QUESTION TIME
uestiontime
This issue’s question:Is interactivity the most effective way for FMCG manufacturers to engage the consumer?
With the never-ending expansion of the internet and social media we find ourselves in a strange new world, a world where brands have the opportunity to interact with the consumer on a whole new level. Incredibly there are those who believe that if they can wait it out it will eventually go away and we can all return to normal. This is of course a naive view, certainly all the signs say the digital age is here to stay, but that isn't to say that digital interactivity is the only logical step for FMCG brands. It would seem that the degree to which any one brand should enter into digital interactivity is entirely subjective; other methods of engaging the consumer are still integral to the development of a brand and should be used in conjunction with digital strategies. So, panel, in advertising, is interactivity the most effective way for FMCG manufacturers to engage the consumer?
NIR WEGRZYN Founding Partner, BrandOpus
Interactivity is an efficient way to engage the consumer, but not necessarily an effective way to engage the consumer with the brand. Legendary ad man John Hegarty most recently referred to brands as ‘a corner of someone’s mind’, echoing the understanding that brands, in the main, live in our heads. Brands create a way of relating
to things, a way of seeing, of perceiving, of remembering. To this extent brands, FMCG and service brands alike, are not defined by their physical or material existence. A brand is more of a frame through which we perceive a memory structure in our heads. Brands have multiple, varying manifestations as they appear in the tangible world, but these perceptions are framed by the consumer’s own memories of the brand, which are in turn formed through different and varied communications across diverse types of media including, amongst others, interactive advertising. So when establishing which is
the most effective method of communication that enables consumers to best engage with brands, we must first understand that the most crucial link is in our heads. This is echoed by the latest discoveries in cognitive science, which state that the decision making process is framed by our pre-existing memories of a brand, be them real or imaginary. The best engagement is created with a brand in our heads, not involved in a participatory activity elsewhere.
20 | FMCG News |
FMCGNews.co.uk But taking a step back, why are
consumers attracted to brands anyhow? We would say that the brand’s point of difference is that they make things matter: they can reflect experience, expertise and history. They can become personalities in their own right. At their best they give us a way to make sense of things around us, consciously or not, we choose ‘our’ brands as a reflection of ourselves. So, if the memory of the
idealistic story we associate with brands is what makes some so alluring, the marketing mix should be cherry-picked to build this idealistic story behind the brand. Yes, advertising and other communications should be measured by their effectiveness, but not by the number of ‘likes’ or ‘re-tweets’ that an exciting interactive campaign generates. This measures short term, transient interest and its contribution to the content around the memory structure in our heads is debatable. If you are looking for effectiveness you should seek the longevity, and consistent messaging that builds the brand values, and measure the ability of the overall campaign to achieve this. In short, interactivity creates
engagement, but that engagement is only effective if it affects the long-term memory structure of the brand itself.
ALPER EROGLU Global Senior Brand Development Manager, Unilever
I believe interactivity helps hugely in building consumer loyalty, brand awareness and engagement
addressing the concerns of FMCG brands. Interactivity in online marketing gives us marketers many more ways to make personal connections with our audience, which makes it far more likely that we can turn prospects into paying customers and audiences into advocates. Before diving into the FMCG
sector, I’d like to share some of the dynamics in other industries and consumer behaviours. Consumers tend to be more responsive with the medium if there is interactivity involved as they are able to make conscious choices and react to the content and express themselves in one form. Alternatively in terms of content consumption, we may even consider how the computer & video game industry now is bigger than the film industry. In online mediums, users expect
interactivity – it's what defines the medium. However, interactivity can mean many different things, and the ways to achieve interactivity vary with different devices and platforms. It can be interacting with a company (e.g. customer support), interacting with other consumers/users, interacting with the brand content. All of these mean more engagement, but strategically in very different ways. Having said all, there still is a
skew towards a younger more educated, higher income demographic when you use more advanced forms of storytelling and the reason for this is that these groups are used to this form of entertainment, because they've grown up with it, and they have access to the most up-to-date technology. This is rapidly changing, as the internet is
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