Learning objectives 1. To e xamine the development and evaluate the reasons for growth of the internet and interactive media. 2. To define the role and relationships of the internet and interactive media and apply them in an IMC program. 3. To compare the advantages and disadvantages of direct communication on the internet and interactive media. 4. To evaluate the effectiveness of communication through direct communication via the internet. 14 Interactive marketing Interactive and Measuring Internet social media effectiveness marketing r e t History and Part of Behaviopural Objectives Limitations Advantages growth IMC targeting a h c Sales Personal Public Direct Advertising e promotion selling relations marketing l p m a S bbeell9977998811__cchh1144__447766--550033..iinndddd 447766 77//2200//1111 88::4455 PPMM 477 Online: stand-alone or in a media mix? In Australia the Interactive Advertising Bureau, Dynamic Logic text. Not surprisingly, Colgate turned to social media to help it (a digital agency) and Colgate worked together to provide a launch a multi-pronged campaign. But who wants to ‘friend’ detailed case study to help marketers understand how a well- or follow a disposable toothbrush on Facebook? Colgate’s planned cross-media campaign can improve return on agency tackled the challenge by conducting research. investment. The campaign, which combined online media, TV Typically, Colgate talks to mums, but with Wisp, the marketer and print, improved product awareness, purchase intent and knew it needed unique social media components to introduce ad memorability by up to a multiple of three. The research, the product and seed interest. The creative and digital concept which was conducted for Colgate’s newly launched product came from the US campaign and included a TV campaign, Colgate WISP (a small, portable, single-use toothbrush to clean microsite, online banners and social media elements. teeth and freshen breath on the go), found that while TV was The creative strategy was Be more kissable, which effective, the multiplier effect of exposure to magazines and positioned Colgate Wisp in a way that it believed would online in the media campaign delivered results that were connect with the target audience. The idea centred on self- greater than a single medium or two media. The Wisp launch confidence, in that everyone wants to be more kissable not campaign targeted people aged 18 to 39 years, with the online just within the context of a physical kiss, but all the time. component using video, demographic targeting, and Feeling kissable is about feeling confident. From a social contextually time-targeted messaging. media standpoint this was workable as a good platform; the The Colgate Wisp research found that purchase intent linchpin of the concept involved creating irreverent online increased by 9 per cent for those exposed to TV alone, video content and syndicating it on YouTube and other video- climbing to 29 per cent when the campaign included print, TV sharing hubs. Along with the strategic focus of online video, C H and online. Product awareness climbed 19 per cent for those Colgate Wisp developed a Facebook application and a ‘Be the A P exposed to TV alone and increased to 51 per cent when the Face of Wisp’ photo contest. T E three media channels were combined. The study found that TV The online video component comprised a series of eight R 1 and online worked well together to grow Wisp’s brand wacky viral videos made in partnership with and distributed 4 awareness better than TV alone, while online and magazine through different publishers and web celebrities like Kip Kay, : In t e exposure generated an additional 13 per cent reach on top of known for his how-to and prank videos. The eight videos r a c the TV campaign. t iv Kara Manatt, Director of Cross Media Dynamic e m Logic US said, ‘These research findings are consistent a r k with multiple CrossMedia Studies conducted globally e t by Dynamic Logic which have found online advertising ingr ee is strongly associated with both advertising and brand t awareness’. p But the media choice is just one part of this story. a You decide whether it is the power of the media mix h including online, or engagement with the brand c brought about through the creativity of the online campaign that drives this communication success. e The challenge for Colgate and its agency was to l p get Wisp into the hands of young, urban consumers m who are socially active. The audience is mobile and dating opportunities can be created in an instant via Source: Courtesy of Colgate. www.colgatewisp.coma S bbeell9977998811__cchh1144__447766--550033..iinndddd 447777 77//2200//1111 88::4466 PPMM 478 targeted niche interests among the target audience, CollegeHumor’s POV ‘New Year’s Eve’, which logged 1 255 872 contextually integrating Colgate Wisp into how-to, comedy views, and Michelle Phan’s ‘Kissable Lips’ video, which had and talk show-genre video content. The goal was to achieve a 1 791 352 views in mid-June 2010. All the videos were seeded seamless content integration with no heavy brand sell. Online on multiple video-sharing sites. video syndication offered Colgate the potential to scale its The game saw a 10 per cent click-through rate. Each time vast consumer target. someone received a virtual kiss, they got a notification that The photo contest sought to identify the most kissable appeared on their wall. The 10 per cent click-through rate was person. Participants who entered the contest uploaded a based on the total number of engagements vis-à-vis the photo to colgatewisp.com.au and received a widget that notifications. enabled friends to vote for them. The widget was shared via The average number of spins per install on Spin the Wisp the Facebook and MySpace networks and via the microsite. It was 7.6. There were more than 100 000 engagements and was like a syndicated version of ‘Are you hot or not?’ The more than 40 000 installations of the widget, and more than contest turned into a social experience by enabling the widget 1 million unique impressions of the widget. There were also to syndicate the photo content. Participants uploaded their 500 000 views of a faux Wisp infomercial. photo, chose a specific Wisp colour and placed it in the photo Overall, as of May 2010 there were more than 6 million as an overlay. The contest enabled segmentation by engagements with the Wisp campaign (widget installs, video geographic area as well. For example, when a man entered views, game plays, pass-alongs). ‘Engagement’ has been the contest, he could choose to look only at women in defined as active participation, meaning someone played the Melbourne who entered the contest and decide whether they game, shared it, watched a video (there was a 10-second were kissable or not (and of course vice versa)! minimum on viewing) or commented on a video. Colgate To drive brand engagement further, a Facebook app called learned the value of engagements: ‘It was the first time they PA Spin the Wisp was created. Once the app was installed, it had ever measured anything based on engagements. They are R T the names of the consumer’s Facebook friends. Consumers accustomed to the number of impressions’, said their 4: M could have the app randomly pick Facebook friends for the agency. a game or they could handpick up to 16 people to fill it. The Wisp Now Colgate is working to extend the engagement metric r ke landed on exotic locations and flavours—a woman could to its more mature brands. The brand has begun to understand t in send a virtual kiss from Paris to her crush. Spin the Wisp the value of video, game and other content as opposed to g c became a novel way to flirt. framing content only within the context of an ad buy. While the o m A Real Life Twitter video produced with CollegeHumor campaign was in the market for four months, the videos and m u netted more than 1.7 million-plus views around the world. The game continue to run. n ic video featured man-in-the-street style interviews by a stand- Colgate’s next steps are in content marketing and social a t io up comic who walked around blurting out things like: ‘I just marketing for its other product brands. The brand says it’s n r d found this new Wisp. Anybody want a kiss?’ The Kip Kaye looking to turn customers into audiences and its brands into e is c video ‘Quick Draw Gadget’ in which Kip constructs a quick social identities. ip t lin draw gadget out of a Colgate Wisp, has generated more than So is it the media strategy or the creative strategy thapt e s 1 million views. In total, the eight videos in the Be more made this campaign work? Or perhaps the integrated aand kissable series have racked up more than 4.1 million views on converged communication strategy that is possiblhe when YouTube. The two most recent videos for Colgate Wisp are online is at the heart of a campaign? c e Sources: IAB Australia, www.iaba ustralia.com.au/index.php?/news/story/iab_australia_cross_platform_case_study_colgate, acpcelssed 18 February 2011; David Blight, ‘Online can boost TV effectiveness’, Ad News, 26 October 2010, http://newsfeed.i-com.org/2010/10/#tp; http://www.emarketer.com/blog/ index.php/case-study-colgate-online-video-social-media-mobile-drive-engagement-purchase-intent/, accessed 18 Februarmy 2011; http://www.colgatewisp. com.au/wisp/HomePage, accessed 18 February 2011 a S bbeell9977998811__cchh1144__447766--550033..iinndddd 447788 77//2200//1111 88::4466 PPMM The internet and interactive marketing 479 The internet has certainly had a major impact on the media landscape, the way in which marketers communicate with their existing and potential customers, and the way in which consumers and potential customers choose to search, comment and interact with each other and with marketers. In many ways, the impact of the internet has been very different from what was originally expected— which, in part, accounts for the initial growth of expenditures in this medium, followed by a short bust, then enormous growth again. While the internet has not become the ‘be all and end all’ that some expected, it has spawned a number of new forms of communication, has led marketers to reconsider their use of traditional media and has impacted the marketing world in a way not seen since the advent of television. This chapter examines the evolution of the internet and the direction and developments for further growth in interactive media. Once we have evaluated the reasons for growth, we will examine the role of the internet and interactive media in an IMC program and how to leverage their advantages and disadvantages. We will conclude the chapter by considering how to assess the effectiveness of communication that uses the internet and interactivity. A brief history of the internet A history of the internet, of course, is brief, as this medium has not existed for very long. However, given the internet’s incredibly rapid adoption and the dynamic influence it has had on society, it is important to provide some insight as to how it has developed, particularly over the past decade or two, when online communication began. The internet started on 2 September 1969, through the connection of two computers: one at UCLA and the other at Stanford University. Initially called ARPANET (Advanced Research Project Agency), the network was developed by the US Department of Defense as a failsafe way to connect vital research C agencies across the USA. After an initial attempt failed, a connection was made, and it was the H A beginning of what changed the world forever. From that initial connection, observed by about P T 15 people, the network has grown to consist of more than 1.97 billion users worldwide, which is E R 29 per cent of the world’s population.1 1 4 What has changed the internet the most is the development of the world wide web (www), the : In business component of the internet. Virtually unknown in 1993, no medium other than black-and- te r a white television has been adopted as rapidly as the internet. Today an estimated 80 per cent of c t households in Australia are connected.2 ive m As advertisers saw the adoption of the internet grow and recognised its potential, they were keen to a r allocate some of their media spend to the internet to such an extent that online advertising has been k e increasing regularly over the past few years and totalled $1.9 billion in 2009 in Australia.3 tinr g e t Why the rapid adoption of the internet? p a The almost unprecedented growth of the internet—the ‘digital revolution’—has led a number of h academics and practitioners to offer reasons for why this occurred. These include consumers’ desire c for information as well as for control over the information they receive. In addition, the speed and convenience of acquiring this information as well as conducting e-commerce through personal e computers is very attractive to the money-rich but time-poor consumers who were previouslly p described as contributing to the success of direct marketing. m In addition to consumers’ desire for control, the ability to target customers effectively through the internet is attractive to marketers. The increased demand for accountability on the part of businesses a led to a view of the internet as a medium that would provide more direct feedback on the value of S bbeell9977998811__cchh1144__447766--550033..iinndddd 447799 77//2200//1111 88::4466 PPMM 480 IMC perspective 14.1 Social networking: does your brand need to wait for an invitation? What has changed in the last few years in the way people Microblogging site Twitter limits the conversation to a spend their time socialising? They’ve gone online to do it! So short 140 characters and is responsible for many breaking how many friends do they have and are there any brands or news stories because the person tweeting has access or organisations that they count as friends? These questions generates something of interest to share. Twitter works would have seemed fanciful ten years ago, but not anymore. through ‘word of mouse’ with followers signing up to be Australians spend 57 hours per month online and almost instantly updated on the tweets of the person (or 7 hours per month is spent social networking representing organisation) they are following. It enjoyed huge growth (400 the highest use of social media in the world. There are several per cent) between 2008 and 2009 and one in three internet ways in which interaction occurs online, such as blogs (e.g. users have visited a Twitter site. However there is high rate of Blogger, Tumblr, Vox); wikis (e.g. Wikipedia, Wiki Answers, churn and it seems that only celebrities with huge fan Wikileaks); photo-sharing sites (e.g. Flickr, Photobucket, followers are ‘sticking’ to any great extent. Oprah has 4.3 Slideshare); video-sharing sites (e.g. YouTube, Vimeo); audio- million followers, but she is only following 19 people, yet sharing sites (e.g. Podcast Alley); virtual worlds (e.g. Second Life, Lady Gaga (who comes in way ahead of Oprah and is the Farmville); and social networks (e.g. Facebook, Myspace, number one Twitterer) has 6.6 million followers and is Twitter, Bebo, LinkedIn). On social networking sites interaction following 417 000. occurs just like conversations with ‘friends’. On Facebook Social networks have been explained as the new town there are places to put photos, videos, likes and dislikes and halls, village greens, community noticeboards and piazzas to have either real-time conversations or asynchronous turn of today. It is one thing to know where people are and what taking where posts are put on a ‘wall’ for others to view and they are doing, but how do organisations get involved? P A add their comments to. There are 9.5 million Facebook users People don’t like sharing their personal space unless there R T 4 in Australia, so this is a very popular pastime, bordering on the is something in it for them. Ask anyone who has been called : M addictive for some. at 6 pm, had door-to-door sales people at their front door on a r k e t in g c o m m u nic marketing expenditures. As was true of direct marketing, companies liked the fact that, unlike a t traditional media, it was easier to account for the ROI of their expenditures. In fact, in its earliest io n stages, a number of marketing companies perceived the internet as a direct-response medium. While r d e is a large component of the web is still that of e-commerce, today’s marketers now employ the medium c ip for numerous other communication and marketing objectives (as we will discuss shortly). Other t lin p e factors that have contributed to increased attention on the internet include the increase in high-speed s a internet connections which has led many to spend more time online, and has heralded the introduction h of behavioural targeting technologies that allow for tracking consumers and then matching their c search words with advertisers’ products.4 This will give advertisers growing confidence in the medium.5 e Today’s world wide web has evolved into a different medium from what anyone clould have expected p 20 years ago. Unlike other media, which are essentially unidirectional and responsible for the content m provided and products and services offered for sale, the internet is interactive, allowing for a two-way flow. Consumers not only control when and which messages and content they are exposed to, but now a S bbeell9977998811__cchh1144__447766--550033..iinndddd 448800 77//2200//1111 88::4466 PPMM 481 a weekend, or been offered solutions to problems they don’t have. It is accepted that television, newspapers, magazines, radio and the right-hand page of a search will carry advertising, but permission is needed if brands are going to have conversations in people’s personal space when they are socialising with friends. Some brands, both big and small, have managed this remarkably well, think Earth Hour, Old Spice, Volkswagen Polo, Tourism Queensland (with Best Job in the World) and Tourism Australia (with Oprah’s Ultimate Australian Adventure). Others haven’t been so successful (Westfield’s All I Want for Christmas is a Westfield Gift Card, Witchery’s Man’s Jacket, the stray Tweet or YouTube from less than perfect employees). The difference between what works and what doesn’t is hard to pin down. Is it authenticity or trust or a well-told story or being so funny or clever that it captures the imagination or provides a real benefit or value? Isn’t this what all communication is trying to do? Surely online campaigning is just following the fundamentals? Sources: http://blogs.forbes.com/carolinehoward/2010/10/08/oprah- lady-gaga-twitter-followers/, accessed 18 February 2011; Megan Brownlow & Andrew Parker, ‘Australian Entertainment and Media Outlook 2010–2014’, PricewaterhouseCoopers, 2010, www.pwcoutlook. com.au; James Livesly, ‘Earth Hour a social media success’, 23 April 2010, www.digital-media.net.au; Oliver Milman, ‘ Volkswagen taps into social for Polo’, B&T Today, 27 May 2010; Matt Granfield, ‘Why social C media and marketing don’t mix’, Marketing Magazine blog, 2010; H A Nielsenwire, ‘Australia getting more social online as Facebook leads and P Twitter grows’, 23 March 2010; Wenlei Ma, ‘Tourism industry needs to T E Source: Yaffa Publishing, Wenlei Ma exploit Oprah visit’, 14 December 2010. R 1 4 : In t e r a c t iv e m provide their own content, offer their own goods and services for sale and provide feedback on the a r k same as provided by others. For example, consider that eBay has as many as one-third of Australians e t buying items such as clothes, cars and holidays online, with more than 60 000 Australians making a ingr e living from eBay. The most expensive item since its launch in Australia in 1995 was a vintage Holden Monaro which raised $187 600 for charity.6 t p a Web objectives h c When major corporations first began to conduct business on the internet, they put up websites primarily for information purposes. Sites were really not much more than online catalogues, or e were designed for information purposes only. The role of the website quickly changed, however, als p sites are now designed to accomplish a number of objectives and have become much more creative m and interactive, whether promoting brand images and positioning, or offering promotions or product information and products and services for sale. With the introduction of the computer a S bbeell9977998811__cchh1144__447766--550033..iinndddd 448811 77//2200//1111 88::4466 PPMM 482 Figure 14.1 The website Home page components as Advertising an IMC channel Blog Competitions Interactive Sales promotion social network Detailed info FAQs (e.g. catalogue) Personal selling Direct marketing Corporate history and media releases PR programming language Java in 1995, it became possible to create richer graphics, audio and animation online. This resulted in marketers utilising the internet in an entirely new way, moving beyond the purely informational role to entertainment and engagement. Figure 14.1 shows how the website is evolving as an integrated marketing communication channel. As you will see, the objective of disseminating information and selling products remains, but additional communication and sales objectives are also being pursued, including the utilisation of online social networks. In a seminal article in 1996 McKinsey consultants (i.e. Kierzdowskiet et al.) proposed a modified version for the digital environment of the hierarchy of effects model that we saw P in Chapter 4. The stages they suggested include the following:7 A R T Attract customers to the internet site through hot links from other sites or web advertising elsewhere, 4 : M or feature your URL in your traditional media channel messages or on your product packaging. a Engage customers by offering value with content that is relevant, that they can interact with r k e and that offers opportunities for creating their own user-generated content and transaction t in g capabilities. c o Retain customers by giving them reasons to return regularly, perhaps by posting new material m m regularly, or creating a dynamic environment that they are a part of through online networking. u n Learn about customers’ preferences by capturing information about these and storing them on ic a your database, while using it appropriately and with due regard to privacy responsibilities. t io n Relate to your customers by allowing them to select their own options and then customising and r dis personalising what you provide for them on your site. This is possible by utilising technology and e c ip your database. McKinsey has kept at the forefront of developments in interactive communication t lin and continues to offer insights on the gains made by the ‘networked enterprise’.8 The networked p e s a enterprise is the company that used collaborative Web2.0 technologies to connect employees, h customers, partners and suppliers and for these organisations the benefits are apparent in greater market share and higher margins. c e l Communication objectives p m Unlike one-way communication media, the internet is like direct marketing: it is interactive (i.e. two- way) and a hybrid medium. In part, it is a communication medium, allowing companies to create a awareness, provide information and influence attitudes, as well as pursue other communication S bbeell9977998811__cchh1144__447766--550033..iinndddd 448822 77//2200//1111 88::4466 PPMM objectives. But for some it is also a direct-response medium, allowing the user to both purchase and 483 sell products through e-commerce. Thus, we will discuss two sets of objectives pursued by companies that use the internet. Let’s first look at some of the communications objectives these companies want to achieve. Create awareness Advertising on the web can be useful in creating awareness of an organisation as well as its specific product and service offerings. For smaller companies with limited budgets, the web offers the opportunity to create awareness well beyond what might be achieved through traditional media. For example, despite offering faster broadband and superior customer service, Orcon, a New Zealand telecommunications company, was relatively unknown in a market dominated by the huge corporates. In an award-winning case study, Orcon’s brief to the agency was to raise awareness of their superior broadband offering.9 The strategy was to communicate this by staging a major online event—in effect a mass product demonstration—and build awareness of Orcon by engaging the nation. While new customers needed to be attracted to the brand, every stage of the campaign began by communicating firstly with existing Orcon customers. Orcon is an internet company and in every aspect of this campaign, from the call for auditions through the Facebook activity, to the Play live with Iggy event itself, the internet was central. While every telco talks up its product and services, the strength and originality of this campaign was that Orcon actually used its broadband to enable a world-first technical feat—connecting nine Kiwis from their homes across New Zealand to Iggy’s studio in Miami, and re-recording the classic track ‘The Passenger’. Creative solution: create a world-first event, a chance to re-record ‘The Passenger’, live online, with Iggy Pop. The direct response objective was two-fold: attract a large enough pool of talent to the auditions to ensure they could select a virtual band. Maximise the country’s engagement with the auditioning process. The call for auditions went out first to Orcon’s customer base, to its Facebook friends, and via online advertising. This was then extended by TVCs and street posters C calling for people to Play live with Iggy Pop. Entrants then uploaded auditions directly to a specially Exhibit 14.1 H A built Facebook application, where they could be browsed. Orcon Facebook P T page, flyposters, E Results: 200 video auditions were received in ten days, a superb talent pool from which to select R the nine band-members. Auditions were viewed more than 100 000 times on Facebook, part of an abnadn ninetresrnet 14 explosion of interest in the : In t campaign. National press, prime- er a time current affairs TV shows, ct iv websites and blogs all over the e m world picked it up. There were 3500 a r k new Orcon Facebook friends in just e t two weeks. The campaign generated inr g e over NZ$650 000 of unpaid media coverage before the TV ad had even t p run. And Orcon’s sales increased a 30 per cent on previous year. See h Exhibit 14.1. c While a valuable tool for creating awareness—particularly for smaller e companies that may have limited l p advertising budgets—the internet is m not likely to be the most effective of the IMC elements for achieving a a broad appeal awareness objective. Source: Courtesy of Orcon S bbeell9977998811__cchh1144__447766--550033..iinndddd 448833 77//2200//1111 88::4466 PPMM 484 Mass media advertising may be more useful for this purpose, given its larger reach and lower cost per exposure (as the direct-mail people will be glad to remind you!). Generate interest A visit to mtv.com.au will quickly demonstrate how a site can be used to generate interest. The site provides music news, video shows, information on exclusive releases, news, fashion and other content that is of interest to its audience. In addition, visitors can purchase concert tickets, download music and more. It also demonstrates how companies attempt to use the web to generate interest in their sites as well as in their products and services. We saw earlier in Chapter 10 how Rexona’s Greatest Athlete sponsorship (Exhibit 10.1), in its attempt to attract visitors and hold their interest, has created a fun site with many places to visit while learning about the brand. The objectives of these sites are simple: create interest that will bring visitors back to learn more about the products—and, of course, to sell. Disseminate information One of the primary objectives for using the web is to provide in-depth information about a company’s products and services. In business-to-business markets, having a website has become a necessity, as more and more buyers expect that a company will have a site providing them with detailed information about its offerings. In the government sector, contracts are often put out to bid on the internet. Information regarding requirements, specifications, submission dates and so on, is disseminated more quickly, to more potential candidates and at a much lower cost via the internet than it would be through other media. For many organisations, their websites serve as a means of communicating more information about their products and services. The Bureau of Meteorology’s website is an excellent example of an information-oriented website (Exhibit 14.2). Create an image Many websites are designed to reflect the image a company wants to portray. For example, check out P A the consumer site at www.absolut.com.au (Exhibit 14.3) (as long as you are old enough!) or the R T 4 : M Exhibit 14.2 ar The Bureau of k e Meteorology t in website, www. g c bom.gov.au/, is om full of useful m information u n ic a t io n r dis e c ip t lin p e s a h c e l p m a S Source: Courtesy of Bureau of Meteorology bbeell9977998811__cchh1144__447766--550033..iinndddd 448844 77//2200//1111 88::4466 PPMM Exhibit 14.3 485 A great branding site with a recently launched iPad application that creates interactivity with users Source: Under permission by V&S Vin & Sprit AB (publ). ABSOLUT®VODKA. ABSOLUT COUNTRY OF SWEDEN VODKA & LOGO, ABSOLUT, ABSOLUT BOTTLE DESIGN AND ABSOLUT CALLIGRAPHY ARE TRADEMARKS OWNED BY V&S VIN & SPRIT AB (publ). ©2006 V&S VIN & SPRIT AB (publ) Exhibit 14.4 A great business- to-business site C H A P T E R 1 4 : In t e r a c t iv e m a r k e t inr g Source: Courtesy of Roy Morgan Research e t p business-to-business site at www.roymorgan.com.au (Exhibit 14.4). Both of these are excellent a examples of websites used for image building. Interestingly, one of the difficulties traditional h marketers have experienced is that of creating a brand image on the internet. While some of these c companies have been successful, others have not fared as well and have come to realise that branding and image-creating strategies must be specifically adapted to this medium. e l Create a strong brand p m The internet—as part of an integrated marketing communication program—can be a useful tool for branding. Unfortunately, some organisations have not yet figured out how to successfully brand a through the internet. We believe that the internet, as part of an integrated marketing communication S program, can be used for branding purposes, as well as for sales objectives. bbeell9977998811__cchh1144__447766--550033..iinndddd 448855 77//2200//1111 88::4466 PPMM