(1)Intro to digital marketing: place within the marketing communication mix,
objectives, reach vs relevance
Marketing communication mini course
Types and media categorization
many of the different types of advertising strategies already existed but now here is a
digital layer on top that changed the face a bit/digital equivalent (eg traditionally it was
celebrity advertising and now it has become influencer marketing where the celebs
themselves directly share brands)
Old-school categorization
Above-the-line:
o Promotional activities carried out through mass media channels such as
television, radio, newspapers, and magazines
o non-personalized (targeted for media & content, but not for the
customer/people)
o typically follows a traditional business model with fixed costs where
advertisers charge a fixed percentage of the total media cost/budget for
creating and managing the campaign (not performance related)
o Traditionally, much more profitable for advertising agencies bc there was a
fixed cost where they could charge +/-15% of the total media budget no matter
how good the campaign performed)
Eg if the total media budget was $1,000,000, the agency could earn
$150,000 (15%) as their fee
o Consequences;
Advertising agencies pushed advertiser to make decisions that would
be profitable to the agencies but not advertiser itself
agencies were pushing for investment into mainstream media rather
than below-the-line media where price wasn’t fixed
agencies preferred above-the-line advertising & that’s why
advertisement also developed within the mass media channels
Below-the-line:
o Messy business model & doesn’t rely on traditional mass media channels
o Focus is more on niche markets (not mainstream) & creating connections with
customers in a more interactive and personalized way
Todays categorization
Paid & earned & owned: see Penttinen & Ciuchita
,BRANDING VS. CAMPAIGN
Branding:
A long-term strategic perspective on how to build, grow and maintain your brand
value. MarCom should always serve the brand strategy (but sometimes forgotten, esp.
when the sales department takes over)
Campaign:
A strategically planned chronology and collection of MarComs with a common creative
appeal and an appropriate communication strategy and budget planning per medium
short-term (often with a specific goal in mind, eg for the launch of a new product for
example)
REACH VS. RELEVANCE < SYSTEM 1 & 2 + ELABORATION LIKELIHOOD
MODEL
reach and relevance are main drivers of marketing communication (large majority
of marketing communication is based on reach 80% with top layer of relevance 15%)
Ritson: “targeting is overrated” ~exaggerated but also a bit true: if your target group is
too small then you’re missing out on customers. You do want some type of targeting but
it’s better to focus on large segments
Reach:
• idea: Mass load of hardly noticed peripheral cues (each attracts a little bit
attention from us) affect us, certainly when repeated over and over again (based
on system 1 from Kahneman)
• Idea that the more exposure you have as a brand/campaign (eg logo, slogan,…)
the better
• Byron Sharp: should be done in a distinctive way more abt this later
o Need to have distinctive assets (need to stand out bc then you’re more
easily recognizable, we see a cue (colors red and yellow) and immediately
think abt the brand (McDonald’s))
o Need to be constant available (related to reach)
in your reach you need to stand out
• Media Cost
o More reach more expensive
o Invest money in the right place to get as much exposure to the right target
audience
o Example:
▪ eg purchase ads on a channel on tv that the most people watch,
choosing an influencer with most followers and right target
audience
▪ traditionally if you’re tv channel had more reach, brands had to pay
more, the same still holds for digital marketing
▪ if you make platform that becomes very popu (lot of reach) than
you can start selling that reach as paid medium (the more reach you
have the more revenue your platform will attract) see 4 steps
• Measures
o Eg how good people can Recall a brand, top of mind, visits,…
,Relevance:
within your reach, the more relevant you can be to customers/potential users
the more likely it is that the receiver will process the message
easiest way to create relevance is to target on specific things you know abt the
receiver
o eg tracking youre online behavior and then providing accompanying
targeted ads
make people believe it’s relevant for them so they’ll feel like they have to pay
attention to it (they become cognitively involved), you can use tricks or just the
reality (e.g. addressing people with their first name, personalization)
based on system 2
most regulations are directed towards relevance bc it often uses tools and
strategies that collect data & come with privacy concerns
Media cost
o the persuasive technique/tool you pay for to create relevance on top of
your reach
- Higher relevance per reach more expensive (eg SEA (OR CPC/ SEM),
E-mail and direct marketing)
- The less relevant an ad the cheaper it is, if advertising money
is the same but there is no relevance there will be more ads (bc
more advertising money is spend on reach)
o Example
- cost per click bc assume that people found message relevant
enough to click on it
- if you want a more targeted audience you pay extra for that as well
Measures
o Eg how positive word of mouth is, how loyal users are
System 1 and 2 from Daniel Kahneman
• System 1: almost automatic/unconscious/ fast, all behavior is driven by
unconscious processes, constantly influenced by context , makes most decisions ,
uses shortcuts and heuristics
• System 2: slow, conscious
most marketing creators want us to process adds/messages in system 2 while most
get processed/noticed by 1 which also has an effect
Elaboration likelihood model:
Strong ad
weak ad
When message is processed by system 1 there are no effect of variations in how
good content of message is (weak & strong message have same effect bc you
don’t pay attention/really process it) but the cues (aka distinctive assets) matter
(aka peripherical cues)
o Eg if you in a coca cola ad always see smiling people and the ad is
repeated many times you will get a more positive attitude towards the
brand bc smiling people are associated with positive feelings and these
, positive feelings via the add are associated with coca colaattitude
change without you noticing it
o Purely based on reach
o Most powerful? REPETITION: Most peripheral cues give a neutral/positive
attitude, there aren’t many that decrease your attitude
If message is of relevance, higher chance of processing it via system 2 where
the content of the message also becomes important
o one good/strong message gives positive attitude (instead of 100
‘unnoticed’)
o BUT very relevant and weak/bad messages can also have negative effect
Paid media marketing model/ Stakeholder model/ System of involved
stakeholders
there is a medium with a certain consumer audience and the
larger the consumer audience the larger the reach you have that
you can sell to advertisers (and the more interesting you become
to them as well)
the advertiser need a medium to reach consumers (if they
don’t have one on their own/not enough reach)
consumers want entertainment/leisure for which they want and use media and
indirectly also advertisers (they limit the endless option we has, eliminates the need of
going through/choosing between all info/options)
there are interdependencies between these 3 which are part of the business
model
Potential problem
o tensions can form between the stakeholders that grow that at some point
the system needs to changesystem changes are often found at local level
but the more complex a system is like this one, the more difficult it is to
find solution that works for everybody
o Tensions/actions from one group can affect both other groups (bc they are
connected)(e.g. dissatisfied customer can blame the medium and/or
advertiser)
o Example
consumers were annoyed with ads everywhere so someone
invented adblockers which made advertisers not happy and stopt
paying media bc ads didn’t work anymore and made media
unhappy, now solutions was than to not allow people on platforms if
they were using ad blockers but now again prblm for consumers
See Spotify & ads clicks & viewability standards
Solution
o Ideally in system thinking approach don’t look at the three as separate
stakeholders but as whole rather than parts
o Effects aren’t unidirectional but circular
o Systems thinking = Seeing wholes rather than parts, patterns, connections,
evolutions, …
Traditional vs stakeholder marketing
the model above can be spilt up into 3 kinds of marketing
