Digital Marketing and the Older Generation

Nowadays, most of time when we think about digital marketing strategy, the targeting customers are more likely to be millennial. In other words, since the idea of digital world is a relatively new concept, it is reasonable for us to focus on younger generations. However,  research shows that older generation actually enjoys digital activities a lot. For instance, 40 percent of internet users over the age of 65 made a purchase online. 

Few years ago, my parents would prefer to ask me to buy train tickets, movie tickets and other stuff online for them. But recently, they would love to learn how to use smartphone and start to buy things online by themselves passionately. The trend is quite clear, and it is obvious that older people will form a great customer base. And the question is, how to get their attentions by digital marketing. 

First of all, I think we don’t need to largely differentiate between "younger generation" and "older generation". They are distinct in a lot of ways, but they are similar when it comes to sales, promotions, and holiday specials. To be more specific, if there is a huge sale online (much cheaper comparing to in-store), people will pay attention and be interested in it, no matter they belong to which age groups. On the other hand, we do need to make the website easy enough to access for everyone. It will take longer time for older people to learn new skills, so that the technique and content of websites should be user friendly -- don’t be too complicated. Also, we need to think about details, for example, older people may prefer looking at websites which have larger font sizes. 

Step by step, our lives are digitalized in different ways. The more people engaged, the more we can benefit from this growing industry. 

Holiday Season and Digital Marketing

At the time people fall in love with the digital world, we have to admit that it changes everything. Nowadays, more and more customers choose / prefer online shopping, which saves a lot of time and energy. Since people have large amount of choices, the use of digital marketing becomes crucial this winter. In other words, when two competitors promote similar products, timing is everything. 

First of all, we need to release holiday marketing campaign early. According to the article, “approximately 52% of shop do not make an actual sale until November, but will begin browsing as early as September”. In my opinion, customers also will not start buying until late November. More likely, they could either drop the products into shopping cart, or forget about them for now. So the frequency of advertisement is tricky. .

Furthermore, social media plays such an important role the whole holiday season. We can not only use social media to target (and reach out) the potential buyers, but also spread out the words of (for example) certain brand to a bigger population in a cheap and quick way. The best thing is that people will share promotions and deals with their families and friends -- free marketing. The power of recommendation is one of the most efficient strategies for online marketers, and it is capable of growing by itself. 

Last but not least, “free shipping” is definitely the best card. Shipping fee is the biggest disadvantage for online shopping. Especially when people facing substitutes (same price), without doubt, they will choose the one which has lower shipping fee. Therefore, during holiday season, even “discounted shipping” is not enough anymore, and “free shipping” is a basic offer. “According to the 2015 Holiday Shipping Survey produced by Pitney Bowes, 88% of holiday shoppers prefer free shipping”. We need to make customer feel like -- they are lucky to shop online and saving a lot. 

http://current360.com/play/4-tips-using-digital-marketing-holiday-season/

Messaging App War

Nowadays, people who are engaging in this digital world definitely understand the the importance of messaging apps. We have more and more choices, so each messaging app tries its best to make some new, innovative selling points. I want to focus on the three messaging apps which are popular in the east asian countries. Not only because they are the biggest ones right after Whatsapp, but also because WeChat (China), Line (Japan) and KakaoTalk (Korea) are having similar marketing strategies targeting their asian customers.

First of all, instead of being pure messaging apps, they all pay attention to the formation of friend zone and the use of additional tools. In other words, in order to be aware of your friend’s recent activities, you have to download the same app. On the other hand, interestingly, WeChat, Line and KakaoTalk all spend a lot of time and energy to promote one thing -- emoticon (stickers). Some of the emoticons are well-known cartoons or features of celebrities, and some of them are totally original. Normally, they are super cute and attractive so that customers (especially female users) are welling to pay for the new emoticons. Sometimes, since certain emoticon is very popular, people will keep using that messaging app so that they are able to get access to the emoticon. 

Comparing with Line and KakaoTalk, WeChat have a more rapid growth these years because of the population of its home country. “Japan’s population is 128 million; South Korea has 50 million people. Combine those two numbers and multiply that by a factor of six, and China’s population would still be bigger than that number”. Therefore, when we look at this growing chat app competition, the size of the market is still one of the most significant components. Maybe for next step, they need to figure out how to explore more "international users" from their own point of views. 

Alibaba - 1111 to $$$$

Recent years, November 11th becomes a new festival for Chinese young people -- 11.11 Singles Day. Thanks to internet and China’s Alibaba Group, Singles Day has become the world’s biggest online shopping day. Each year, Alibaba holds promotions and sales on its shopping sites. Chinese consumers spent a record 91.2 bn ($14.3bn) online during the 24 hours of Singles Day this year. 

“This year’s jump in sales showed the rising power of the Chinese consumer and the increasing presence of e-commerce in a country where the brick-and-mortar retail infrastructure isn’t as well-developed as it is in the U.S. It also shows the rising power of Chinese brands.” In October, WeChat, Weibo and all the other popular Chinese social media already started their distinct online marketing strategies, and turned the whole thing into a crazy global shopping festival. 

For instance, in the opening three minutes, Xiaomi (Smartphone) said it sold 110,000 of its new Mi3 phone and another 110,000 of its Hongmi (older version) phone. In other words, “sales” is no longer the biggest attraction anymore, the idea of Singles Day becomes the celebration of new lifestyle and also the fashionable trend to follow in this digital world. 

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304644104579191590951567808

Tencent Games and New Digital Marketing Strategy

South Korean entertainment agency YG Entertainment is partnering with China’s biggest IT company for a new mobile game. As we all know, Tencent is one of the most popular and successful internet and game service companies in China, and it owns huge amount of market share. Bigbang (K-pop band under YG Entertainment) will become the exclusive model for one of Tencent mobile games, to help the collaboration between the two companies.  

The game is called “Quan Min Chao Shen”. “It is world’s first 5:5 real-time MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena, one of the game genres. World-famous League of Legend fall in this category) mobile game.” Even before its official launching, it already took the No.1 on IOS free download ranking without any marketing. 

On the surface, this collaboration will be presented in different forms in Tencent's new marketing activities, in the form of in-game items, events, and promotions. For example, there are five members at Bigbang, and Tencent designed five new characters for them in the game based on their real-life personalities. Since “Quan Min Chao Shen” already has solid user base and loyal players, it is quite hard for marketer to break through. However, the collaboration with the hottest K-pop starts entirely opens a new door.

At the moment they released the news, thousands/millions of fan girls started to download the app for this game, and they might never check out the game without “Bigbang is in it”. It is such a profitable and predictable market, which is totally new and easy to promote. Now, they are preparing series of on-line activities by using Tencent's own platform. Obviously, relying on the power of fan girls (one of the loyalest customer groups), it will be a win-win collaboration. 

Digital Marketing and Startups

Along with digital marketing, Startup is booming in every industries. One of the most significant things for newly launched startup is getting the brand in front of as many eyes as possible. In other words, competing with all other startups within the same channel and using practically similar marketing tools, your startup must maximize the power and efficiency of social media and digital marketing. 

With the key social media platforms today, entrepreneurs can make a product, build a brand and start the business with both low cost and direct access to public. However, no matter how magical social media platforms are, drawing people’s attentions to (only) your product needs innovative digital marketing strategy and skill. 

For me, interactivity (with consumers) is one of the key elements for startup marketing. To be more specific, nowadays, most of startup product potential consumers are more likely to respond to interesting, creative and interactive ideas. They probably will ignore a normal cupcake advertisement on Twitter, but if the marketing evolving searching coupon online and going to certain stores in order to get sample cupcake, there is a much higher chance for people to take an action. Of course, the cost of interactive marketing will be higher, but since everyone’s aiming one goal, we need to be different and stand out.

“Only in this age of digital marketing could a small non-profit, with a very limited budget, reach an audience of millions per month worldwide, with their ‘ALS Ice Bucket Challenge’ marketing message, and achieve results exceeding $100 million” -- from article A New Era For Entrepreneurs And Startups Has Begun.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/martinzwilling/2013/12/25/a-new-era-for-entrepreneurs-and-startups-has-begun/

Traditional Media and Digital Marketing

Even the rise of digital advertising is crucial, we could not underestimate the influence and  the revenue from traditional ways of advertising. In the article “2015 Ad Spend Rises To $187B, Digital Inches Closer To One Third Of It”, it mentions that television is still the single biggest share of ad spend in 2015, with 42% of spend, or nearly $79 billion. It also states that the number decreases comparing to that of 2014, but we cannot deny that traditional adversing will still play its significant role along with the boom of digital world. 

The growth in digital is remarkable, and we may say that it will be the lead in the future. “Social media will se the most growth at 31% this year... Search will this year continue to account for the biggest proportion of spend, at 45% of all digital ad revenues”. As we can see, no one can possibly stop the marching of digital, but at the same time, we need to find or create the balance between the dominant, traditional style, and the fast, emerging technology. In other words, maybe in decades, digital will be the biggest and greatest in everything, but before that, we should pay attention to the transaction between different media. 

In one of my other marketing classes, we talked about 15 areas to explore, and one of them is “simultaneous trans-Media communications”. To be more specific, nowadays in the industry, we have people who are professional in traditional media marketing/advertising, and we also have groups of experts for digital marketing. However, these people are not truly connect with each other. Basically their missions and goals are unrelated, and there is a serious lack of communication. If we could somehow build the link between “old” and “new”, the market will be in a healthier condition, at least for now.  

http://techcrunch.com/2015/01/20/2015-ad-spend-rises-to-187b-digital-inches-closer-to-one-third-of-it/

Facebook Back to China?

The blockage of Facebook began around 2009 based on Chinese government political concerns. Since then, along with the booming internet culture, alternative (chinese) social networking websites have established their own huge market. 

This week, Chinese president Xi Jinpin is visiting the US, and yesterday (09/25) he had a dinner with several Tech CEOs, including Apple CEO Tim Cook and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, also Disney CEO Bob Iger and DreamWorks chief Jeffrey Katzenberg at the White House. Interestingly, the news mentions that “the four CEOs lead companies doing billions of dollars of business in China -- with the exception Zuckerberg, whose Facebook is officially banned in the country.” We don’t know the details about their conversation, but after the dinner, Zuckerberg posted this on his Facebook page:

Seems like it is a fine opportunity for Facebook coming back to China. Also, rumor says that several big advertisement companies are already trying to contact Facebook about future cooperations. First of all, we don’t know if everything will work out. Secondly, there are a lot of problems waiting for Facebook, even if the blockage is over. Since the political concerns are still on the table, Facebook may need to design a special version for Chinese users to access. On the other hand, the targeting users already build their own social networking webs, and it is going to be hard for them to set up a new one, especially the “new one” has similar functions and structures. 

For me, among Facebook, Google, Twitter, and YouTube, I think YouTube has the greatest opportunity (or maybe the easiest one) to establish its own market in China. Overall, if Facebook really comes back to China, as marketers, we are looking at a great channel to play with.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/25/politics/china-state-dinner/

Lovestagram and Digital Marketing

According to the definition, “lovestagram” concept is one that revolves around a public or private couple sharing similar photos on their Instagram, hinting a a romantic relationship. So the key of Lovestagram is hinting. In other words, we do not know if these two people are actually in a real relationship, but we are able to observe some special connections from their Instagram updating. 

On the surface, Lovestagram sounds like a tricky game between couples, but right now it becomes quite popular as one of pop stars’ marketing strategy.  Fans are always crazy about their stars’ “unknown sides”, and they will try to find out more and more information through Instagram, Twitter, etc. And importantly, fans will rearrange those information and put them into new contexts, which are usually good at drawing more attention from public. Since truth and accuracy are not parts of Lovestagram’s definition, Lovestagram is especially useful for boy bands when we talk about catching eye balls. They are not only known for being close but also for consistently updating their fans via the photo-sharing platform.

Lovestagram can be the easiest and the most interesting way to create or make up a hot topic. 

Digital Marketing and Korean Pop Music

Korean Pop Music has its special marketing and branding system. The popularity of each K-pop band or K-pop star can be determined by four different weekly music shows. “M Count down”, “Music Bank”, “Music Core” and “Inkigayo” -- they belong to four major television stations in South Korea. In order to support one’s favorite K-pop music, fans have to finish a list of “homework” and compete with each other at the same time. Social media is the key and the platform for accessing the K-pop world.

For instance, there are six parts included in M Countdown weekly chart: digital music sales score (50%) -- total weekly sound source ranking of four domestic online sound source companies (Mnet, Melon, Soribada, Bugs); album sales volume score (15%) -- based on the Hanteo Chart sales volume data; social media score (15%) -- YouTube official MV score;  popularity score (10%) -- global online voting results from Mwave and Mnet Japan homepages and based on preferences of 1000 people, male and female, ages 15 to 39 of 50 nominated songs collected through research experts Macromillembrain; broadcast score (10%) -- Mnet and KM broadcast score; live broadcast real time voting score (10%). 

To be honest, this ranking system is not objective enough to reflect the quality of music. We could state that good music will attract more listeners and loyal fans. However, the use of social media in this whole K-pop evaluation system is highly inefficient. In order to get higher score, loyal fandom will get on YouTube and watch the same MV over and over again every single day. Sometimes, it creates a huge bubble, which leads people to overestimate some part of Korean pop music culture.  

I must say that looking from the profit side, and ignoring the authenticity and quality of music, K-pop is doing an amazing job on digital marketing and branding. So far, the peak is the success of Gangnam Style, which highly relies on the power of YouTube. Nevertheless, there is only one PSY, and if Korean music wants to explore its market, it has to come up with new strategy which needs to be different from Gangnam Style. Digital marketing is still the best and easiest way to approach potential listener and follower, but as time goes by local television shows scoring system may be out of the system.

http://mwave.interest.me/mcountdown/vote/