2-ways communication

Advertising is changing. Fast! We all know that - 10 years ago online communication was still residual, Facebook didn't exist, nobody realised what Google was doing and mobile phones were used for calls. The world is changing and, naturally, so is advertising. Everybody knows that! But sometimes, I think an important part of the change goes unnoticed to too many people.

Many people still think of digital and mobile communication as a media to reach a target. And they are right! But there is one important dimension that is at least as important. Digital and mobile is unique not because you are communicating in new spaces in consumer lifes, but because it is not only about communication - it is about interaction!

And now, most of the people say, "But my Facebook / G+ / Twitter account is run by professionals and they ensure that all messages that consumers sent us are answered". Good! But not enough! That's not what I am talking about.

When consumers get your digital communication, they have actions. They will click on the ad, play with your games, use your apps, respond to your messages on Twitter. And that generates information. Valuable information. That tells you about your communication, your products, your brands, your consumers. And that  allows you (if you have the right setups, if you are ready for it), to adapt and evolve. You can decide to increase the weight of one of your commercials on the TV mix based on Twitter conversations, you may decide to promote a specific product in an area because you understand your consumer in that specific area is becoming more curious about it, you may adjust your prices to allow easier bundling in online shopping. The world is less and less static, and advertising should be flexible and quick to react - digital is all about that, is all about listening to the feedback and adapt.

But you need to make sure your frameworks are right for that. First, you need to make sure that you have the right tools to listen to that feedback. Consumers generate terabytes of information when interacting with your campaigns, brands and products and you need to have a way to listen and capture that interaction. So, make you have access to that information. Then, remember that consumer feedback should not be restricted to specific niches in your advertising work (like the agencies), but it should flow throughout the organization, fueling itself further and further - just think of the possibilities you have once you ensure your consumer research department starts seeing information flowing from target reactions online. And then you need to make sure that your setup is so flexible to answer fast, to react quickly. These steps are not easy, they may even imply that you need to adjust or change your organization, but it is the only way to compete in a world where digital communication is cornerstone.

Marketing is all about understanding consumers and satisfying their needs. Digital interaction is actually giving us the opportunity to shorten the cycle on 2-ways communication. You can almost see it happening real time. It is very close to the marketeer dream / nightmare (because it implies that you really need to be listening all the time to consumers and quickly adjust to their feedback). I usually use the tennis analogy of the receiver, waiting for the serve, that needs to be quick enough to understand where the ball is going and how to get it back over the net and in court - fast perception and quick, balanced reaction. And that is the game we should all be playing now with our targets, through digital.