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It's
2008, do you know where your customers are?
 Thirty
three years ago the home VCR was invented. This fall, Nielsen
finally provided broadcast advertisers measurement on delayed
viewing. Well.... duh. Media and technology providers traditionally
tend to undervalue the power of consumer preferences in
how, when and where they like to be engaged. Likewise, most
online advertising overlooks the critical component of whether
the viewer of the ad is someone with whom the advertiser
already has a relationship. Could it be that in the quest
for the illusive Holy Grail of advertising, the writing's
been on the wall all along – "It's the user"?
It's no surprise this year's favorite buzzword is "engagement."
While we owe the latest incarnation of the term to Atlas
for its "Engagement Mapping" product, the term
is not new. In 2006, some of the best marketing minds around
put their collective gray matter to the grindstone to ferret
out the truth. Mollie Spilman, then CMO at Advertising.com,
defined engagement as "turning on a prospect to a brand
idea enhanced by the surrounding context." Jim Nail,
CMO of Cymfony, said, "Consumer engagement may be to
the marketing mix what gravity is to the physical world:
the unseen force that keeps it all together!" Now,
two years later, there's still little consensus on definition,
let alone how it can be measured.
What we do know for sure is that broadcast models fail at
personal engagement. And direct marketing techniques haven't
worked well in the context of new media which has, with
the exception of email, been a broadcast model until now.
To truly engage with a customer online requires some knowledge
about that consumer, and then the ability to utilize that
knowledge across your buys. Who is she? What's she interested
in? Is she a prospect or a loyal customer? And, more importantly,
how do you provide a truly personalized and relevant experience
and still be sensitive to her privacy?
Whether you're an advertiser, a media buyer, a data analyst,
or a marketing director, the fact remains that in today's
complex media world, simply being "where" your
customers are is not enough to create meaningful engagement.
You must meet him on his terms, understand his needs, and
be ready to personalize your message. There's still a substantial
gap to be filled by online and multi-channel technologies
to provide what advertisers need to turn "engagement"
into more than just a nifty buzzword.
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