WOM Integration Between Advertising and Digital Channels

August 7th, 2009 • Word of Mouth

Consumers no longer move neatly from one touchpoint to the next, from branding to promotion to sales. Instead, they snack on digital content delivered through a dizzying array of devices. They share ideas about products, companies, and brands, with their brand awareness and purchase consideration formed just as much by trolling a few niche-oriented blogs or peer-generated odes to the product on YouTube as by a national branding campaign. They research online and buy in stores. They shop in stores and buy online. The Internet has shattered the entire concept of a linear purchase funnel.

The traditional advertising scenario is very front weighted with value, but it is constantly in a state of decline as time goes on. You pay for the creation of the ad and the media buy and then sit back and pray. You’re not wasting millions of untraceable impressions on TV, radio and print buys. You’re forming real relationships with people that spread their version of your message along the chain.

With social media, however, you invest up front, but your spending has to scale as your message spreads to new audiences over time. The value you get takes longer to build and catch up with the advertising model, but it will eventually exceed it. That’s a hard thing to budget, but it’s important to note.

It seems pretty clear right? But this is a huge mental leap for most marketing organizations. The new model is about building relationships that grow and spread to new relationships. Here is a graphical representation of this shift. Advertising will have diminishing returns over time as social connections will deliver more and more value.

It’s essential to have integration between traditional advertising and social media to deliver the right message to the right people at the right time to spark authentic word of mouth.

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