Through all the recent technological advances, radio has remained almost unchanged. When people’s thoughts turn to new technology and interactive media, radio is not the first medium that springs to mind.

In the 1930s, broadcast radio has used AM (Amplitude Modulation) on both the Medium Wave and Long Wave bands. After 20 years later, in the 1950s, FM (Frequency Modulation) broadcasting began on the VHF Band, providing much better quality for listeners. Nowadays the ”DAB” is still little-known outside the radio industry. But it will set broadcasting standards for the next 50 years, with DAB, radio goes digital.

• What is DAB?

 

DAB (Digital Audio Broadcasting) is a new way of broadcasting radio via a network of terrestrial transmitters, bringing listeners more choice, improved sound quality, ease of tuning and extra information capacity. While DAB is the fastest-growing platform, it is important to recognize that digital radio is radio via any digital platform. It is sometimes mistakenly assumed that the term ‘digital radio’ refers only to DAB radio (radio transmitted via Digital Audio Broadcasting). For example, there are four main platforms currently which are Digital Audio Broadcasting, digital TV, mobile phone and the internet.

Figure: Top three things likely to be doing when listening radio via DAB, DTV, Internet, Mobile

(Source: WARC)

Furthermore, DAB offers the listener genuine CD quality sound, anywhere, with no interference and doing it at lower cost, since DAB broadcasts require less power than FM or AM. More importantly, it is a combination of new technologies that are likely to have a dramatic impact on radio audience throughout the world.

This process of change has raised a lot of questions about how, where and when people might listen in the digital age, and how advertisers might benefit from these trends. I believe in an increasingly consumer-led market the consumer expects the suppliers to overcome any “delivery” problems and this applies equally to radio.

It is important to note that personal spaces represent a true microcosm of society. The idea that personal spaces are generated and viewed almost exclusively by lonely teenagers in their bedrooms is inaccurate.

A study done by Caroline Vogt and Stuart Knapman in 2008, during their research, they spoke to many of spaces users, from low-tech mothers maintaining personal spaces to share pictures of their children with friends and family, to business owners successfully using the power of online social networks to sell their products.

“The personal spaces user-base is as varied as the population itself”,Vogt Says.

In the world of technology, new behavior trends are predicted on an almost daily basis, but many predictions are essentially based upon new functionalities offered by new technology such as mobile TV, video calling or interactive news and so on.

By contrast, the rise of personal spaces such as MySpace, Facebook and Windows Live Spaces have been about people and their needs, with technology acting as an enabler. New behaviours have grown in quirky or unexpected ways, there are some example below:

Figure : The relative importance of websites differs by country

(Source: Taiwan News)

In Taiwan a strong sense of etiquette has built up around personal spaces, with friends caught in a continuous cycle of reciprocal commenting on one another’s sites.

In the UK, personal spaces addresses are becoming a new social currency, handed out like business cards in pubs and bars, enabling initial contact with the girls or boys you have your eye on – without the dreaded phone call.

Although online social networking is a global phenomenon, but one thing is for sure, behaviours can differ considerably from one country to the other, driven by key cultural differences. From my point of view, to successfully engage in social networks, marketers need to understand the mindsets and behaviours which are occurring within those individual networks, and think about both the author’s and viewer’s motivations and needs.

Search engine has rapidly gained in popularity because of the targeted nature of the traffic it provides. Many advertisers see a high click to conversion rate for search traffic compared to other forms of online media; many markers think that is a most efficiency way to reach their target audience. However, advertisers have also seen an increase in the average cost per click for paid search advertisement.

 

Most paid search ads are sold on a pay for position model (Nico Brooks, 2005). For example, you can adjust the rank of your ads by raising or lowering your bid. Lowering bids decrease advertising costs, but does it also decrease the effectiveness of your ads?  I don’t think so………

 

What is Conversion rate? Conversion rate is the percentage of click through that result in an online conversion. Having said that, let’s take a look at Google case that will help you to get the pictures.

 

A study done by Nico Brooks, American Marketing Association in 2005 shows, the conversion rates for Google only fall about 20%-30% between the rank 1 and rank 10, the overall impact on conversion potential was a 90% decrease. The dramatic drop is mostly driven by the fall in click potential rather than big differences in conversion rates.

Figure: Google Adwords Date

(Source: Nico Brooks, American Marketing Association, 2005)

Today many factors contribute to the possibility of a conversion, therefore, I think understanding the online traffic analysis with the impact of rank on click to conversion rate can better control the cost of search marketing campaigns while maximizing targeted traffic and sales.

“Word of Mouse” is the online version of Word of Mouth, internet user-driven spread of a message or communications agent. This is also called “viral”, and it usually use online by businesses is often referred to online viral marketing (Chaffey et al., 2007).

 

“Viral marketing is a cleaver idea, a game, a shocking idea, or a highly informative idea which makes compulsive viewing.”

 

                                                                      (Smith and Chaffey, 2005)

 

 

Figure: Lifecycle of a vrial campaign

                           

 

(Source: WOMMA-Word of Mouth Marketing Association, 2008 )

 

Word of Mouse activities are becoming increasingly important to brands and companies. Because, company needs to realize that today traditional advertising ways and old media channels are no longer works. In those old media channels are too much clutter and too many noise surrounding audiences. As a result, there is another new efficiency way (online viral marketing) for advertisers to gain the consumers attention and spread the messages in order to reach target audience and buy their products.

 

 

The most successful use of this kind of viral marketing is not stand-alone, but as an integrated part of a brand’s overall strategy. One mistake brands and companies make is thinking that a viral campaign is an end in itself, rather than a means to end. Both viral marketing and public relations are the process not an event and they are combining together. Both of them are create buzz, to help build brands and shift product or messages.

 

 

Additionally, integrating viral marketing with public relations companies in the marketing mix does not mean making sure the campaign’s graphics are consistent across all media. It means telling a similar story in different ways across the media, depending on channel and audience, in a way appropriate to the peer-to-peer and file-sharing activities web users engage in.

 

 

I would say, understanding the place of Word of Mouse in the overall mix and using it strategically rather than tactically is the key to success of this approach, I think.

Reading List:

Chaffey, D., Chadwick, F. E., Johnston, K., Maryer, R. (2007) Internet marketing: strategy, implementation and practice England, Pearson Education Limited.

Smith, P.R. and Chaffey, D.(2005) E-marketing excellence-The heart of E-business Oxford, Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann.

Online communities are established based upon voluntary associations of people with shared interests or common purposes. It is a group of people who may or may not meet one another face to face and who exchange words and ideas through the mediation of computer bulletin boards and networks. Indeed, online community is about communication, and sharing of ideas (Rheingold, 1993).

 

 

 

It is this communicative core of community that makes possible the online community, an entity that parlays the power of new information technologies into shared knowledge, and information. The ability of members to compare their experiences and share their expertise transforms the online experience into a process of shared learning and community building (Hagel and Armstrong, 1997). However, Hagel defines this concept much more broadly and suggests that online communities be defined by bringing people together with a common set of needs or interests (Hagel and Armstrong, 1997). 

Dell Computer Corporation became a major player in the fiercely competitive high-tech industry soon after its formation in the mid-1980s. Dell developed and sold computer hardware, including network servers, desktop personal computers (PCs), and laptops, via direct sales to customers. In recent years, Dell has provided an online space for consumers to talk about their opinions for products and services. This online community has combine social networks and new technologies in this webpage in order to generate benefit both for the company and consumers.

 

• Dell conversations pages

 

Dell has provided many different online spaces for people to talk about specific topic in this community such us gaming, linux, digital photography, environment, etc. In those spaces, anyone can post their articles or opinions on it and exchange their experiences and share information to each other.

 

• Ideas: IdeaStorm

 

In this space, their consumers can provide any ideas or thoughts they think that is good or helpful for the company to improve their products and services in the future. So if you have any great idea you can post your opinion on this page, people who interesting in your article they might post some comments or suggestions on it. Moreover, any ideas in this webpage can be promoted and demoted by anyone. From company point of view, the vest majority of ideas are made from their consumers, consumers used Dell’s products and they exactly know what the problem is for specific products, so the company can gain lots product’s and service’s information form consumer’s perspective. As a result, this can provide an efficiency way for Dell to find out the problems or weakness more precisely and use the information to improve their product and services in the future.

 

• Forums: Dell Forums

 

Dell emphasizes that you can post your questions and you will get the answer. Thus, if you have any questions about particular products or services in Dell Company, people can post their questions and they will get the answer form Dell’s consumer services or form the people who has the same experience before. So, consumer can learn form each other rather than waiting for company reply.

 

“Conversational marketing was founded on ideas that came out of… the basic rules of human communication that we observe in action every day in the blogosphere and in online communities in general. One of those rules calls for complete transparency–something that’s not exactly compatible with the idea of paid agents spreading a marketer’s message, even if relationships are disclosed. Another of those ideas is the commitment to something other than broadcast thinking. The fundamental unit of human communication is the individual conversation, not a one-way message originating from a marketing department. Conversational marketing understands this. Word-of-mouth Marketing does not”

(Tom Hespos, President, Underscore Marketing, Oct 2006, imediaconnection.com)

For both conversational and word of mouth marketing to succeed, I think people’s opinions are critical, because if majority of people disagree or against can be much more damaging, but the potential for an organization to connect, engage and understand their consumer base will be valuable for those who can succeed, not just from a marketing perspective, but also company product development.

Additional Information:

Figure: Use Of Social Network Websites (2006)

 

 

(Source:Ofcom research fieldwork conducted by ICM in June 2006)

References:

Hagel, J. & Armstrong, A. (1997). Net.Gain: Expanding Markets through virtual communities, Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business School Press.

Rheingold, H. (1993). The Virtual Community: Homesteading in the Electronic Frontier. New York: Addison-Wesley

                                                                       

The huge recent growth in ‘personal web spaces’ such as Windows Live Spaces is changing the way for people using internet. Today people build a personal website, which becomes their own ‘territory’, it is their personal page to decorate, blog, update with photos and express a side they wish others to see. As ESOMAR (European Society for Opinion and Marketing Research) writer Vogt and Knapman (2007) states, the growth of social networking today is based on online personal spaces. But why this unique phenomenon is taking place and how we can use these social networks to targeting the new ‘digital consumer’ are becoming the hot issues for the nowadays advertisers.

Personal spaces is the way they offer an individual’s “territory”, and enable users to communicate directly, either one to one, or one to many. Within social networking, it is the combination of the personal nature of the environment with the connectivity to chosen networks that creates an online environment for both users and potential marketers (Vogt and Knapman, 2007).

FIGURE 1: LATAM LEADS THE WAY FOR SOCIAL NETWORKING

 

(Source: The World Advertising Research Center)

There are some characteristic for personal spaces which are enable users to share thoughts with friends, detail their life with photos and video, to meet new people or generally browse other people’s lives. And it also provides an outlet for creativity, allowing users to express their individuality and satisfying their need of being part of a community. I would said, online personal spaces has already become a new phenomenon changing the way people communicate, maintain friendships and express themselves.

Microsoft is a main social media player and provider of free social software that delivers advertising opportunities across these applications. When we look at the Windows Live Spaces and today’s social networking environment, Windows Live Spaces was forecast to grow to more users in three years than MSN Messenger had done in seven years.

FIGURE 2: GLOBAL NUMBER OF USERS OF WINDOWS LIVE MESSENGER AND WINDOWS LIVE SPACES IN MILLIONS

 

(Source: The World Advertising Research Center)

Windows Live Spaces offers Messenger users the opportunity to find out more about their contact to extend and deepen their relationship. For younger people, they use Windows Live Messenger to organize their social life, and using Windows Live Spaces to document and share their social life. On the other hand, older members use Windows Live Messenger and Windows Live Spaces to keep in touch and share their lives with friends and family.

“  Social networks need to have social relevance, otherwise they will eventually die. The open networks such as MySpace quickly lose social and critically, personal relevance as they are trying to serve the needs of too many people. A network works in the long term when it focuses on the individual, and the network develops based on contact-centric experiences that are completely focused on that individual, and are broadened out to people who matter to the individual the most”

(Moz Hussain, Global Group Product Manager, Windows Live Spaces).

Even Windows Live Spaces is “open” social software; it seems to operating in a “closed” social network, although there was demand for a degree of openness. People are expected in the future Windows Live Spaces can allow for safer searching of contacts to offer more online networking opportunities and offering a long term personal networking environment.

Additional information:

FIGURE 3: KEY BEHAVIOURAL DIFFERENCES BY COUNTRY-2007

FIGURE 4: REASONS FOR USING SOCIAL NETWORKS-2007  

FIGURE 5: PREFERRED CONTENT ON FRIENDS’ PAGES-2007

 

(Source: European Society for Opinion and Marketing Research)

Today more and more people are using search engines to find information, particularly young people turn to the internet for news rather than traditional media (TV, newspaper or radio). According to The World Advertising Research Center (2007) shows, approximately 30 million people throughout Western Europe use a News Engine every month.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to web site from search engines by using targeted keywords. And NESEO (News Search Engine Optimization) is combines skill sets from public relations and search engine marketing, and is a crossover between search, marketing and public relations. It also involves communicating online material to news websites and making people more easily to found information in search engines (Hawkes, R. & Gibbon, T., n.d.).

Why is this important? Because it not just about people reading news. For company point of views, the business need for getting their news ranked highly in search engines. For example, if company web sites can get links from a trusted news sources, it could be very important for brand value and for search.

News search engines offer companies a great way to receive targeted traffic related to breaking topics through press releases and other public relations information. Nevertheless, a lot of people think that search engine marketing (SEM) is only about generating leads, which is important right after driving traffic to your site and right before selling things online. But I think if companies really want to be successful of news search, understand that ranking is just a step. Today ranking well for old press release will not very important, because news search depends on timeliness.

TABLE 1: SEARCH ENGINE STATISTICS – 2006                              

 

TABLE 2: SEARCH TERMS BY SEARCH ENGINE – 2006

(Source: The World Advertising Research Center)

News search engine rankings are ensuring that the interested target audience can find them under relevant searches to learn more about their stories, products, services and brand. However, I think today the main focus is not so much on news is more on building and maintaining brand reputation and equity.

 

 

Have you ever notice that the adverting on supermarket trolleys and toilet walls or floors? Can you remember any one of them? I can not.

Ambient media are unconventional and unorthodox media and these media strategies are quite new. A key element in using ambient media is that surprise getting at the consumer attention when least expected and cost (shimp, 2007). As a result, the new way and new locations are constantly being invented or reinvented.

Today many communication strategic approaches involve finding ways of blending brand messages into the target audience’s lifestyle or mind by selection of formats and locations carefully that get close to the audience (Fill, 2005).

I think ambient media are usually connecting with public relations, and they are very sufficiently to generate public relations coverage and reduce the adverting cost. There is an example in Leeds Met University library, about lest week some of my friends told me in Leeds Met library we can use photocopying for free. However, one condition is that we need to use the specific paper to copying which has a full advertisement in the back of the paper. From my point of view, this is a quite clever way to advertising, the company use ambient media strategy to generate students attention and than student might help them to spread the message by word of mouth to increase their public relations coverage. 

Reading list

Shimp, T. A.(2007) Integrated marketing communication in advertising and promotion U.S.A., Thomson

Corporation.  Fill, C. (2005) Marketing communication – engagement, strategies and practice London, Pearson Education Limited.

 

New information and communications technology are allowing people to become creators as well as consumers, and providing them with the platform for everyone to exchange their information and messages between people and or ganizations. This chance to demonstrate individual creativity is resonating with people. The growth of blogging in the UK shows the popularity of using new technology to express personal views, experiences and beliefs. However, this situation is seeing a blurring of the lines between the “creator” and the “consumer”, because people take something form it and they also create something back.

My personal feel, the best way to understand this sharing behaviour is through the open source thinking. A director opinion leader in Market Research Society, Graeme Trayner said, the open source thinking comes from the sphere of information technology and computer programming. In contrast to a computer programme where the designers hold tightly to control of the source code, open source programmes are open to everyone test, check and to add to (Trayner, n.d).  

IT thinker Eric Raymond compares the difference between open source and close source (e.g. library) as a cathedral and a bazaar. He said: “a cathedral relies on central command and control, a bazaar operates on the basis of a myriad of conversations, discussions and dealings (Raymond, 1999).”

 

(source: TheOpenForce.com)

Open source is about everyone having the potential and right to create, and to be recognized for that creativity. In addition, successful open source initiatives are based on “communities of co-creation” (Cottam and Leadbeater, 2004). From an organizational point of view, it is about giving up of control in order to achieve better results than the organization could achieve on its own. The Wikipedia has operating on an open source basis is a good example of open source thinking.

New techniques have continuing to reflect this new open source world. From business man point of view, as Zuboff and Maxmin (2002) claim that “for business to succeed in the future, they must meet people’s need for their identity to be recognized, their voices to be heard, and for respect to be given”.

To me, as a marketing student I would suggest that we should constantly seek out the ways to meet these needs, and use people’s imagination and creativity to make profit for the company. In my mind, open source (thinking) is no longer refer to “you have got to set your ideas free, but you can not control your content”.

  (←press me)    This is an online questionnaire for this article which is relate to ”Wiki”. After you read my article, please do not hesitate to join this little exercise. I believe that when the result come out, we can understand more peoples’ opinion and learn something together through this little activity.

( I do know some of  Marketing students are hate  questionnaire, but in here just only 6 questions in this exercise, again please do try.)

PS: If you are interesting, you can look at reading list below! 

Reading List 

Hilary, C. & Charles, L.(2004) Red Paper 01: Health: Co-Creating Services. London: Design Council. 

Raymond, S. (1999) The Cathedral and The Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary. Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly Media. 

Shoshana, Z. & James, M. (2002) The Support Economy: Why Corporations are Failing Individuals and the Next Episode of Capitalism. London: Penguin.. 

Trayner, G. (n.d.)[omline] From Passive Consumers to Active Creators- Market Research Society Annual Conference, 2006 Available at: http://www.warc.com/Search/WordSearch/Results.asp [Accessed 24 Feb, 2008]

 

The global managing director for Nielsen’s Customized Research Services said, “Advertisers around the world are able to reach consumers across an increasingly diverse range of media platforms.” The vast majority of people are still looking for the most effective media channels to reach thier target audience, TV or internet? 

According to a globe recent survey done by the Nielsen company shows, today the most powerful selling tool is “word of mouth” communication. In general, consumers trust other consumers! 78% of respondents said they trusted-either completely or somewhat–the recommendation of other consumers (compare with newspaper 63%, consumer options posted online 61%). Traditional media fare reasonably well, but online and mobile phone advertisers are not to be trusted (The Nielsen company). This survey also shows us the average level of consumers’ trust in advertising in UK was 49%. It seems to be advertising is dying, because less and less people are trusted in advertising. Today, using PR to build up a relationship between companies and consumers is unavoidable. 

Maybe someone think that PR just only one part of marketing promotion, but I would say public relations has already become a powerful communication tool in today, people will know that PR not just only about how to build up a relationship, is about a management function, interactive, planned and public interest. Indeed, PR is about long term relationships rather than short term.