ALL ABOUT REAL TIME MARKETING
In Marketing, every now and then comes along a new word
that sticks. Some dismiss it, claiming it to be just another fish in
the sea, a distraction, but a few indulge themselves in it. They let
it grow, believing this new thing would change the face of marketing
forever. You can imagine these CMO’s scurrying around their
offices like Archimedes through the streets of Syracuse yelling “Eureka!”
when they first discover it.
We’re going to talk about Real-time Marketing (RTM) and I’ll let
you be in-charge of dismissing it or running around the office yelling
“Eureka”
It all began in February 2013, with an interestingly clever live tweet
by Oreo during the Super Bowl blackout at the Super Dome. All it
said was, Power out? No problem. “You can still dunk in the dark”.
Do you see the beauty of it? It sparked a craze amongst marketers
across the globe.
To their utter dismay marketing managers since, have been often
asked by their bosses. “Hey, why can’t we do something like Oreo?”
Brands have tried to recreate that magic though, with little success.
I’m sure brands have been doing this long before Oreo but
what this particular incident did was get everyone’s attention.
Real-time marketing has been described by a few as the practice of
brands engaging their audience via content, advertising, and product
placement that is relevant to a specific current event or cultural
happening. The content is most often in the form of a “meme” or
graphic poster that is usually shared through social media channels.
What makes real-time marketing so interesting is that it goes against the way we have been trained to think about
marketing. Meticulous planning, research, understanding
how the consumers would behave to our
communication strategy among others.
We probably
spend weeks and months together to develop our
marketing campaigns, perfecting them until the last
minute. And here comes real-time marketing telling
us that all that is good, but real conversations happen
in real-time. ‘Marketing on-the-fly’ sums it up
quite well though, I’m sure my marketing professor
would not be too pleased with that definition.
With brands embracing social media as a vital component
of their marketing communications, realtime
marketing becomes crucial. It offers brands an
opportunity to engage with their fans, break through
the clutter and resonate on real-time. Do this better
than your competitors and you stand to gain.
Let us look at a few examples of real-time marketing
in the Indian context.
Sometimes pictures need a fair bit of editing before
it could be uploaded on social media.
Flipkart had to
learn this the hard way, as Reddit India made fun of
them on Twitter for having an
Amazon delivery box
in a picture of their office. Flipkart quickly retorted
by suggesting they were using the box as a wastebin,
but no one was about to buy that argument. The
damage had already been done and Amazon quickly
jumped into the conversation by simply stating that
“There is a bit of Amazon in every eCommerce company”.
Imagine asking for bathing soap and getting dishwashing
soap instead. Doesn’t seem like a pleasant
experience, especially if you’re an Indian consumer
who is not the easiest to please. Now imagine asking
for a Samsung Galaxy smartphone and getting a
dish-washing soap instead. I am sure all of you are
imagining a guy, sitting at home, opening his package
and going absolutely ballistic.
Well, this is what happened
when Snapdeal accidentally delivered a Vim
bar instead of the expensive phone that was ordered
by one of its customers. Naturally, the man reached
out to Snapdeal, demanding they do right by him and
yes, the man did get his money back. But what made
this seemingly infuriating experience excellent, was
when HUL somehow caught wind of the incident and
sent the man the phone he was looking for, by mail.
The customer was ecstatic on receiving the
phone
and the incident went viral on social media, which
made HUL ecstatic as well.
Audi and BMW have shared one of the most intense
rivalries in business history. This rivalry has especially
intensified over the past few years. This brief “billboard-war”
perfectly captures that rivalry.
Even if we look outside these prominent albeit rare
examples, we could see larger than life companies
incorporating real-time marketing tactics on a regular
basis.
Amul, one of India’s largest companies, has
always strived to use current affairs in their promotions.
For a long time, these milk moguls have entertained us and delighted us with their insightful. One
of
their most popular, recent works is the caricature
they made of Virat Kohli and the Amul girl dancing,
with Anushka gazing at the couple helplessly. The
circumstances surrounding the incidence was well
documented, as Anushka was being blamed for Virat’s
lacklustre performance in certain world cup
matches. Through such ad campaigns over several
years, Amul has shown that in order to be brilliant
real-time marketers, you don’t need to be extremely
tactical or deep-pocketed; if you’re creative enough
and fast enough, you can outwit the best of them.
Verdict:
Real-time marketing does sound like an interesting
trick to have up your sleeve but if you’re not too
careful about how you use it, it may occasionally
back fire. As one market very aptly put it: Real-time
marketing success requires happenstance. Marketing
cannot be built on happenstance.
We as marketer
still have a long time to go before we make
ourselves comfortable in the skill of real-time marketing
until then we have to do what we know best.
Here’s what Edelman’s Global Strategy Director David
Armano has to say about real-time marketing:
“If real-time marketing is the thing that introduces
change into our organizations – so be it. But it cannot
be the strategy that drives that change.” Brian
Solis, a digital marketing analyst echoes the same.
He is of the following opinion:
“Don’t compete for the moment. Compete for
meaning. If you compete for the moment you’re irrelevant“
There has been a lot said and written about Real time
marketing, everyone has an opinion. A lot
of brands have tried and failed in their attempts.
Marketers today are wary of real-time marketing though, a few have
learned to embrace
it. In our opinion,
today with digital
media we have
more insights into
who our customers
are and how they
perceive our brands
than ever before.
The ball is in our
court, it is up to us
as marketers to decide
what to do with
this data.
Any brand looking to benefit from real-time marketing
need to look at two things: Ensure that they have
the internal resources to indulge in real-time marketing
and secondly, understand their customers’ behaviours
before they take the leap.
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