yield a click-through or a purchase in the near future. These ‘interesting’ advertisements were all effective in creating a buzz in my mind about the company or their product and/or service; something that social media provides the opportunity for. (Papasolomou & Melanthiou, 2012). An advertisement has not served a proper purpose if it has not interested its target. 

After two weeks of survey 27% of Facebook, and 26% of Twitter advertisements were defined as ‘interesting’. Those numbers seem strikingly low considering how much both of these platforms know about the individual. These results are a contribution to the conclusion that even though these social media sites are aware of my gender, age, education, location, and much more, they still have a difficult time targeting what interests the user. Being so unsatisfied with the results, I turned to a Men’s Health Magazine to study those advertisements. Out of a total of 51 advertisements in the magazine, 17 (33%) struck me as interesting. This helped cement the notion that even though companies know plenty about their consumers, both digitally and traditionally, it is difficult to specifically trigger what makes them interested in each and every advertisement. 

Was I connected?

“Billions of people create trillions of connections through social media each day.” (Hansen, 2011). I set out to measure how effectively advertisers were leveraging this phenomenon as stated above.

To do this, I measured if an ad was “liked by a friend” or “followed” by somebody I follow. On Facebook, 17% of advertisements were accompanied by the text “Facebook friend likes this” and on Twitter 32% of advertisement were alongside a “followed by somebody I follow” text. This is perhaps the only instance where Twitter earned a superior statistic to Facebook in advertisement, and this particular category means a lot. On Facebook, it seemed that if a friend liked the ad that it was a mere coincidence. On the contrary, advertisement on Twitter seemed to be placed on my timeline purely because I followed somebody who followed the advertisers account.

Consumers can be fooled into thinking something is not spam if the ad is also liked by a member of their tribe, somebody who has a common interest in a specific activity. (Cova & Dalli, 2009) In layman’s terms, this strategy is like the advertising agency saying “Hey! Your friends like this, you should too!” This is perhaps one of the most important qualities of an effective advertisement. 

Another reason for this feature in advertisement is avoidance of the interpretation of spam. Spam in general has an extremely negative connotation, in some communities spammers or “trolls” are even banned from taking part altogether. (Seraj, 2012) If an ad is seen as spam or a nuisance, it violates the feeling of being non-intrusive as discussed earlier. One way that these advertisements avoid this perception is that they do in fact fit seamlessly into your timeline or newsfeed. Their placement and design are sometimes even mistaken for a friend’s post, which would be the ultimate goal here. It is important to note that overall, Facebook is much less crowded with these trolls and spammers than Twitter. Facebook and Twitter differ on this account due to the complex and simplistic nature, respectively, of registration for an account.
It has been suggested that in order to tap into the social connections we have developed the advertiser must understand the “social media ecosystem”, visualized in three types of media: owned, paid, and earned (Hanna et al. 2013). The way I see it, through analysis of Facebook and Twitter advertisements, first a firm must pay for media space, at which point it owns certain portions of the media. Then, once it has garnished credibility it earns the right to be shared with a subject’s connections. This reason alone is enough to justify tapping into the aforementioned trillions of connections made each day through social media. 
 

Was it relevant?

The ‘relevance’ test of these 182 advertisements was admittedly ambiguous, much like the interest test. An advertisement was deemed relevant if it would be considered useful or effective to anybody in a similar situation to me. The qualifications here were much less strict than the ‘interest’ test, yielding a 75% relevance rate for Facebook advertisement and 53% relevance for Twitter advertisement. 

Relevance of an advertisement is essential to ensure the widest range of consumer enjoyment. If an advertisement has no relation or connection to the audience targeted, there will be widespread dissatisfaction. It is crucial to understand that just because an ad is not interesting to a consumer, it could still serve as relevant. For example, car advertisements are not interesting to me because I am not in the market for a car. However, when I see a car company promoting themselves or their models on my Facebook or Twitter feeds I understand that they are relevant to my demographic. 

The essence of enjoyment is a good attitude, therefore it is important for companies and marketers alike to shape their marketing activities in ways in which consumers enjoy them, as opposed to looking like a blatant attempt at a sales pitch. (Akar & Topu, 2011) As long as an advertisement maintains perceived relevance in a potential consumers life, it is not seen as merely an advertisement, it is seen as a product providing entertainment or enjoyment. 

What does it all mean? 

After 14 days of tracking the so-called “future of advertising” social media frenzy, it became clear to me that there is still much to learn and develop through this platform. The truth is, social media advertising is not all it is cracked up to be. This epiphany did not come to me after I had finished analyzing Facebook, nor after dissecting Twitter; it came to me after flipping through a Men’s Health Magazine. What shocked me most about this Men’s Health Magazine is that 100% of the advertisements were relevant, and 1/3 of them interested me. Now, how is it that a website that knows so much about me cannot put together a better advertisement showing than that? 
Aside from my realization that traditional media advertisements were better served than social media, I have come to realize two limitations that may inhibit new media marketing growth. The first is privacy concerns, and the second is cost. 

Primarily, in regards to privacy, “recent development has raised privacy concerns, and calls by privacy advocates and lawmakers for regulations that set limits on web tracking across web sites by Internet service providers.” (Varadarajan et al., 2009) These privacy concerns should prove as hurdles for marketers moving forward as people and governing bodies alike become more concerned with their personal digital protection.

The second hurdle social media marketing will need to jump is the myth of low-costs. The traditional and overused phrase and perception that “social media marketing is free” is complete garbage.  Ever since I was a kid my father has taught me “nothing is free, son” and that stands true with social media marketing. All of the posts that show on Facebook and Twitter as promoted have been paid for. These types of advertisements are not cheap, either. It is also important to consider that even though reach may be higher per dollar on a social media ad versus a magazine, the magazine leaves room for volumes of creativity and design beyond 140 characters. 

To conclude my arguments drawn from observations I would like to allude to a quote by one of the greatest financial moguls of our time: 

“If you see a bandwagon, it’s too late” –Sir James Michael “Jimmy” Goldsmith

Reference

Aljukhadar, M & Senecal, S (2011), “Segmenting the online consumer market”, Marketing Intelligence & Planning . [Online] Emerald Database P. 421-435. Available from: http://emeraldinsight.com [Accessed 15th February 2014]

Cova, Bernard & Dalli Daniele (2009) “Working consumers: the next step in marketing theory?”, Marketing Theory [Online] Sage Publications Volume 9(3):315-399 DOI: 10.1177/1470593109338144

Erkan Akar & Birol Topu (2011) “An Examination of the Factors Influencing Consumers' Attitudes Toward Social Media Marketing”, Journal of Internet Commerce, 10:1, 35-67, DOI: 10.1080/15332861.2011.558456

Godin, Seth (1999), Permission Marketing, New York: Simon & Schuster

Hanna, Richard & Rohm, Andrew & Crittenden, Victoria (2011) “We’re all connected: The power of the social media ecosystem” Business Horizons [Online] Elsevier database P. 54, 265-273. Available from www.elsevier.com/locate/bushor [Accessed 15 February 2014]

Hansen, D., Shneiderman, B., & Smith, M. A. (2011). Analyzing social media networks with NodeXL: Insights from a connected world. Boston: Elsevier.

Hollinger, Marie (2007), “Online Advertising: Current Scenario and Emerging Trends,” Marketing Science Institute Report, 07–206.

Ioanna Papasolomou & Yioula Melanthiou (2012) “Social Media: Marketing Public Relations’ New Best Friend”, Journal of Promotion Management, 18:3, 319-328, DOI: 10.1080/10496491.2012.696458

Seraj, Mina (2012) “We Create, We Connect, We Respect, Therefore We Are: Intellectual, Social, and Cultural Value in Online Communities” Journal of Interactive Marketing, [Online] Elsevier database P. 209-222. Available from http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.intmar.2012.03.002 [Accessed 15 February 2014]

Shankar, Venkatesh (2008), “Strategic Allocation of Marketing Resources: Methods and Managerial Insights,” Marketing Science Institute Report, 08–207.

Varadarajan, R & Yadav, M (2009) “Marketing Strategy in an Internet-Enabled Environment: A Retrospective on the First Ten Years of JIM and a Prospective on the Next Ten Years” Journal of Interactive Marketing. [Online] Elsevier Database P. 11-22. Available from: www.elsevier/locate/intmar [Accessed 15 February 2015]