The information age and the course of advertising are changing us all.
Time magazine named “You” as its 2006 Person of the Year after consumers rushed en masse to the Internet to find fast facts on sites such as YouTube and MySpace. Bloggers are emerging as the sages of the generation.
Experts are trying to grasp how Americans can be influenced now that they are in command of what information they receive.
“It?s back to basics for marketers,” said Robbie Blinkoff, a consumer anthropologist and managing partner of Context-Based Research Group. “Brainstorms that focus exclusively on the end result ? of trying to make everything like Starbucks or Apple ? will no longer cut it. To create meaningful results marketers need to connect and stay connected with information as it evolves.”
Time said 2006 was the year the Web “became a tool for bringing together the small contributions of millions of people and making them matter.”
It?s a trend the marketing industry is trying to refine.
“The key benefit we?re seeing from new media is the ability to microtarget,” said Lisa Bucklin, a spokeswoman for Baltimore-based Carton Donofria Partners Inc. “Instead of targeting the chemical industry like we did 20 years ago, or formulating chemists like we did 10 years ago, now we?re pinpointing formulating chemists who have expressed an interest in certain kinds of problems and products. Even in business-to-business marketing we?re no long communicating to businesses ? we?re reaching directly to individuals.”
The trend will expand in 2007, said Peter Toth, managing director of Carton Donofrio Partners? direct marketing practice.
“Smart marketers will open themselves to diagnostic tools that improve the health of their efforts,” Toth said. “The discipline behind direct marketing ? the concentration on assessment ? will ratchet up. This focus will help further spur the migration toward the Internet.”
