Published by Michael Ellison on 12 Sep 2008 at 11:10 am
Advertising Relevance and Social Media
I spent the yesrterday at JFAM:Live, a conference for financial marketers put together by the folks at the Journal of Financial Advertising and Marketing. During the sessions, the topic of relevancy in advertising came up. In the ad world, relevancy, which could be considered the holy grail of advertising, is about getting the right ad in front of the right person at the right time. For example, if a high-net-worth person were in the market for a new convertible and saw an ad for the BMW 325i convertible just as he were thinking about test driving a car, this ad would be very relevant, and very effective. In the world of financial services, it might be presenting an ad for a rollover IRA to a person who is a week away from retiring. Of course, doing that consistently is very, very difficult. Indeed, knowing what your target audience is thinking, when they’re thinking it and being able to act on that seems, well, Orewellian (or at least Googlian).
As readers likely know, we at Corporate Insight have had Social Media on the brain lately and when the relevancy discussion arose at the conference yesterday, it got me thinking that social media just might enable marketers to be much more relevant. Social networks enable consumers to drive the discussion. Thus, marketers are no longer able to push the message to consumers since the consumers are now in control. This is, essentially, the crux of the “social media” phenomenon. The implications are many but my point here is that if the discussion is going on in the open through social networks, and marketers can “watch” that discussion, they should then know what people are thinking, when they are thinking it, and create a relevant, timely message accordingly.
What do you think? Will social media and social networks enable marketers to increase ad relevancy?
Bill Wreaks, Chief Analyst, JFAM on 12 Sep 2008 at 11:42 am #
I agree entirely with this point. Relevancy is the “holy grail” for makreters. Many of us (35 and above) grew up subscribing to the notion that content was the “reward” and that advertising was the “price” you paid for that reward.
When I was a kid, my father had a “blab off” (that’s what he called it). It was an electric chord with a switch on the end of it, attached to the TV on one end..running to his favorite chair. When a commercial would come on, he’d turn off the sound (Blab off) and when the news or whatever he was watching would come back on, he’d turn the sound back on (Blab on). I got the sense that he felt that he was “getting away” with something. Something for nothing. Programming without paying the “price.”
Today, targeting has become so powerful that we are becoming closer and closer to the point where content and advertsing are becoming one. The reward is the price, the price is the reward…as long as it is “relevant.”
Translating this concept to financial services marketing…if my wife and I were to have a new baby, chances are I might be interested in information about opening up a savings account for this new baby, or opening up a 529 college savings plan once the baby is born. Not only would an ad about these two products be relevant to me…I would stop what I was doing to read/see them…because the ad fit what my life was looking for. That’s relevancy at work.
The key is finding who needs what, where and when. This is all coming…where we are all heading and what financial services marketers have to look forward to “playing with” in the future.
Bill Wreaks, Chief Analyst
The Journal of Financial Advertising & Marketing (JFAM)