The Connect of Companies and Their Targeted Consumers - Essay Example

Consumers Don’t Want to be “Marketed at” Anymore Total Number of Words 527 Table of Contents I. Introduction ………………………………………………………………. 3 II. Revealing Evidences that the New Consumers Doesn’t Want to be ‘Marketed at’ Anymore ………………………………………………….. 3 III. Importance of Knowing Consumers’ Preferences in Each Generation ………………………………………………………….. 5 IV. Discussion …………………………………………………………………. 6 V. Conclusion ………………………………………………………………… 8 References ……………………………………………………………………… 9 - 10 Introduction A lot of companies today are having a difficult time trying to ‘connect’ with their targeted consumers. (Baker, 2003: 1) This is primarily because people today have the freedom to enjoy a wider source of news and entertainment ranging from news paper, magazines, television, radio and the Internet as a result of the increased use of information technology. Given that people in general are very much pre-occupied with their work and other related daily activities, the use of traditional marketing tools and techniques such as ‘direct marketing’ or ‘brand marketing’ are no longer considered as an effective communication tool between the company and consumers. (Grayson, 2006) For this study, the researcher will gather relevant articles to support the fact that consumers today does not want to be ‘marketed at’ anymore. Prior to the conclusion, the researcher will provide some recommendation on how to effectively capture the attention of a selected target market. Revealing Evidences that the New Consumers Doesn’t Want to be ‘Marketed at’ Anymore Based on J. Walter Thompson’s “Ad Industry Perception Survey”, only 14% of the Americans today give respect to people who are directly involved behind the advertising industry. (Allen, 2007) Aside from being able to use the information technology easily and having more knowledge on marketing strategies used to persuade the consumers to buy a product, consumers today have a different buying behavior in the sense that they are easily captured by a well-known brand name rather than the specific benefits or features that a product is offering. (Baker, 2003: 2) Marketing communication basically allows the marketing managers to develop and establish an effective way of communicating the company’s different product lines to the consumers. In the process of communicating these products to the consumers, marketing managers try to influence their target market to purchase these items. In relation to marketing communication, Magnani (2006) stated that “the marketing communication strategy that was used 50, 25 or 5 years ago is no longer effective today.” Similar to the statement made by Magnani (2006), Gould (2006) mentioned that “advertising has lost its traditional place within the communication system.” There are many factors that made a contribution towards the continuously changing marketing trend. First, it is possible that the tight competition in both the domestic and international market is flooding the people with excessive marketing information that goes through a total of 64 televisions and cable networks that is being transmitted by roughly a little more than 500 global channels. (Garfield, 2005) Since people have the option to view different television channels, there is a higher possibility for television viewers to ‘hop’ from one channel to another in order to avoid the massive television advertisements. (Stuart-Menteth, Wilson, & Baker, 2006) Another strong evidence that tells us that consumers do not want to be ‘marketed at’ anymore is the fact that most of the Generation X and Generation Y population are spending more time with the use of the Internet rather than the use of the traditional news and entertainment tools such as the news paper, television, and radio. Since these generations are very much knowledgable with the use of information technology, these young individuals could easily determine a marketing advertisement from those that are not. As a result, these young individuals are capable of easily dumping electronic advertising mails from their e-mail account without bothering to read or open the mail. For this reason, a lot of advertisers and marketers are forced to go through the process of a ‘seismic shift’ as they learn more about the transformation on the way the new consumers are viewing the commercial interaction. (Grayson, 2006) In general, the tight competition in the market caused by globalization increases the consumers’ power as a buyer. As a result, new consumers could easily choose to ignore a specific seller or advertiser because of the presence of a long list of similar products and services being offered by another seller. In the case of e-commerce, Internet users could easily ignore, detele or black list the online advertisers. (Delia Associates, 2004) Importance of Knowing Consumers’ Preferences in Each Generation In the past, marketers and advertisers have effectively studied the consumers’ preferences of the Baby Boomers and Generation X. In order for marketers and advertisers to continuously succeed in the future, there is a strong need for them to learn more about the specific consumers’ preferences of Generation Y or the millennials throughout the United States. (Warner, 2006) Basically, the study of Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) is essential part of determining the best communication strategy to be used among the new consumers. The use of traditional marketing communication techniques such as advertising, direct marketing, public relations, and sales promotion can still be used in order to attract the company’s target consumers. Given that the 20th century for marketing communication is bounded with the use of the Internet, there is a strong need for advertisers and marketers to integrate the traditional marketing communication strategies with the use of alternative forms of media. (Misloski, 2005) For example: rather than the advertisers depending too much on printed advertisements, modern marketers would rather develop a web banner advertisement or make use of ‘advergaming’1 as a more effective way of promoting the company’s products and services. (PRNewswire, 2004) In some cases, marketers and advertisers would recommend the utilization of animated webisode (Higginbotham, 2004) rather than typical TV commercials. Also, the use of traditional direct mail can be changed with the use of E-mail. Discussion It is important for advertisers and marketers to determine the difference between marketing a particular product and service and communicating the features of a product and service to the consumers. Basically, the new consumers today do not want to be ‘marketed at’ anymore. In the past, advertisers and marketers make use of different communication tools in order to sell their products and services to their target consumers. Since people in general are tired of continuously receiving print advertisements or watching a ‘direct marketing’ advertisements on the television each day, most people end up trying to avoid receiving the same messages from the advertisers. Today, new consumers prefer to be communicated with regards to specific goods and services offered by a company rather than forcing them to purchase a product. (Scibetta, 2007) The problem with the traditional marketing tools used by the advertisers is related to its one-sidedness wherein the main concept of these advertisements in prints or on television programs is solely designed to encourage the consumers to purchase their products. In line with this matter, a mass-marketing strategy is considered less effective as compared to a more personalized approach to advertising communication strategy through the use of information technology. (Thomas, 2007) Given that each consumer has their own preferences on how they should be communicated by the advertisers, marketers should effectively determine the most effective way of communicating with their selected target consumers. For example: McDonalds are targeting the children to patronize their ‘Happy Meal’ promo. (PRNewswire, 2004) Since their target consumers are children with the need to be engaged in play, the use of small ‘advergaming’ gadgets is proven to be more effective in terms of indirectly communicating the promotion of McDonald’s ‘Happy Meal’ products rather than the use of news paper print ads. The Big Knit project which was implemented by Innocent Smoothies is another example of an effective marketing communication strategy. (Innocent, 2007) Basically, the company’s effort of to encourage the local people in town to support the Big Knit project in order to gather sufficient charity fund for the older population was a very successful public campaign in the sense that the project was able to effectively increase its brand equity since active participants such as the group of knitters are the ones who personally spread the good news about Innocent Drinks’ to other people. Conclusion Many factors in the past and present events have contributed on why the new consumers today do not want to be ‘marketed at’ anymore. Since people in general are constantly receiving direct mail advertisements via post mail or electronic mail aside from the regular television ads they see each day, consumers today would simply throw away these junk mails or simply shift the television channel in order to avoid one-sided advertisements. Since the traditional communication methods are no longer as effective as it was before, there is a strong need for marketing managers to examine the importance of interactive Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) (Peltier, Schibrowsky, & Schultz, 2006) and a more personalized approach to marketing. For marketers and advertisers to effectively catch their selected audiences’ attention, these working professionals should consider the use of different information communication tools such as the ‘webisode’ or ‘advergaming’ devices that can be used in communicating their products and services. In the process of communicating with the new consumers, marketers and advertisers should avoid the application of a direct marketing approach which solely focuses on persuading their target consumers to purchase the goods they sell. *** End *** References: Allen, Scott. "Virtual Handshake." 25 September 2007. The Real Reson Advertising Doesnt Work. 24 April 2008 . Baker, Susan. New Consumer Marketing: Managing a Living Demand System. England: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., 2003. "Delia Associates." 21 March 2007. Your Customer Just Replaced Your CEO. 24 April 2008 . Garfield, B. “The Chaos Scenario.” Advertising Age (2005): 1:57 - 59. Gould, Philip. "Coping iwth the Post-Advertising Age." Market Leader (2006): 33:57 - 59. Grayson, Timothy R.D. "Reforming the Advertising Code." 2006. Higginbotham, Stacey. "Austin Business Journal." 6 August 2004. On the Next Webisode... Austin becoming hotbed for Web-based entertainment. 24 April 2008 . “Innocent.” 4 December 2007. Grand Hat Judging Grand Winners. 24 April 2008 . Magnani, R. "The Blur Age: Effective Communication in Todays Changing Environment." Journal of Integrated Marketing Communications (2006): 10 - 15. Misloski, W. "Marketings Neo-Reneisance: An Opportunity for Tomorrows Multi-Channel Integrated Marketer." Journal of Integrated Marketing Communications (2005): 17 - 25. Peltier, James, John A. Schibrowsky and Don E. Schultz. "Interactive IMC: The Relational-Transactional Continuum and the Synergistic Use of Customer Data." Journal of Advertising Research (2006): 46(2):146 - 159. "PR Newswire." 21 June 2004. Tony Hawk’s Boom Boom HuckJam ™ Tour and My Scene ™ Featured in McDonald’s ® Happy Meals. 24 April 2008 . Scibetta, Nicholas. "Ketchums Global Media Network." 2007. PR at the Crossroads: Survey Pinpoints Essential First Steps for New-Media Neophytes. 24 April 2008 . Stuart-Menteth, Hester, Hugh Wilson and Susan Baker. "Escaping the Channel Silo - Researching the New Consumer." International Journal of Market Research (2006): 48(4):415 - 437. Thomas, Andrew R. "The End of Mass Marketing: or, Why All Successful Marketing is Nor Direct Marketing." Direct Marketing: An International JOurnal (2007): 1(1):6 - 16. Warner, Fara. "Rediff News." 14 February 2006. Learning How to Speak to Gen Y. 24 April 2008 . Read More