the interactive brand ecosystem: putting digital at the heart of your brand campaigns - forrester

© 2011 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited2 © 2009 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

The Interactive Brand Ecosystem:Putting Digital At The Heart Of Your Brand Campaigns

Nate Elliott, Principal Analyst

May 20, 2011


Source: History Channel (http://www.history.com)

Source: MSNBC (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/), Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org)

Let’s think back to 1993


The World Wide Web was created in 1993


Since then, the way we communicate has changed

Source: Stampboards (http://www.stampboards.com), Facebook (http://www.facebook.com)


The content business has been turned upside down

Source: eBay (http://www.ebay.com), iPhoneate (http://iphoneate.com)


How we sell physical goods has changed as well

Source: The Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk) , Ocado (http://www.ocado.co.uk)


How we build brands hasn’t changed much


Most companies still create a 30-second spot and try to coordinate other channels


Brand marketers simply don’t spend much online


Interactive marketing is ready to lead your brand

Source: Workforce Interactive (http://www.workforceinteractive.com)


Four reasons interactive marketing is ready to lead your brand

Creating interactive brand ecosystems

How your marketing organization must change

Agenda


The Internet has the scale to rival any other channel


The Internet has the depth to beat any other channel


The Internet is more trusted than any other channel


The Internet offers us new ways to tell stories





Agenda


The way we build brands must evolve from this...


...To this


First, engage your users with an interactive core

The big idea will always be the key to branding success

Put the big idea in owned media, which offers more scale and trust than

social media

Push ideas and engagement out from the center, and push audiences in


Five reasons owned media – not social media –should be the center of your brand ecosystem

A lot of marketers try to put Facebook or other social media at the heart of

the brand ecosystem

This can work in some cases, but owned media will work better because

your own web site:

– Is easier to find

– Reaches more users

– Is more trusted

– Offers deeper, richer content and experiences

– Is 100% under your control


Second, intelligently distribute your big idea in social and mobile media

Spread your idea—and your engagement—into secondary channels

Be selective in which social and mobile channels you use

– Study your audience to understand their preferences

Be selective in how much interaction you offer through each channel

– Based on your audience and the tools’ capabilities


Third, reach a broad audience with paid media

You must use paid media to create scale

Be bold!

– Bold ad units

– Bold production value

– Bold media buys

Use both online and offline paid media


Make the three layers work together


Smirnoff built an interactive brand ecosystem for its Global Nightlife Exchange campaign

Source: Facebook (http://www.facebook.com)


Smirnoff developed rich plans for each layer

It engaged users with an interactive core

It distributed its interactions through social and mobile media

It reached a broader audience with paid media

The brand ecosystem was a huge success

– Thousands directly engaged with the core

– Tens of thousands interacted through social and mobile media

– Tens of millions were reached through paid media


All the layers of the ecosystem worked together





Agenda


Most organizations still treat interactive marketing as a separate discipline


And most don’t have sufficient resources either

Source: Q3 2009 Global Interactive Marketing Organization And Agency Survey


And that means it’s hard to coordinate marketing programs across channels


To put interactive at the heart of your brand, distribute interactive skills through your organization


Interactive-led marketing programs require more from agency partners


They require agencies to work together in new ways

Traditional and interactive shops are just now learning to sit together in the

same room

This new model demands much more of the agencies:

– Developing deep, rather than shallow, big ideas

– Letting interactive tools be the star of the show

– Effective coordination of messages, flights, and customer journey


And they increase the importance of your customer insights and market research teams


Summary

Interactive marketing is ready to lead your brand

That doesn’t mean choosing one channel over another – it means

organizing all channels into a multilayered brand ecosystem

– Engage your users with an owned media core

– Distribute your campaign via social and mobile media

– Reach a broader audience using paid online and offline media

Change your organization to adapt to interactive-led marketing

– Distribute interactive skills throughout your organization

– Demand more from your agencies

– Make customer insights and market research a key part of marketing strategey

© 2009 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

Thank you

Nate Elliott

+44 207 323 7647

[email protected]

www.forrester.com

twitter.com/nate_elliott

the interactive brand ecosystem: putting digital at the heart of your brand campaigns - forrester

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