NK’s Recommended Read
Age of Engage: Reinventing Marketing for Today’s Connected, Collaborative, and Hyperinteractive Culture
By Denise Shiffman
Communication channels and user behavior is dramatically changing. How do you find the most effective angle to approach customers in the 21st century? Age of Engage offers excellent insights. We read it, we recommend it, and here we summarize some of its most useful points for you.
The “Net Generation” consists of consumers born from the baby boomers. This is the first generation to grow up surrounded by digital technology. Since they’ve been heavily marketed to since early childhood, they tend to block out traditional media. While they’re leery of “the pitch”, this generation is looking to engage in conversation.
Companies used to have complete control of one-way messages sent to consumers. Now, as we move into Marketing 2.0, the Net Generation is leading the “democratization of marketing.” What does that really mean? Businesses will lose absolute control of their brands.
Shiffman outlines the Six V’s of marketing that define this new era:
- Venture – seeking out opportunities. Companies must continuously innovate and expand on intellectual property while letting the outside world collaborate.
- Value – using the business’ core competencies to create uniqueness in the marketplace. Value must be “defendable, sustainable, and engaging.”
- Voice – the message that the marketer puts out to the consumer. Voice takes three forms or purposes: to inform, connect, and engage. The message consists of the images, vision, and positioning used to market.
- Verifiable – the need to build trust and credibility through an authentic message.
- Vicinity – the whole web and how marketers monitor and interact with individuals.
- Drive the Vehicle – marketers should not surrender all control, but should cohesively use offline and online tools to steer consumers to the company’s website where the business and consumers can interact.
Four additional points we found especially useful:
- Customers see the small picture, since their view is focused on the problem they’re trying to solve. The marketing company, however, sees the big picture of what is possible. The company wants to change the marketplace. Shiffman explains: “As in Henry Ford’s ever-popular comment, had he asked his customers what they wanted, they would have told him, ‘a faster horse.’” Look into the future, spot trends, and envision where the market could go, as Google did with searching.
- The goal of online marketing shouldn’t be to expand and grow. The goal is to collaborate. Collaboration moves customers to stakeholders who are invested in the firm’s accomplishments. The Net Generation is creating conversational content together (e.g. Wikipedia and Patagonia), and marketers must generate interactive, engaging conversations with consumers – not just send messages.
- A profound change in fundamental marketing thought is underway. The social aspects of the web are No. 1 and Brand is secondary. It is more important to create a place where consumers go to find information – a place to verify rather than preach the brand. That way, the website becomes alive, relevant, and pulls a conversation out of visitors. Procter & Gamble’s Hindustan Lever site accomplishes this by posting pertinent information about cleanliness, products and ways for women to start at-home businesses with Hindustan Lever products. IKEA recently used Facebook photo tagging to promote engagement with Swedish consumers.
- Shiffman explains how today’s consumers expect to have a voice, to be heard and to participate with the brand. In this new era, “participation is more important than control.” DELL’s IdeaStorm site illustrates this point – enabling consumers to provide feedback, chat, create ideas and see new technologies. DELL gets positive and negative feedback from the site, and uses both to create new, better products.
Age of Engage outlines a framework to approach marketing to the Net Generation – and it’s advice worth putting into practice.
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