Disruption is a phenomenon affecting almost every aspect of our lives, from politics to health, the environment, shopping and education. Technology is the driving force behind much of this disruption; however we shouldn’t discount how evolving demands and expectations are creating an environment prone to disruption. Marketers are facing many disruptors on a variety of fronts today. We will look at three of the key causes of this disruption.
The age of the consumer
One of the core disruptors greatly impacting marketers is the monumental shift in power and influence away from brands of all sizes and into the hands of the consumer. The digital world has played a large role in providing a larger voice and platform for the consumer to communicate and interact with.
In the past, customer complaints (and compliments) could ‘hide’ in the offices of a customer service manager. Today these same commentaries are often posted online for all (i.e. dozens if not hundreds of people) to see. This online medium also provides a way for others to respond to and share these comments, further amplifying these messages. Brands have little control or influence over much of this.
Influencer marketing
Social media’s explosive growth has produced a number of off-shoots for marketers, including its evolution as a critical online advertising medium. Another has been the creation of a prominent group of online personalities characterized by a large and highly engaged group of followers.
This is the phenomenon known as influencers and influencer marketing. These personalities leverage their highly engaged follower base to disseminate marketing messages about brands they support. In recent years influencers have been able to monetize these marketing activities.
At about the same time, brands started to recognize that consumers were becoming more and more skeptical about branded advertisements and were instead gravitating towards the recommendations of friends, family and so-called non-partisan “experts”. Influencers thus became an ‘impartial’ way to promote ones products and services and push this message out to a large audience.
The journey to personalization
Marketers have long talked about the nirvana that could be achieved via marketing personalization – the ability to communicate on a virtual one-on-one basis with one’s customers. While the concept has been around since the 1990’s, putting the theory into practice has always proven difficult for marketers given the complexity and cost associated with such an undertaking.
Usher in the 21st century and the evolving science of big data, data analytics, AI and the digital space and we finally have the technology to make this happen. Or do we? One of the challenges marketers now face is that big data has created an entirely new problem for many - we have too much data to sift through! This has made decision-making that much more difficult to employ (i.e. what data to use, when and how). This has proven to be a struggle many brands have found difficult to overcome.
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As you can see, the marketing world is evolving very rapidly and many marketers are struggling to keep up with all these changes and develop programs, campaigns and processes that enable them to tap into these new concepts and tools and use them to grow their businesses.
So what can marketers do to overcome the challenges this triad of disruptors are exacting on the world of advertising and promotion? How should they incorporate these marketing components into a workable digital solution that can enable them to grow their bottom line?
I have the good fortune to be presenting on this very topic this coming November at Satori Consulting’s annual conference titled Disrupt the Status Quo. I am very much looking forward to my own presentation titled “Marketing Disruptors: The Age of the Consumer, Influencers and the Journey to Personalization”. This conference is sure to shed considerable light on this and many other topics.
In my presentation I will expand on the above noted points and provide some practical and realistic strategies marketers can employ to tackle these and the other components challenging us to think, plan and act in ways we never had to before. For more information about this exciting event and to register, please click on this link. I look forward to seeing some of you in NOLA this coming fall!
