By now, any digital marketer worth her weight in iPads knows that pushing the limits of a new online platform or leveraging a hot new piece of hardware is not the key to a good campaign. Truly effective digital campaigns deliver an authentic brand experience that leverages technology -- rather than relies on it -- to increase engagement.
Now, that's not to say there's nothing to gain by wowing your target audience with something straight out of Q-Branch (just ask James Cameron's bank account). This is the entertainment industry, after all. Have you ever heard someone walk out of a movie and say, "I didn't like it; it just -- wowed me too much"? But when a movie features great effects and terrible dialog, we leave the theater feeling shortchanged and kind of nauseated (though that could just be from the jumbo popcorn). The same general principle applies to marketing -- a good movie campaign engages the audience and leaves them hungry for the main attraction, not bloated and greasy.
That said, some pretty innovative technology is marking the dawn of a new era of marketing: Marketing 3.0, if you will (yes, it's trite, but let's just go with it). If Marketing 2.0 was about giving consumers some control over the marketing experience, Marketing 3.0 is about giving them the ability to engage in their own multi-sensory experience.
Just like social media campaigns are quickly moving way beyond the Facebook fan page and Twitter feed combo, digital campaigns are quickly maturing past viral videos and content-rich interactive websites. Following is a crash course in some tools of the Marketing 3.0 trade, along with some examples of campaigns that have cleverly and effectively employed them.
Extreme makeover: Trailer edition
Trailers first appeared in U.S. movie theaters in 1913 and, with the exception of some cosmetic changes, they're pretty much the same as they were then. But motion picture ad veteran Mark Woollen and Associates is helping trailers take a giant leap forward by forming a new company focused on producing interactive trailers. First up for the company -- an interactive trailer for "Sex and the City 2."
The "Sex and the City 2" trailer featured 59 "hot spots" that, when clicked, revealed additional movie-related content and information. Some of the dresses that appeared in scenes in the trailer had hot spots that revealed the name of the designer; other hot spots revealed film facts, like supporting cast information and plot background.
The marketers at Warner Bros. did a great job matching the technology to the target audience and using that technology to deliver the precise kind of content that audiences would find appealing. The trailers gave viewers an opportunity to increase their personal engagement with the movie, its characters, and, most of all, its fashion while accessing highly relevant content that would motivate them to want to see more.
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