[IMCC] Targeted, less intrusive advertising needed - Walter Pike

Pike (@walterpike), founder of New Marketing and The Digital Academy, tackled 'Marketing in the always connected world' and how one integrates all media towards achieving that goal.

He began by defining branding as "associations in the minds of consumers that lead to preferences", describing brands in relation to feelings. "Brands are the kind of feeling you get in your gut, when you associate with them... It's really a relationship on an emotional connection," he said.

Who can shout the loudest

He emphasised that the old way of thinking about marketing, which he referred to as "industrial revolution marketing" (creating average products for average people and marketing them through interruptions on the various traditional media), was outdated.

Marketing, said Pike, used to be about who can shout the loudest. Whoever had the most share of voice had the most share of mind and hence the most share of the market. This model, according to Pike is broken because of the Internet. The internet, said Pike is not just another medium; it's not the same as traditional media, it's a completely different space.

This model of being able to build things like an industrial process - coming up with an idea and using that invention to get people to believe about it, and buy into it by running advertising campaigns and by shouting the loudest about it - is broken, explained Pike.

"In the space where people can connect and talk to each other, we no longer have the luxury of doing the 'average people stuff' through segmentation... People refuse to be segmented in that way; people segment themselves into communities that they want to be in," he said.

Concept of geography has changed

The concept of geography has changed - people with similar interests group together and talk to each other in communities. Referring to a presentation by Clay Shirky, Pike emphasised how the Internet allows many-to-many communication and how other media have migrated to the platform.

The Internet is no longer just a source of information, said Pike, it's a place of co-ordination. People co-ordinate around each other and are now more empowered through knowledge. Power, once acquired through wealth, has now moved into the hands of everybody; everyone can now publish on the Internet, adding value to the people in their groupings.

"We have all sorts of people who have had no real authority in other circumstances that now have a lot of power because they add value to people around them," he pointed out.

Creating brands through experience

Pike believes in building brands in today's society via relationships; "Brands are created through experience," he said. Companies need to stop viewing marketing as an industrial process. He advised the creation of conditions in which brands can grow, using farming as an analogy to get his point across.

"People have changed because the way that they connect has changed. The way that people brand no longer works the way that it used to for the last 40 years... What we've got to do now is to synchronise ourselves and our brands as is done in farming and in a village economy because the world has become much more of a village," said Pike.

It's Pike's opinion that more targeted and less intrusive advertising is needed: "We don't need this idea of having Loeries and other various advertising awards because this whole premise of interrupting people has now been removed."

Other keynote speakers on day two were Ben Wagner, CEO of Stonewall+ (now Native) and Prof Melius Weideman, SEO author and research professor at Cape Peninsula University of Technology. The conference, produced by Living Your Brand, took place at the Crystal Waters Hotel and Spa in Cape Town.

For more:

• Bizcommunity: Is our knowledge of branding real or misleading?
  
• Official conference site: http://www.imcc.co.za/
  
• Twitter: @imcconference
  
• Twitter Search: #IMCC
  
• PiKE | New Marketing: www.pike.co.za