Has the old world of offline marketing lost its charm to the new kid on bloc – digital marketing and social media?
Today, everyone is wondering. Has the old world of offline marketing or traditional marketing lost its charm? Has it lost the race to the new kid on bloc- digital marketing and social media? This is what a lot of businesses, advocates of digital marketing think. Unlike, what the pessimists think. Traditional Marketing is here to stay. It will continue to occupy the centre stage of brand marketers. Traditional marketing’s influence on the brand building cannot be ruled out.
With the democratization of data, increasing penetration of smaller screens like mobiles, tablets. Traditional marketing has lost its charm. Many pundits believe that the target audience has shifted its preference to digital. It is more so during and posts the pandemic – COVID 19 which shook the world. With the diminishing presence of the target audience in offline marketing, the mediums too will die.
Offline Marketing has many facets. It consists of print advertising, a medium whose obituary has been written many times. Television Commercials, Radio Jingle Spots, Posters, and other points of sale elements in the shop. The signage on the shop irrespective of the material also comes under the same. Traditional advertising’s significant contributor is Outdoor advertising. Offline Marketing is a conventional form of marketing. It is a tool to establish an emotional connection with a brand. Or to trigger a purchase reaction.
FUNDAMENTALS OF TRADITONAL MARKETING’S INFLUENCE ON BRAND BUILDING
The fundamentals of brand marketing are still the same. It depends on the 4Ps or the 7 Ps to build a brand. Whether it is traditional or digital. Traditional marketing is being used for ages. It is enjoyed by people across the globe. It is still perceived to be more reliable than any other format of advertising. Many perceive that since the world is moving to digital, the traditional form of advertising is losing out to digital. Even though the digital onslaught is threatening to rob the sweetness of traditional advertising. I am hopeful that Traditional marketing’s influence on brand building will regain its glory in the coming days.
BUILDING BRAND IDENTITY
A Brand is an identity of products and services in the minds of a customer. The way he perceives the business. It’s a visual as well as perceived imagery of products and services. Building a brand’s identity consists of 3 steps.
Brand Strategy
Various Visual Elements
Marketing
Brand Strategy : It is a roadmap. It is to communicate how you are different from other brands in the same category. Communicating the need that your brand address.
For Eg., Let’s consider the brand – Dove. It is targeted at mothers who are looking at personal care soap.
The need here is, to maintain the natural glow of skin. At the same time protecting it from the harshness resulting due to soap. The customer wants a solution that helps in preserving the natural beauty of the skin. The solution – Dove, a brand- Dove. The functional benefit of this soap DOVE is that it is gentle, moisturizing, and doesn’t dry the skin.
CREATING A BRAND POSITIONING WITH TRADITIONAL MARKETING IN 2021
The brand positioned itself by offering this intangible value of real natural beauty. It helped in building self-confidence, self-esteem across all segments of women. The Brand DOVE is a perfect example of Traditional marketing’s influence on brand building. It played a stellar role in communicating the key functional benefits.
Brand Visual Elements are the logo, color palette, font style, typeface, and other visual elements representing the brand.
Brand Marketing is the execution. It is the tools, media that a brand uses to communicate its functional as well emotional benefits. It is what and how you communicate to consumers the values you stand for.
Brand positioning occurs irrespective of what the company communicates. If the brand is constantly communicating with its target customers, it positively influences its positioning in the customer’s eyes. It is a result of your customer’s perception of what you do.
When Videocon d2h was launched. It was positioned as a brand offering bundled solution of both DTH services as well as the Television. You need not require an external interface to access your entertainment. Later on, due to regulatory issues, licensing rules, TRAI’s guidelines issued. Videocon d2h had to separate the Hardware part with the DTH services. It has to purely focus on its DTH services.
The competition was intense. With competitors, already taken the crowded space of content, functional benefits like Clarity, technology. It decided to distinguish and differentiate itself as a service-oriented brand. It is positioned on Quick and Reliable Service with bold statements like “In No Time” with the promise of quick installation within 2-4 hours. The Link to the TVC is here.
USE OF TRADITIONAL MARKETING IN DIGITAL MARKETING AGE
HOW TRADITIONAL MARKETING IS USED BY DIGITAL BRANDS
Till now, we have delved into how brands have benefitted from Traditional Marketing. Many assume, Traditional marketing’s influence on brand building is limited. Gen Z is also targgeted. There are many brands, operating in digital medium. These brands target only Gen Z. With the expanding market of e-commerce in India, new direct to consumer brands are creating some buzz. With smaller investments, increased focus on lowering fixed costs as well on ROI based marketing. These brands are creating a niche for themselves.
Heavy spending by e-commerce platforms on traditional media is helping these brands to find afoot for themselves. These e-commerce sites have created an ecosystem of logistics, delivery partners, the supply chain that even smaller and niche e-commerce platforms are generating traction.
The big-ticket events of India’s two most e-commerce giants. These are promoted heavily in traditional media like Print, Television, Outdoor. Newspapers are laughing their way to banks whenever these Festive Sales or special sales events happen like Republic Sale, Independence Sale.
Print Media does creates an impact. The impact properties are what the marketers are looking for so that it breaks the clutter. E-Commerce giants, Automobile brands use the Front Jacket or False Cover of Newspapers to create the impact. Very recently, WhatsApp to arrest the slide of its users to competitor brand gave advertisements in the newspaper. The full page advertisements re assure the users.
The Image is for representation purpose only. Respective Brands own the copyright.
DIGITAL ADVERTISING IS TRANSACTIONAL ADVERTISING NOT BRAND BUILDING
DIGITAL ADVERTISING IS TRANSACTIONAL ADVERTISING
Many brands go ballistic when it comes to creating an impact. They recognize Traditional marketing’s influence on brand building. Digital advertising has become more transactional where one likes, shares but doesn’t create any long-term bond. Gen Z is unaware of brand loyalty. These digital natives who grew up with access to newer technology like a smartphone, internet of things, social media are so dependent on technology for everything in life. It is due to the belief that technology will save them in their hour of need.
The brand with better optimisation on a particular day in search engine, ranks higher. As the nature of optimization is such that there is a change in rankings on the search engine result page. This variation has led to different brands topping the results. The nature of marketing has changed in digital media, unlike traditional marketing. It is better optimization, not the brand which has better promise being engaged with. With the increasing power of spending, Gen Z is not bothered about a transactional relationship that they have with brands for their daily needs like food, clothing. But when it comes to big-ticket spending, they do their research online. They do look for traditional advertising mediums like Newspapers, outdoor.
Building brands is not possible by using a single media. To create an effective, meaningful conversation with the brand. The brand has to engage with the customer at multiple touchpoints. With the rise of the internet, the growth of digital mediums like YouTube, Social Media, Search Engines have resulted in a wide spectrum of audiences.
BRAND BUILDING IS A COMBINATION OF BOTH DIGITAL AND TRADITIONAL
BRANDS BUILDING IS A COMBINATION OF BOTH DIGITAL AND TRADITIONAL MARKETING
With the multiple ways of reaching customers, brands need to express themselves. Use every opportunity to speak for what they stand for. To what cause, they are fighting. It is the activeness of the brand to keep on expressing its imagery to create a strong relationship of trust with a heterogeneous, assorted country like India.
It makes a good synergy for every brand marketer to increase visibility, at the same time increasing the attention of your brand in new-age customers. For that, the role of Traditional marketing’s influence on the brand building cannot be ignored. At the same time, brands have to catch the eyes of Gen Zs as they are the biggest target audience for any brand.
They say adversity is a great teacher. Lockdown during Pandemic has taught us that the brands who have created trust in the long term have survived, unlike the Digital-only brands. Brands having to be present in both digital and traditional media were able to survive the tough times. Be it the brands in OTT Space, or the E-Commerce giants who use both traditional and digital mediums were the biggest winners.
Moreover, the traditional marketing specialists have proved to be good digital marketers. They understand the business of brand marketing and brand building better than anyone else. They can gauge the effectiveness of each tool, and use it for the benefit of the brand. Traditional marketers can lead a team of talented youngsters specialized in digital marketing to make brand marketing, marketing communication interesting and exciting.
The transferability of skills is the key to survival. #Shyamalsiddhanta
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