Social media versus complexity

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Social media versus complexity 
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Berens: Let’s dive into interactive as a bridge question, because one of the things that a lot of people on the interactive marketing side are saying, and have been saying for a while, is that the part of the conversations that marketers miss is the large conversation that is happening outside of the brand offices altogether.

Berens: So, Don E. Schultz, of Northwestern University and Agora, talks about how there is a whole conversation where people are talking about products. The marketers, who have been very well trained to talk, are proving themselves largely incapable of listening. It is the consumer-to-consumer question.

In fact, I was at an event recently where a marketer was talking about their digital endeavors, and I said, “Well, what about community? Are you doing anything with social media?” And the response of this person was to say that, “Yes, there is a place for comments on the website.”

That seemed to me to entirely miss the point. What about the things that are happening outside of the marketer’s website that are probably more important to the brand than the things that are happening within their control? So, given all the things that you are saying, is social media -- which is important to the interactive marketing side of the business -- as crucial to the overall marketing enterprise?

Rothenberg: I think it is a tactical question, actually a small question. The big question, again, is how do you end up growing the marketer’s business? How do you solve the marketer’s problem?

It is clear that there are many, many, many, many kinds of platforms -- technological platforms, as well as non-technological platforms -- that can do that. So, I think getting caught up in a question of, “Are you using social media?” begs too many other things. What kinds of social media? Where? Is it a live gathering at a concert a social medium? Or, are we just talking about Facebook or MySpace? So, it gets a little bit too small and a little too micro.

The larger sets of issues are: How are you identifying your consumers, or customers? How are you identifying your potential future consumers and customers? How are you engaging them? How are you informing them of your offerings and your value proposition? How are you able to improve your consideration once you find the right people? How can you then induce trial? Can you move from trial to repeat purchase? Can you move from repeat purchase to loyalty? How can you do all of these things and do them efficiently, as well as effectively and not get overwhelmed by the complexity of the media landscape?

And, it is complexity. Remember that is based on the fact that the cost-based barriers to entry, and creation, and distribution are plunging towards zero.

These are much larger questions. I think, the contemporary CMO is much more engaged and troubled by the problem of complexity -- and ought to be -- than whether he, or she, ought to be using social media, or not.

Berens: On the other side of that same coin, the consumers, or audiences, or customers, or just folks, are fairly overwhelmed by the complexity and the sheer breadth of media that is being flung at them every single day.

Rothenberg: There is a long history in all forms of marketing and communication that indicates that market and individuals reach equilibrium.

The equilibrium around individual choice shows through time that no matter what the category (and this could be a B-to-C category, or a B-to-B category), consumers tend to identify or settle on a consideration set of no more than seven to ten choices that they generally choose from, choose from promiscuously, with not an enormous amount of loyalty.

One of the interesting parts of this is that there are so many new and different choices every day that it is hard to settle down into these patterns.

Berens: That is also a generational issue, which is that older people settle into those patterns faster than younger people do. My children are six years old and two years old, and they are not even Millennials (the Frank Magid designation for people of about sixteen to twenty-five). My kids are going to have an entirely different set of media habits than I have, or even than some of my younger employees have, right now.

Rothenberg: But they may not, at least when it comes to the number of choices that they put into their considered sets.

There is not a lot of evidence to say that people are going to have portfolios of site choices that run into the thousands. History shows that if you are a magazine reader, you are going to have about seven magazines that you choose from. If you are a television watcher -- even with the increase from broadcast to cable -- seven to ten channels is still the considered set. So, I think we are all anticipating settling down into relatively conventional usage patterns, although it has not yet happened.

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