Marketers using new media: Brands can be defined by the interactive experience

With consumers increasingly comfortable with interactive technologies such as online social networks, high-speed connections and new media tools, it's now easier than ever for marketers to connect with their customers. It is also easier than ever for consumers to ignore brand messages. But while consumers may be fed up with one-way messages and annoying interruptions, they are willing to be entertained and engaged, and may choose to participate in an experience that communicates the brand's message. This new approach to marketing was the subject of a presentation at the recent American Marketing Association Consortium, hosted by the W. P. Carey School of Business.

With consumers increasingly comfortable with interactive technologies such as online social networks, high-speed connections and new media tools, it's now easier than ever for marketers to connect with their customers. It is also easier than ever for consumers to ignore brand messages. They can simply hit the fast-forward button.

Consumers may be fed up with one-way messages and annoying interruptions; however, many are willing to be entertained and engaged, and even choose to participate in an experience that communicates the brand's message.

Brands such as Coca-Cola and Burger King are offering enticing invitations to join online social networks and play games, delivering to consumers a brand experience that may be more memorable than the actual products. Interactive marketing is the platform that may be the solution to the consumer's shortened attention span.

Interactive media companies and marketing concepts such as "advergames" are working to erase the distinction between entertainment and advertising. It's blatant, but it's transparent, which might make these new forms of advertising palatable for consumers who are tired of covert attempts to manipulate them.

David Stewart, a marketing professor at the University of Southern California, gave a presentation on interactive media as a new form of marketing at the recent American Marketing Association Consortium, hosted by the W. P. Carey School of Business. This new approach, Stewart said, may be the answer to the combined challenge of the brand-family phenomenon and the growing popularity of highly evolved media tools.

The old meets the new

There is nothing wrong with the way marketers have communicated with customers up to now, Stewart said, but "perhaps some of our theories of branding and marketing communication need to be modified and enhanced." The traditional model of branding is based on a product; that product helps the consumer fulfill a need or want, and a level of satisfaction is experienced.

The results are measurable attitudes and experiences with the brand's product. Stewart said companies have mastered this kind of marketing. "But more recently," he said, "we have found that a brand doesn't have to be a single product and, in fact, can be a whole set of products that relate to one another — the whole master brand concept."

Crest is no longer just a toothpaste, for example. It's a suite of hygiene products. These days, a consumer's attitude about or experience with a brand is a summation of his experiences with all the products underneath the brand.

But, Stewart warned, increasing the number of products in a brand family can lead to brand dilution, challenging marketers to find a central focus. "But more recently we have seen another phenomenon — the interactive model — an interactive social structure, where now the brand is part of an experience," Steward said.

Now it is the brand experience as well as the product that will create satisfaction and brand attitudes. As brands and media technology continue to grow and become more complex, the desire for focus and connectivity is more prevalent than ever.

Brands and marketing interactivity

"The notion of interactivity and social networking is hardly new," said Stewart. "We've had word-of-mouth advertising, communication and personal selling. [Games] have been around for a long time as an interactive medium. But what is new," Stewart adds, "at least in that last few years, is the proactive use of interactive media by marketers and consumers alike, to communicate the brand experience."

The advent of the digital video recorder and high-speed broadband allows consumers to take the driver's seat. Marketers now must find a way to reach the consumer with an invitation, rather than an interruption. Contrasted with traditional one-way communication, interactivity offers two-way or multi-way communication.

"The notion of interactivity really captures reciprocal marketing communication because the consumer and the marketer will influence each other," said Stewart. Interactive media companies, such as Right Media and Honeyshed, produce advertisement material that they hope will be too good to pass up. These firms are in the business of blending entertainment and branding, making the experience part of the brand.

Honeyshed plans to partner with marketers to provide the tools for entertaining, live programming. For example, companies are giving consumers the tools to create and post "character sketches," which are Flash movies starring the brand's characters. Other consumers can comment on the sketches. Forum tools also allow customers to talk to each other or the company.

"We see this now in various kinds of media," said Stewart. "We see it in advergames — games intended to advertise." An example: Burger King's Xbox 360 video game promotion that began in November of 2006. The company sold Xbox games featuring Burger King characters for only $3.99 with a value meal.

One of the three games featured the king as a hero, in which the objective is to sneak up on "hungry" people and surprise them with a Burger King product.This promotion spurred sales and Burger King's quarterly earnings rose 40 percent more than expectations. Another example is mycoke.com. Coke created a site where consumers can play games and socialize.

It is a virtual room where consumers can set up their own chat rooms and even create a personal space and decorate it. The only catch is they must drink Coke to receive a number, printed under the cap, which translates into "cash" that players can spend on the site.

Again, branders are trying to create an experience for the consumer, but also give consumers a place to meet and interact with friends. Buying a Coke gets you an admission ticket. Coke used to just quench thirst, Stewart indicated; now it also provides an opportunity to socialize and play.

Implications: measuring the impact

So what is the definition of "brand," Stewart asked. If brand is no longer solely defined by its product, but is now increasingly defined by interactive experiences, how can marketers control it or measure it? Stewart described two types of measures in the interactive world, a world rich with research questions.

The first type of measure is the level of engagement, which Stewart says is yet to be defined but has something to do with involvement. The second measure is transference: the degree to which the consumer's experience in the interaction reflects on the marketer or the brand. "How does social engagement have an impact on your brand attitude? You raise satisfaction and willingness to use the brand," said Stewart.

"I think this is having profound impact on the marketing mix," said Stewart. "Increasingly the boundaries along the marketing mix are blurry. What's the brand itself? What's the communication? What's the channel? And unfortunately most of our measures of the success of marketing communication branding really weren't developed in this type of world.

They really were developed for a world that was much more unidirectional, where a marketer has control over the message that creates a set of attitudes and perceptions that can be readily measured." Interactivity profoundly changes the way we need to think about marketing communication, added Stewart.

"We really need to think more about the active role of the consumer. We need to think in terms of how to measure the level of interaction. Perhaps the unit of measurement should not be the individual but the interaction itself. What does interaction look like and what effect is it having?" said Stewart. In fact, Stewart suggests, we may need a whole new paradigm for thinking about this type of brand experience.

Bottom Line:

• It is easier than ever for consumers to ignore brand messages and many are fed up with one-way messages and interruptions.
• Consumers are willing to be entertained and engaged, and even choose to participate in an experience that communicates the brand's message.
• Interactive marketing is blatant advertising that strives to erase the distinction between entertainment and advertising.
• Interactivity creates a brand experience that will hopefully communicate the brand message through participation with its consumers
• However, measurements of interactivity have yet to be defined.