Interactive Marketing
Interactive marketing is comprised of a variety of different marketing strategies. The most popular are viral marketing, mobile marketing, email marketing and website campaigns. The primary goal behind most of these is to pull users into an interactive experience that will engage them long enough to promote the brand or product the campaign was created around. A multitude of tools can be used to achieve this desired interaction. Online games, short videos, message boards, rating systems and many other tools can be found commonly used to create this type of interactive marketing.
The effectiveness of this type of marketing can vary greatly depending on how it’s implemented. Often if the creators of the experience can trigger an emotion a much more lasting relationship will be created. Durex used humor, sex and shock value with its “The Pants Whisperer” campaign (http://www.thepantswhisperer.com). The combination of humorous interactive elements engaged the user while the logo at the top constantly reaffirmed the brand. I feel this campaign was successful and the company not only managed to entertain consumers, but also increased brand recognition.
The current trend of using peel/twist off codes that fast food companies seem to be currently obsessed with is one area that I find very annoying. I remember when if I decided to get a grossly oversized amount of fries I could simply peel whatever promotional game piece from the container and have the instant gratification of knowing whether I won or not. Now the only option, if my curiosity overwhelms me, is to go to their website and give up most of my personal information before I can finally enter my stupid code. I disagree with this approach and feel that trying to pull information out of their consumers seems somewhat unethical to me, but I wouldn’t mind it so much if I actually won a free car or something every once and awhile.
I can’t imagine interactive marketing disappearing anytime soon and believe that it will continue to grow more and more over the years. In the future I think there will be an increased emphasis on involving more of our senses. The greater involvement will add to the overall experience creating a more lasting impact on the user.