Whether it be brick-and-mortar businesses or digital platforms, ‘mood marketing’ is prevalent everywhere. Through this article, I would like to describe the prevalence of this phenomenon and depict how marketers are using digital means to target audiences through it. Here’s the definition: “Mood marketing is a relatively new technique where marketers use behavioral data (or “moods”) captured in real-time from social media measures like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google Plus, or LinkedIn in order to market their products and services.” (Source: GB News)

With certain subtle and inconspicuous measures, marketers at brick-and-mortar businesses execute mood marketing to get their customers stay longer and buy more. To exemplify my point, here is some research that reveals the effects of colour and scent on a consumer’s mood:

According to a research article entitled “Impact of colour on marketing”, blue and green colours in restaurants calm customers and encourage leisurely dinning. Red and yellow attract attention and stimulate the appetite, hence red is widely adopted by fast-food restaurants.

Certain scents drive a customer not only to buy products but also to pay more. For example, The Scent Marketing Institute mentions the 6th top scent as that of “leather and cedar”, because of its ability to motivate consumers to buy expensive furniture. A research by Aroma 360 exhibited that pleasant fragrances improve the moods of customers and  they stay as much as 44% longer in a business “surrounded by an attractive scent.”

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Point 2: Were advertisers aware of the problem and what were their reactions?

To begin with, some reactions did make an impact, especially that of P&G in 2017, which involved reducing the online advertising investments of the company by $140 million. It is quite normal that the impact was big, and P&G has always been the spearheads of advertising and the first to bring in trends. Worse still for the marketing community, the reports revealed that the impact of this measure had been nil.

But it does not take into consideration Byron Sharp’s studies on advertisingthat show that the impact of a budget-cut on advertising is measured only 3 years after the interruption of the investment, regardless of the brand’s size.

On the other hand, how significant are 140 million dollars for P&G in terms of advertising budget? 2% of the total, which is not negligible. But, the decline in the total advertising budget of the company between 2013 – the most important year of the period studied – and last year is $1.070 billion or 13% of this peak spending. This could mean a disengagement from advertising by P&G or it could mean that its revenues are dwindling down too.

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Ethical advertising: does it appeal to you? I recently stumbled on a press release from an English Adtech company IOTEC [which calls itself an ethical media buying platform] and I could not believe what I saw. It is rare that I set my sights on CP but this one was very original and unexpected, and the timing was perfect too. This IOTEC announcement advocated the use of ethical advertising by providing tips that I’ll quote below, making them simpler: ceasing psychological targeting, avoiding pop-us and intrusive ads, and checking the display announcements. In this piece, I have investigated the matter to find the truth about advertising and transparency.

“Trust in advertising has never been so low” – true or false?

The reason given by IOTEC is that “trust in advertising [has] never been so low”. I’m not a big fan of advertising even though I wouldn’t go as far as Doc Searls calling it “cancer of the Internet“. It is true that I am more of the opinion that word of mouth marketingis the future of marketing as much as it was its beginning. Besides, social media gave prominence to word of mouth marketing. Hence, my point.

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It’s not always very easy for managers and leaders within an organization to have a bird’s eye view of what’s going on and what needs to evolve, when it comes to digital transformation. However, the main challenge lies in the ‘how’ aspect of the matter. Of course, there is no one size fits all approach, but let’s try and analyse what companies can best achieve by resorting to consultants or external experts and by instigating and implementing digital transformation from within.

Be it on Twitter or LinkedIn, digital transformation is on everybody’s lips. With ample number of success stories to cite and necessities to mention, the real question is how to get it done? Should a company urge its CMO or CIO to take the lead, or should it knock at the doors of consulting companies that have demonstrated success in this arena?

Implementing digital transformation from within

When reading books on Digital Transformation like Leading Digital, we notice very often the assertion that experts make for companies eager to digitise: the push has to come from within, i.e., leaders should be all for it and the employees at all levels should embrace this challenge as well. If an unswerving tenacity is required on the part of top management, isn’t it pragmatic that they should come at the helm of their company’s digital transformation?

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Although it’s an asset to master IT languages for digital marketing, there are certain tactics which digital marketers who aren’t well conversant with them can opt for, in order to orchestrate successful digital marketing campaigns. After working in this domain and going through works like “Mastering Digital Marketing like a Boss” by Yann Gourvennec (Disclosure: with whose agency I work) and Herve Kabla, I reckon there are certain tactics which people who aren’t tech savvy can work on to enhance their digital marketing prowess.

I would like to dissect this topic through the prism of social media, and explain how digital marketers can leverage the various platforms to their benefit.

Social media is at your discretion

The world – with all those you wish to reach – is within your reach here. It’s possible to deliver results with an effective social media strategy. According to Yann and Herve, what needs to be kept in mind is that “content is at the heart of digital marketing”. Your solution is what you have to offer, but the customer is more concerned about his problem. This poses a quintessential content marketing challenge to digital marketers. Live in the realm of your customers to bring forth content that would address their problem. Lead generation will follow suite.

Coming back to the ‘content is at the heart of digital marketing’ point, you should be able to tailor your content according to the customers you wish to connect with. Another interesting finding that I would like to mention here is that digital has caused the ‘traditional’ Ps in the marketing mixto evolve. Your efforts should be targeted towards achieving more visibility. Read more →