ROONEY: Certain segments are easily
reached through print advertising today.
Newspapers can be a terrific way to reach
aging boomers, a key target segment for
high-speed Internet, digital cable and cable
telephony. As we get more scientific, we have
moved away from some of the mass media
to targeted direct response vehicles. We
clearly see a greater media spend moving to
new media and direct response due to the
clarity of the marketing ROI.
HITCHCOCK: While an increasing
amount of my budget will move to online
advertising, nothing beats the “hold it in
your hand” impact of a print ad. People
spend more time with print ads, and they
get passed around—it’s an old version of
viral. A basic of all my campaigns will still
have a print component.
JENNIFER GEISSER: I agree. In every
multimedia campaign, print advertising
plays a key role. We are a long way from
dismissing traditional print media. There
is still nothing better than seeing that
story or ad in good ol’ black-and-white
print, be it a newspaper or magazine.
SLATTERY: New media doesn’t kill
old media, so print will continue to be
an important part of our marketing mix.
Sure, print’s share of the budget may have
decreased, but I don’t see it going away
altogether as useful advertising. In cable we
are marketing to a mass audience with a
time-sensitive product, so it still takes mass
media like television, radio, newspapers and
magazines to achieve this goal.
CABLEFAX:
What techniques, strategies or tools that
are not being used extensively today will be
ubiquitous in five years?
BEALES: We’ll have a better handle on
how to successfully use the marketing
channels that are hard to control, such as
word of mouth, social networking, user
generated content, blogs and so on. And
HD toilet seat advertising is going to be
the killer app.
ROONEY: Marketers are becoming more
scientific in their approach. The old adage
that“half my marketing isn’t working, I just
don’t know which half” is gone. As we employ better metrics we are better able to drive
the results we seek. While the majority of
today’s advertising is generic—for instance,
only segmented based on what products
the household does not yet have but little
psycho-demographic and behavioral segmentation— the opposite will be the case in
five years. In five years cable marketers will
use CRM tools and market segmentation
models to better sell and serve customers.
Further, new tools are coming and cable
marketers have an opportunity to be innovators. ITV and impulse ordering through
the digital set-top will be awesome new
marketing opportunities.
WADE: The Internet and non-main-stream media will continue to play an
increasing role in getting in touch with
sports fans. In addition, the opportunity for
the audience—our customers—to convey
their programming likes and dislikes will
increase. Programmers and PR executives
will change the way they approach messaging and respond to audience criticisms.
Most obvious among the changes will be
the preparedness for quick release of information and quick response.
GEISSER: There are so many multiplatform options out there, so utilizing these
nontraditional techniques and tools has
already become a popular trend. In five years,
there is certain to be even more techniques
with the growth of digital media. Think
about the days when people used to wear
sandwich boards as ads. Now our sandwich-es practically wear the ads—you can brand
just about anything.
SLAT TERY: Brands are going to have to
become much better at having a conversation with consumers. In the age of Web 2.0
and online social networks, word of mouth
has become more important than ever.
Consumers are much more likely to trust
fellow consumers rather than what they are
fed in an advertising message. The smart
marketers will continue to find innovative ways of opening up this dialogue with
consumers and exploiting these channels to
deliver a better product and more relevant
marketing messages.
Will these new techniques and strategies
make PR and marketing more or less
effective than they are today?
BEALES: We tend to think innovation
—the next big thing—is the answer. And
it might be. But today, some companies
are finding that traditional direct response
marketing is their most successful tactic. So
while we hope new marketing techniques
will be more effective, who really knows?
Maybe we’ll decide we should go back to
community quilt squares.
ROONEY: I am an optimist, so of course
I will say that we will be more effective. As
we dive deeper into marketing sciences,
CRM and segmentation, I feel we will truly
understand our customers better.
HITCHCOCK: Call me an eternal
optimist, too. The tools that a marketing
PR professional has at their service now
are far easier to organize and launch than
they were just eight years ago. But at the
same time your audience is barraged with
more information and choices of where
to get their facts. If I know my audience,
I should be able to structure an effective
campaign to successfully get my message
in front of them.
GEISSER: As long as there is Henry
Schleiff, there will be messages that we
need to shout about, so the more platforms there are, the more effective we can
be—by publicizing and marketing our
brand everywhere.
ARNOLD: For PR, I think we’ll be just
as effective as we are today. Times change,
as do businesses and the media. Good PR
people adapt and figure out how to get
messages out efficiently and effectively.
SLAT TERY: Ultimately, marketing is becoming more effective. The lines between
marketing and content will continue to
blur, which means consumers will actually
be choosing to view marketing messages
rather than finding ways to tune them
out. Also, new technologies enable us to
serve up branded experiences to interested
consumers rather than bombarding all
consumers with messages for products
that have no direct relevance to them. ♣
