Hack:
Consumer Attention Transforming Communications Organization - Marketing Challenges of Many2Many Communications

Impact on consumer communications

Consider the impact of these changes on a CPG or insurance payer organization^* seeking to promote their brands and drive sales. (^* insurance payer organizations have been recently empowered to market to consumers directly.)

1. In 1:1 communications, marketers and sales staff would speak face to face with customers.  Organizations were in absolute control of the messaging and brand positioning.
2. In 1:M communications, organizations used mass media like print, radio and TV to communicate with many individuals at a time. The race for “eyeballs and attention” began. This was further facilitated by the advent of the internet, which many experts considered simply another mass media channel. Marketers were still in control of their messaging, and creating strong brands and loyal customers remained relatively easy and familiar tasks.
3. In M:M communications - made possible by the convergence of bandwidth availability, increased computing capability, advanced application development tools and mobility platforms - control over marketing messages passed at least in part from marketer to consumer.   It has let loose a torrent of “conversations” - interactive messages - that are not controllable in traditional marketing terms. However, while marketers and brand managers have the ability to create and distribute the messages of their choosing, they have little to no control over how it will be received, shared and further still perceived.  In this environment, it is difficult to predict the context in which consumers will receive and interpret a given message.  M:M communications can only be loosely channeled, rather than tightly controlled.

Social media brand interactions are a reality that is here to stay.  Consumer engagement with brands is completely transformed, and the richness of interaction is unprecedented. In one instance, a CPG's toothpaste brand promotion received 300 comments on just one social media outlet within 48 hrs of going live.  The brand website, while typically registering as many unique visits in a day, was unable to engage more than the standard 12-15% of consumers beyond clicks into conversions.

M:M puts the entire organization in focus for every consumer to critique as they wish, when they wish. The integrity of the organization’s value chain has never before been under such scrutiny, and will continue to be in the future. Building strong and vibrant brands will not only rely on product marketing, but also on the integrity of the value chain, visible due to organizations' increasing transparency.  It will become important not only to let consumers know that a given product is green, but that it was manufactured with minimal environmental impact, that the organization is planting trees to offset its impact, and so forth.  As consumer awareness rapidly increases, no brand will be immune to scrutiny and public dialog.

This dialog will be channeled through brand managers, advocates and brand champions, and it will appeal to the social consciousness of consumers, attracting and retaining them. These types of connections with consumers will be built at a higher, “meta level” beyond product benefits – they will be directly correlated with satisfaction derived and desires fulfilled by brands, creating a stronger identification with the brand promise.  A consumer who self-identifies as an affinity member stands out to marketers as a potential brand champion.  This is where M:M communications and social media prove their greatest value to marketers.  “Sub-value chains” revolving around such consumers – self-identified brand champions - are established, and the conventional marketing value chain is transformed by the addition of these smaller units.

The definition of a loyal customer will continue to evolve to include these sub-value-chains. We are truly in the age where the consumer will become active participants in the overall marketing value chain of the organization they choose to engage with. The involved and informed consumer, who has chosen to engage with the organization and the brand, will be the loyal consumer of the future – a consumer who feels ownership and hence loyalty towards the brand.  Brand loyalty will have an increasing dependence on the value chain of the organization, which in turn is dependent on the attention a consumer is willing to spare for it.  Organizations will be faced with the imperative to become more transparent throughout their value chain to make their customers feel an integral part of it.