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Technology shaping the change in how brands are marketed and how

consumers interact with companies

SO4038: Technology, social innovation and gender

Karen Kiely 0643564

Micheal O Flynn

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Introduction

Technology today is shaping the practice of marketing and is

changing the ways in which companies market their br and. Web 2.0 and

social media are allowing consumers to engage with a company and vice

versa. The manner in which people communicate with brands is

developing rapidly and this is mainly down to web 2.0 technologies. Web

2.0 is used to describe a world wide web that allows collaboration,

sharing and user-generated content on the part of the millions of users the

world over.

This paper will look at the impact of social media and web 2.0

technologies on the field of marketing and examine some cases where theinfluence of technology has induced success, in both sales and customer

satisfaction, for companies. It seeks to prove that societys interaction

with companies and brands is changing shape due to web technologies.

The value of web 2.0 technologies in marketing is something that cannot

be dismissed and must be embraced by companies to help bring their

brand into the future.

Background

Using the web to market a brand has become particularly

widespread in recent years. Companies are recognizing the value attached

to using such a vast medium to promote their product or service. In

February 2010, Facebook announced that the service had reac hed 400

million registered users worldwide and Twitter announced that the micro-

blogging site processes more than 50 million tweets per day (Van Grove,

2010). The number of potential customers online and their ability to

promote (or demote) brands through word-of-mouth is something that

companies are now realizing.

In the early 90s, when the World Wide Web became available to all,

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advertisers employed unsuccessful methods of online advertising in the

form of intrusive and one-way stimulus-response models like banner

advertising and pop-ups. From there, interactive marketing was born with

smart banners, banner advertising related to the users search terms.

Nowadays, complicated algorithms carry out market basket analysis and

recommend related products to customers buying a certain product (e.g.

Amazon saying people who bought this also bought this). Furthermore,

companies are accessing social media users data to focus ads etc. (Baruh,

2009).

In recent years, new media channels have become paramount in

many companies marketing strategies and it is the technology that isavailable to everyone that is shaping this.

Literature

Thackeray et al (2009) examine social media for promotion and

describe the benefits of engaging the customer: it increases buy -in and

loyalty; and viral or word-of-mouth marketing can take place, where

customers share information about the product or service. By means of

viral marketing, consumers are using technology to (perhaps unwittingly)

promote brands. Technology is assisting the marketing of the brand in a

new way.

Baruh (2010) describes how viral marketing is a viable option for

companies and offers recommendations for successful implementation of

social media marketing campaigns. The author also argues that marketing

through social media needs to be personal, participatory and trustworthy.

Marketers do this by data-mining using the vast amount of information

that is online about their customers which gives them the capability to

determine which customers to target or avoid, as well as when and how to

target them. The amount of information about individuals online, whether

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on Facebook, Myspace, Linkedin etc., is not left untapped by marketers.

Baruh discusses future trends in technology and marketing, including the

idea of the semantic web, or web 3.0, where the web is a network of

databases that can communicate with each other and perform tasks on the

users behalf. The author finishes by stating that a balance needs to be

struck between automatic recommendation systems and involvement by

the community, to invite consumers to actively participate in the

dissemination of marketing messages.

Li & Bernoff (2008) examine how marketers are using the

groundswell - the phenomenon of people using each other to get what

they want as opposed to using companies - to their advantage. Theyhighlight three forces that have brought the groundswell to the fore:

people, technology and economics. People have always depended on each

other, e.g. in labour unions and political revolutions. Technology has

changed everything as far as social interaction is concerned. Internet

connections are fast and ubiquitous and considerably more in teractive. As

for online economics; on the internet, traffic equals money. As a result,

a combination of these three forces, with technology fuelling the most

change, is leading to a social change in the way people engage with

brands and vice versa. They also state that social technologies is the

future, as in 2012, companies that dont engage in [participation] will

look dated.

Kitano (2009) makes an interesting point that traditional ad

campaigns, where professional services of advertising agencies are

required and expensive, are not the way to engage with consumers.

Reviews and referrals via social networking or grading sites are much

more effective and less costly than ad campaigns. An appropriate

example of this is Georgetown Cupcake, who didnt invest in any

advertising but after being in operation for just two weeks was selling

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800 cupcakes a day due to word-of-mouth on blogs and websites

(Nicholls, cited in Thacker et al, 2009). Blake Chandlee, Managing

Director of Facebook Europe, (cited in Whatley, 2009), summarized this

in one statement A trusted referral from a non-branded, independent

entity is more powerful than any amount of advertising, marketing or

PR. This trusted referral between consumers is not only happening in

real-world settings, as it always has been, but online also. The internet is

facilitating this social interaction between consumers, and in turn is

effecting the success of a company.

Evidence

Comcast: Monitoring the conversation to enhance customer experience

Comcast, the largest cable providing service in the US, were one of

the first companies to embrace social media to monitor complaints about

the company. In 2008, Michael Arrington, a blogger on TechCrunch,

tweeted about his dissatisfaction with Comcasts service, after having

called twice to get the internet back up to no success. Within 20 minutes

of the tweet, a legitimate Comcast executive called Arrington and

arranged a speedy fixing of his connection (Arrington, 2008).

Here is a great example of a company monitoring the conversation

around their brand and using new technology channels to reach out to

customers. Siegler (2009) notes that Comcast executive Frank Eliason

(@comcastcares) now has 11 people working under him to respond to

information on the company that is broadcast over Twitter.

Coca-Cola: A fan-first approach in social communities

Coca-Cola has adopted a fan-first approach to online marketing,

stating being a fan, friend or follower doesnt mean that [the fans] have

opted in to have advertising blasted at them (Donnelly, 2010). The

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company allows fans to produce content, e.g. uploading photos of their

next Coca-Cola, sharing their favourite time of day to enjoy a Coke etc.

Interactive games and applications on social communities like Facebook

have proved successful for the company. Vitamin Water, a subsidiary of

Coca-Cola, ran a flavour, name and label design contest on Facebook,

which has led to the launch of a new flavour black cherry -lime, entitled

Connect and complete with the Facebook logo on the label (Kincaid,

2010). Coca-Cola can boast over 500,000 likes and 90,000 comments

on Facebook in six months alone. The interaction between the brand and

the consumers, through the medium of technology, is helping promote the

brand and increase sales and customer awareness of the br and.

Twitter as a sales platform as well as a PR tool

Computer giants Dell and Sony have both announced recently the

success in sales gained from using Twitter as a sales and communication

platform. Dell announced in late 2009 that they had generated revenue of

$6.5 million from their Twitter channel @DellOutlet (Ostrow, 2009).

Dell has a very active social media campaign, using multiple Twitter

handles, a network of blogs and Facebook (Balwani, 2009).

Likewise, Sony announced in February 2010 that the Sony Vaios Twitter

platform brought in over $1.5 million (McEleny, 2010). This shows the

value of new media channels to promote a brand and enhance sales.

Twitter is anticipated to cash-in on this advantage it provides to

companies by providing paid, corporate accounts to companies that wish

to sell using the medium.

Zappos.coms use of social media and quality interactions to enhance the

customer experience

Zappos.com is an online retail company whose s tory is similar to

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that of Comcast. The company aggregates employee tweets on a special

microsite as well as showcasing daily status updates on Facebook. Both

activities share internal company actvities, giving the company a human

side.

Employees are also encouraged to be social (Chappell, 2010) by

uploading content to Youtube frequently. The company is vastly different

to many others out there. While some corporations discourage social

media use during work hours, even putting sites li ke Facebook, Myspace

and Twitter on blacklists, disallowing access, Zappos has done the

opposite and it has given the customers an insight into the inner workings

of the company. This enhances transparency and authentic connectionsbetween staff and customers and can only increase brand building and

recognition (Gordhamer, 2009).

Blendtecs Will it blend? campaign

Blendtec is an American blender manufacturing company that used a

viral video marketing campaign called Will it blend? to highlight the

power of the companys blenders. The companys marketing director

conceived the idea and each episode, which featured a bizarre range of

items to be blended and uploaded to video sharing site Youtube, was

hosted by the CEO of Blendtec Tom Dickson (Balwani, 2009). Items

blended include an iPhone, action figures, glowsticks and a picket sign

(Youtube). The idea led to a five-fold increase in sales and continues to

entertain and sell (Balwani, 2009). The success of Blendtec and Will it

blend? highlights the capacity of technologies like video-sharing sites

and the wide user base to facilitate viral marketing that leads to increased

revenue and brand awareness.

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Evaluation

The theories and evidence presented in this essay provide a

considerable insight into the impact that technology is having on the

social interaction between brands and consumers. Its clear from the

literature and reliable online content on the topic that web technologies

have had a considerable impact on communicatio n between consumers

and brands and this is set to continue. Social technologies have provided

a variety of new media through which companies can communicate with

their customers, both current and potential.

In my opinion, the field of marketing and brand ing is changing

rapidly, with more and more companies utilizing social media. Thegrowing use of online technologies is changing the marketing landscape,

and companies are moving away from obtrusive marketing campaigns in

the form of television or banner ads to more collaborative and interactive

approaches to marketing.

Looking to the future of social media marketing, I feel that more and

more companies will latch onto the idea of using Facebook, Twitter and

other sites to engage with their customers and move away from

traditional advertising. Costs can be kept down this way. There seems to

be a lot of conversation around Twitter charging for corporate accounts

so I can see this also happening. I predict that in the near future, the

internet might become clouded in noise, or so much information that it

could be hard for users to filter information that isnt wanted. New

technologies may alleviate this, however, as Baruh (2010) discussed, with

the advent of the so-called web 3.0.

Conclusion

From the evidence presented, its clear that technology is and will

continue to shape a change in marketing, and relationships between

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consumers and brands.

References

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