The world is becoming more globally accessible, and at the same time, more convergent. By convergent I mean a world where no person or touchpoint exists in isolation; everything is interconnected and every action can potentially have an effect on everything else. Convergence empowers consumers, enabling them to take control over their relationship with everything they interact with.
Media and media vehicles have genuinely become more important to businesses these days as these phenomena have gained tremendously in their ability to influence consumer’s lives. It is reshaping marketing and its capacity to translate directly into business performance. Hence, there is huge opportunity to reinvent and elevate the role that media plays in promoting businesses. This includes creating opportunities through such touchpoints which have the potential to gather consumers so that they can be more connected and receptive to messages being sent out by brands.
And that is what is changing in consumer’s lives; connected devices connecting consumers. What we as marketers need to make sure is that brands are there when the consumer needs them. We have the opportunity to create need, but the critical fact is the point of engagement, connection and transaction are all getting closer and closer together through different forms of media; and paying attention to this can really change the way business is done.
Another dynamic is that we are moving in terms of convergence from a media world that was quite controlled, with a limited supply of vehicles that was much organised. Things happened at fixed points in place and time. We could plan it easily as well as calculate how many and how often. We didn’t know what happened, but suddenly we have to calculate so that we can supply to the world over. This translates into almost infinite choices for the consumer and infinite choices for us.
The critical matter here is how much more powerful this is, how much more influence we can actually generate and the million dollar question; how much further capability does the media actually have. We can do much more; it’s just that we’ve got to make smart choices…
