Device-ive Engagement

It used to be cut and dry. Simple. Everyone got it. You watched TV for TV. You used your phone to make calls. And you jumped onto your computer to surf the internet.

While this has also been an evolution over the last 6 decades, the transition for many people in the next decade will be radical and possibly a little confusing.

With the recent AFL and NRL grandfinals , Australia has been a buzz with ‘engagement’. Through a little Bathurst in the mix and the sports nuts out there have been bombarded by us marketers with this whole new way of intaking sport.

You hear this ‘thing’ now called ‘integrated marketing’. Frankly… it’s BS! Ask any ‘real’ marketer and they’ll tell you that Marketing has always been about integration. The only difference today, is that we have a whole bunch of new mediums to pump out the message.

‘Digital Peeps’ have coined this ‘integration’ concept like it’s something new… IT’S NOT.

While it’s been a big enough twist in the fabric of marketing for the industry to get its head around, the ultimate fall out for most average businesses, is that there is now so much choice, your market is diluted and demands more to be engaged.

Let’s take a step back though. What do I mean by ‘engaged’ and ‘integrated’?

Being a self confessed motor enthusiast, let’s take the recent V8 Supercar race as an example. In years gone by, you had 2 choices, go to the race or watch the race. Simple. This year we saw a number of organisations tweeting turn by turn descriptions of the race (all 161 laps) along with a special ‘Chosen One’ who tweeted exclusive content for V8 Supercars from the Mountain. Channel 7 were asking viewers to respond to questions via their app and showed live results as people tallied voted on a variety of subjects and Facebook was alive with pictures, posts and commentary on all and every aspect of the race.

Suddenly your phone and the internet were an integral aspect of the viewing process. You weren’t just watching the race… you were connected to it!

Add to that the whole phenomenon of connectiveness through #tags and you suddenly find yourself connected to hundreds, if not thousands, of like minded people. This just didn’t happen before.

And it’s not just confined to sport either. If you caught a glimpse at Telethon over the weekend then you would have seen Tweets scrolling your screen, every second persons profile pic turning into Fat Cat, apps being downloaded to help raise money and Facebook pages being liked to push the cause.

The ease of connectiveness was certainly somewhat responsible for the massive 20.7 million dollars raised. With so many ways to pledge and the amount of media that was pushing a single message, it was completely unavoidable.

As I’ve said before, television is changing. Media is changing. And just as websites have moved quickly to being more about engagement than anything else, so too will all other mediums. Working together to drive the market in a single direction.