Several major factors are changing the face of today’s marketing communications. First, consumers are changing. In this digital, wireless age, consumers are better informed and more communications empowered. Rather than relying on marketer-supplied information, they can use the internet, social media, and other technologies to find information on their own. They can connect easily with other consumers to exchange brand-related information or even create their own brand messages and experiences.

Second, marketing strategies are changing. As mass markets have fragmented, marketers are shifting away from mass marketing. More and more, they are developing focused marketing programs designed to engage customers and build customer relationships in more narrowly defined micromarkets.

Finally, sweeping advances in digital technology are causing remarkable changes in the ways companies and customers communicate with each other. The digital age has spawned a host of new information and communication tools—from satellite and cable television systems to smartphones and tablets to the many faces of the internet (brand websites, email, blogs, social media and online communities, the mobile web, and so much more). Just as mass marketing once gave rise to a new generation of mass-media communications, the new digital and social media have given birth to a more targeted, social, and engaging marketing communications model.

Although network television, magazines, newspapers, and other traditional mass media remain very important, their dominance is declining. In their place, advertisers are now adding a broad selection of more-specialized and highly targeted media to engage smaller customer communities with more personalized, interactive content. The new media range from specialty cable television channels and made-for-the-web videos to online ads, email and texting, blogs, mobile catalogs and coupons, and a burgeoning list of social media. Such new media have taken marketing by storm.

Some advertising industry experts even predict that the old mass-media communications model will eventually become obsolete. Mass-media costs are rising, audiences are shrinking, ad clutter is increasing, and viewers are gaining control of message exposure through technologies such as video streaming or DVRs that let them skip disruptive television commercials. As a result, the skeptics suggest, marketers are shifting ever-larger portions of their marketing budgets away from old-media mainstays and moving them to online, social, mobile, and other new-age media.

In recent years, although TV remains a potent advertising medium that captures a third or more of total advertising spending, its growth has slowed or declined. Ad spending in magazines, newspapers, and radio has also lost ground. Meanwhile, spending in digital media has surged. Growing at a rate of 15 percent a year, total digital ad spending is expected to pass TV spending this year. By 2020, digital media will capture an estimated 45 percent of all ad spending compared with TV’s 33 percent. By far the fastest-growing digital category is mobile, which grew 38 percent last year and will account for an ­estimated 74 percent of all digital ad spending by 2020.

More and more, large advertisers—from Nike and P&G to Unilever—are moving toward a “digital-first” approach to building their brands. For example, Unilever, one of the world’s largest advertisers, now spends as much as one-quarter of its $8 billion global marketing budget on digital media. In countries such as the United States and China, digital media account for closer to 50 percent of its marketing budget.3

Some marketers now rely almost entirely on digital and social media. For example, eco-friendly household products maker Method employs a full but mostly digital promotional campaign themed “Clean happy”:4

Method is known for offbeat campaigns using slogans like “People against dirty” and “For the love of clean.” But the most notable thing about the “Clean happy” campaign is that it at first used zero ads in traditional media like TV or magazines. Instead, the centerpiece of the campaign was brand videos aired only on YouTube and on the Method Facebook page. The ­campaign also employed online media ads as well as a major presence in social media that included, in addition to YouTube and Facebook, the Method Twitter feed and blogs. The “Clean happy” campaign fit both Method’s personality and its budget. Method is the kind of grassroots brand that benefits from social media–type word of mouth. Moreover, “Clean happy” ran a first-year budget of only about $3.5 million, compared with the whopping $150 million or so that rival P&G might spend just to bring out a single new product, such as Tide Pods detergent packets.

Method ran the digital-only campaign for a full year before beginning to bring it to TV. Even now, the “Clean happy” campaign relies heavily on digital and social media, supported only by carefully targeted regional cable TV in selected markets. More recent campaign installments include “Life’s Messy Moments,” a romantic comedy–style series of TV and online ads and other social media content that follow a young couple and their relatable messes from their first kiss to first kid to a clean, happy ending. To kick off the campaign on Facebook, Method hosted a photo contest called Clean Happy Awards, asking fans to submit their best pet, kid, and party messes. “We’re embracing this grassroots movement,” says a Method ad executive. “When you don’t have 150 million bucks, that’s what you have to do.”

In the new marketing communications world, rather than using old approaches that interrupt customers and force-feed them mass messages, new media formats let marketers reach smaller communities of consumers in more engaging ways. For example, think about television viewing these days. Consumers can now watch their favorite programs on just about anything with a screen—on televisions but also laptops, smartphones, or tablets. And they can choose to watch programs whenever and wherever they wish, often without commercials. Increasingly, some programs, ads, and videos are being produced only for online viewing.

Despite the shift toward digital media, however, traditional mass media still capture a sizable share of the promotion budgets of most major marketing firms, a fact that probably won’t change quickly. Thus, rather than the old-media model collapsing completely, most marketers foresee a shifting mix of both traditional mass media and online, mobile, and social media that engage more-targeted consumer communities in a more personalized way. In the end, regardless of the communications channel, the key is to integrate all of these media in a way that best engages customers, communicates the brand message, and enhances the customer’s brand experiences.

As the marketing communications environment shifts, so will the role of marketing communicators. Rather than just creating and placing “TV ads” or “print ads” or “Snapchat branded story ads,” many marketers now view themselves more broadly as content marketing managers. As such, they create, inspire, and share brand messages and conversations with and among customers across a fluid mix of paid, owned, earned, and shared communication channels. These channels include media that are both traditional and new as well as controlled and not controlled. It’s not just advertising anymore, notes one ad agency executive. “It’s about [communications] context and channels now, rather than just the message itself. It’s about mapping the customer journey to start a conversation with consumers, one that leads to engagement, purchase, loyalty, and advocacy at different touchpoints against this integrated journey” (see Real Marketing 14.1).5

The shift toward a richer mix of media and content approaches poses a problem for marketers. Consumers today are bombarded by brand messages from a broad range of sources. But all too often, companies fail to integrate their various communication channels. Mass-media ads say one thing, whereas company’s internet site, emails, social media pages, or videos posted on YouTube say something altogether different.

One problem is that marketing content often comes from different parts of the company. Advertising messages are prepared by the advertising department or an ad agency. Other company departments or agencies prepare public relations messages, sales promotion events, and online or social media content. However, consumers don’t distinguish between content sources the way marketers do. In the consumer’s mind, brand-related content from different sources—whether it’s a Super Bowl ad, in-store display, mobile app, or friend’s social media post—all merge into a single message about the brand or company. Conflicting content from these different sources can result in confused company images, brand positions, and customer relationships.

Thus, the explosion of online, mobile, and social media marketing presents tremendous opportunities but also big challenges. It gives marketers rich new tools for understanding and engaging customers. At the same time, it complicates and fragments overall marketing communications. The challenge is to bring it all together in an organized way. To that end, most companies practice the concept of integrated marketing communications (IMC). Under this concept, as illustrated in Figure 14.1, the company carefully integrates its many communication channels to deliver a clear, consistent, and compelling message about the organization and its brands.

Figure 14.1

Integrated Marketing Communications

Often, different media play unique roles in engaging, informing, and persuading consumers. For example, a recent study showed that more than two-thirds of advertisers and their agencies are planning video ad campaigns that stretch across multiple viewing platforms, such as traditional TV and digital, mobile, and social media. Such video convergence, as it’s called, combines TV’s core strength—vast reach—with digital’s better targeting, interaction, and engagement.6 These varied media and roles must be carefully coordinated under the overall integrated marketing communications plan.

One good example of a well-integrated marketing communications effort is home-­improvement retailer Lowe’s “Never Stop Improving” campaign, which integrates the clout of big-budget traditional media with the power of social ­media to create personalized, real-time customer engagement:7

To be sure, Lowe’s runs a full slate of big-budget television spots and other traditional media ads that drive home its “Never Stop Improving” positioning. But in recent years, the company has added a rich flow of engaging, carefully integrated social media content that personalizes and enriches the Lowe’s customer experience in ways that traditional media can’t. Just one example is the Lowe’s “Fix in Six” Vine video campaign. “Fix in Six” features dozens of clever six-second looping videos showing quick-fix solutions to home-­improvement problems—­everything from removing stripped screws to keeping squirrels away from plants. The award-winning series was a huge success from the start, generating 28,000 social media mentions within just the first week and earning ­millions of total campaign impressions to date.

Beyond Vine, the Lowe’s “Never Stop Improving” campaign integrates a broad mix of social media, each playing its own unique role. Lowe’s uses its heavily subscribed YouTube channel for longer DIY video tips and tutorials to supplement the quick hits on Vine. It uses Pinterest and Instagram to bring customers’ projects to life through high-impact imagery. Facebook provides a platform for engaging customers in dialogue—every Facebook comment gets an answer. Twitter serves for posting short comments or spreading the word about special offers. No matter what the platform, all content—from television spots to online videos to Facebook posts—is carefully coordinated under Lowe’s “Never Stop Improving” mantra and its mission of helping customers find home-improvement solutions. According to one Lowe’s marketer, the integrated marketing campaign is less about making the cash register ring and more about “making sure that customers . . . know that Lowe’s is offering them value and [about keeping them] engaged with the brand.”

In the past, no one person or department was responsible for thinking through the communication roles of the various promotion tools and coordinating the promotion mix. To help implement integrated marketing communications, some companies have appointed a marketing communications director who has overall responsibility for the ­company’s communications efforts. This helps to produce better communications consistency and greater sales impact. It places the responsibility in someone’s hands—where none existed before—to unify the company’s image as it is shaped by thousands of ­company activities.