Marketing

Which Social Media Conversation Are You Joining?

~ K. Quesenberry ~ Leave a comment

Solis’ Conversation Prism has been around for a while, but it is still a useful tool. It gives you a whole view of the social media universe, categorized and organized by how people use each network. One  channel that I think is picking up steam is the music conversation channel. Many users, especially young demographics are moving to streaming music services like Pandora and Last FM. With minimal advertising interuptions compared to radio and no monthly fees like Satalite they are an attractive alternative. I believe they will only increase in popularity as more TV’s and BlueRay players come with Internet connectivity built in.

The great thing about a campaign on Pandora and/or Last FM is you can really segment to your audience by format. Does your target like adult contemporary, hip hop or Barry Manilow? There’s a station for that! You can also geo target your buy by top markets or distribution regions and the nice thing about a Pandora ad is that it has both audio and visual elements.

Recently Toyota has struck a long term deal with Pandora for some of these very reasons. A company executive promised, “The campaign will be the largest in scope and span to ever run across all of the Pandora internet radio advertising platforms.” As part of a new, multi-year “Legends & Icons” advertising series, Pandora will brand stations and artists with Toyota models. The Highlander will be on the Top 40 station because the demographics of the care model match the listener demographic for the station. Different models will brand different stations with lots of customized channels, artist spotlights, exclusive releases, radio ‘mixtapes,’ and video integration. Toyota executives say they have a broad target demo of 18-49, but though different stations and content slivers they can be more segmented.  Pandora now has 80 million registered users.

Has your company joined the digital media conversation? If not find the right channel and jump in!

Corporate Communications, Marketing, IMC, PR and Advertising. What’s the difference?

~ K. Quesenberry ~ 1 Comment

When we talk about these separate communication disciplines are we comparing apples to apples or apples to oranges, grapes, pears and peaches? First, lets start with some definitions:

Corporate Communication: Activities involved in managing all internal and external communications aimed at corporate stakeholders.

Marketing Communications: Coordinated promotional messages delivered through channels like print, radio, television and personal selling.

Public Relations: Creating/maintaining goodwill of various publics (customers, employees, investors, etc.) through non-paid forms of communication.

Advertising: The activity or profession of producing information for promoting the sale of commercial products or services.

Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC): A synergistic approach to achieving the objectives of a marketing campaign, through a well-coordinated use of different promotional methods.

So what is the difference and how are they all connected? In general Corporate Communication focuses on the company/enterprise in dealing with issue management, mergers and litigation. Marketing Communications deals with the products/services and with creating demand or positioning.

Its easy to see how PR can be used for both Corporate and Marketing Communication. From crisis management to media outreach, PR is very effective at helping to meet corporate and marketing goals. But advertising can be used for both as well. Many times I have created a public billboard or national print ad for a target audience of one – an important corporate stakeholder. Trends also indicate that consumers now look at the companies behind brands with corporate responsibility and sustainability becoming a part of their purchase decision. A Cone report found that 79% of adults would be likely switch from one brand to another after hearing about a corporate-charitable partnership.

What about Corporate Branding TV that isn’t really selling a product, but promoting the corporation? Following the BP Oil Spill Corporate Communication used Public Relations for Crisis Management and one of their strategies was Corporate TV that told stakeholders and consumers everything BP was doing to clean up. That leads us to one more concept :

Internal Marketing: This management philosophy promotes the firm and its policies to employees as if they are the (internal) customers of the firm.

Wasn’t the BP spot also aimed at BP employees? I am sure internal communication was a big part of their integrated communications effort – which brings me to Integrated Marketing Communication. IMC may only apply to synergistic efforts to meet marketing goals, but as you can see with the BP example it is possible to create a larger integrated plan that uses advertising, PR and internal efforts to meet both Corporate and Marketing Communication goals.

I do value the importance of maintaining separate specializations. We need experts in all fields, but I do think there is room to come together and create the big ideas that move consumers and stakeholders. Rather than comparing apples to oranges, I would rather make fruit salad.