Advertising and Branding in the Digital Age

Advertising and the Internet

• Digital advertising rose dramatically following the dot-com boom.
• The fallout from the crash saw a shift in digital advertising strategies, and Google emerged as a key player.
• Early digital advertising focused on aspects such as search advertising, ad auctions, and Google's innovations.
• The adtech industry emerged, focusing on services, targeted advertising, and data extraction.
• Advertising functions involve persuasion and manipulation, using attention, addiction, and the modern attention economy.

Make Actions Easy

• Make rewards variable.
• Understanding attention and addiction.
• Focus on selection effects within advertising.
• Digital advertising effectiveness is questionable.

Branding

• Branding creates a unique identity and image for a product or company.
• This branding must reflect personality, values, and promises to consumers.
• Consumers apply these same principles in the digital age in which they engage with digital channels.
• Brand identity includes visual elements like logos, colors, and a brand's particular style of communication.
• Defining the brand's unique position, values, and mission are essential to differentiate it from competitors.
• The brand's personality allows for emotional connections.
• Maintaining a strong brand experience is vital via consistent communications and a quality product or service.

Advertising and IMC Overview

• Advertising involves paid, mediated communication from an identifiable source encouraging some future action
• IMC coordinates advertising tools (PR, Sales, Promotions) to have a unified message.
• Advertising functions including informing, persuading, reminding, and adding value to products and brands.

The Advertising Industry

• The structure of the industry involves advertisers, agencies, media orgs, and suppliers.
• Advertisers promote their products and services.
• Agencies specialize in creating and managing campaigns.

Example of Suppliers in the Advertising Industry

• Designers create visual concepts based on the art director's directions.
• Copywriters craft text for advertisements, brochures, and other materials.
• Photographers produce visual images (they may be employees or freelance.)
• Videographers create video productions for different media.

IT Technicians and Printers

• IT technicians design, organize, modify, and support a company's computer systems.
• These technicians are responsible for maintaining different aspects of a business' technical infrastructure.
• Printers are contracted for printing various items including commercial sizes, digital printing, and many others.

The Consumer Audience

• Consumers are a key focus for effective advertising.
• Marketers must consider demographics, locations, psychographics, and behaviors.

Strategic Research

• Research is vital for understanding markets and consumer behavior.
• Research entails primary and secondary sources including academic studies and surveys.
• Quantitative and qualitative research play different roles in achieving marketing goals.

Advertising and IMC Planning

• Strategic planning involves defining advertising goals and target audiences, including the methods of achieving them.
• Key aspects of the design include defining objectives, targeting the audience, writing message strategies, and the plan for selecting media outlets.
• Planning often involves a combination of digital and traditional media.

Digital Marketing Strategy

• Situation analysis should encompass the market, competition, and the target audience.
• Developing a clear, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goal structure is crucial.
• Strategies involve segmentation, targeting, and positioning that will assist in crafting messages for intended audiences.
• Integration of digital channels, such as search engines, social media, email, and content marketing.
• Strategies include approaches to content, interactions, acquisitions, and maintaining relationships.

Budgeting and Resource Allocation

• Resource allocation must be based on expected ROI of each channel.
• Factors involved in budgeting include content creation, paid media, technology costs.

Monitoring and Analytics

• Continuous monitoring is vital in achieving marketing goals.
• KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) such as traffic, conversions, and return on investment should be tracked.
• Adapting strategy based on data-driven insights is necessary for improving effectiveness.

Earned, Interactive, and Owned Media

• Earned media: Exposure built organically.
• Interactive media: Two-way communication is common.
• Owned media: Brand's complete control.

Key Characteristics of Media

• Earned media: Exposure from mentions or sharing.
• Interactive media: Enables interaction, feedback, and direct engagement.
• Owned media: Channels controlled and manage directly.

Media Planning and Negotiation

• Goals of media planning include reach, frequency, and continuity.
• Understanding target audiences is crucial.
• Reaching a wider audience is a key objective.
• The combination of various media channels (mix) maximizes effectiveness.
• Media outlets often provide negotiation opportunities for pricing and placement.

Evaluating Media Performance

• Key performance indicators including GRPs and CPM are tracked to assess effectiveness.
• ROI (Returns on Investment) measurement assists in determining if advertising efforts yielded sufficient return.

Campaign Planning for Digital Media and ROI

• IMC concept prioritizes consistent communication across various channels.
• Digital channels are a significant element of current IMC strategies.
• Using tools like SEO and PPC helps achieve marketing goals.
• Content plays a central role in IMC.

Content Marketing

• Value and quality are crucial parts of content marketing.
• High-value content attracts attention.
• Content marketing encompasses the generation of content that resonates.

Emerging Trends in Media

• Influencer marketing, live streaming, voice search, and SEO optimization are highlighted.

Understanding Predictive Analytics and Predictive Marketing

• Predictive analytics are integral to marketing efforts.
• Marketing must cater to distinct customer segments.
• Successful sales estimates and efficient resource allocation are achieved through this strategy.
• Companies use predictive analytics to optimize product recommendations and cross-sales/upsells.

Personas

• Establishing fictional character representations of target audiences is vital in marketing.
• Defining purpose, research, and collecting supporting data on demographics, psychographics, and behaviors are necessary.
• Building a persona includes information on goals, motivations, challenges faced by customers, their solutions, buying habits, preferred channels, and other relevant characteristics.

Creating a Persona Template

• Key elements of your persona include: name, photo or visual representation, backstory, demographics, psychographics, goals, challenges, buying behaviors, preferred solutions, and other specifics.

Ideation

• Ideation is a process critical to generating creative ideas, including brainstorming, content creation, and campaign strategies.
• Divergent and convergent thinking are essential components of successful ideation.

This quiz explores the evolution of digital advertising and branding following the dot-com boom. It delves into strategies, the emergence of key players like Google, and the implications of digital marketing on consumer behavior. Test your knowledge on how branding shapes company identity in today's attention-driven economy.