I know that it seems like a very boring topic. Usually people imagine marketers as people in suits with poster board, pitching an idea to "the board" followed by handshakes and martini's, but I'm getting a different impression all together from taking these classes.
Internet Marketing has been changing the rules of traditional style marketing. In the olden days, the marketing strategy consisted of stopping the consumer from what they were doing to pitch a product, while singing a jingle, and repeating it over and over and over again, so when you're thinking about dinner, you think "Where's the Beef!"
This style of marketing worked and served its purpose well. I mean what choice did we have as consumers? Suddenly we find ourselves watching flipper; the little boy is swimming in a world war 2 proximity mine field. He's scared, you are tense and flipper is about to alert everyone on land and then… "Have you been injured in an automobile accident, if so then call…"
So, why do you suffer through it? Why watch the advertisement at all. You were into what you were watching, you were interrupted, you heard the pitch, jingle, and tagline. It's the same commercial you watched only 10 minutes earlier during the last interruption, so why watch it? It's simple, the only other options are to shut off the T.V. and do something else or change the channel.
When the internet first became popular marketers tried this model of interrupt and repeat by the use of popups! UGH!
What they didn't realize is unlike T.V. and radio people HAVE a choice to what media they want to see and don't want to see. People simple began to be annoyed and stopped frequenting those interrupting sites for sites with the same subject matter without the popups. I got so good at closing popups before they fully loaded that It was almost a game similar to the old shoot 'em up arcade games, like the one in Back to The Future.
Now a days, the world of online marketing is turning towards Buzz and Viral Video. This is like a giant game of telephone. Let's us Youtube as an example. Some parent in England was filming their two children sitting on the couch. The older child sticks his fingers into the mouth of his younger brother, who naturally bites down. The older child writhes in pain and screaming in an attempts to alert his younger brother to release the chomp. When the little brother finally does, he says "Charlie bit me, and that really hurt…"
The parents even outline how accidental this event really was when they typed into their profile
"Even had I thought of trying to get my boys to do this I probably couldn't have. Neither were coerced into any of this and neither were hurt (for very long anyway). This was just one of those moments when I had the video camera out because the boys were being fun and they provided something really very funny." - HDCYT
140,000,000 views later. Let me say that again. One Hundred and Forty MILLION views in two years. You can't match that kind of exposure for the price they paid. Now they are Youtube Partners and are making money from this phenomenon, and good on them!
This is the power of what internet marketings potential is. As I go through school at Full Sail University we're going to be talking about the different concepts about marketing and how it is changing the rules of marketing as we know it. If you found this interesting please share with me your thoughts on the subject in the comments section below.
