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A Thousand Words

Posted by SMstudy® on September 02, 2016 | Digital Marketing (DM)

Keywords: Digital Marketing, Image Marketing, Social Media

A Thousand Words

When Guerlain, a French beauty brand, wanted to target a younger audience for its thirty year old iconic Terracotta bronzers it chose Instagram.  

When Lexus, a luxury automobile brand, wanted to target a younger audience for its brand IS, it went ahead with Tumblr.

These are examples of changing trends in consumer marketing. Gone are the days when any product launch or repositioning meant TV or radio or print ads. The advent of digital age has provided businesses with numerous platforms to reach consumers. Brands, both new and established, have started using channels which are suitable to their product, campaign, and target audience. Hence, when established brands like Guerlain and Lexus wanted to reach out to younger audience they chose a medium which gave them the best opportunity to do so.

The consumer attention span is ever shrinking. In today’s information age, audiences are flooded with content available at a single touch. This abundance of content makes it harder for good content to cut through the clutter and get noticed, but images capture the attention of consumers. They have the ability to convey messages easily and can have a much larger impact on the target market than text updates. After all, a picture is worth a thousand words. Look at one of the images published by Guerlain which beautifully establishes the connection between Terracotta and Paris. This is the reason businesses are using image centric social media platforms such as Pinterest, Instagram, Tumblr, and Snapchat.

Guerlain Terracotta

These sites allow users to share content with other people or group. If brands are successful in creating engaging and interesting content, it increases their reach as well as brand visibility. The Guerlain Terracotta campaign reached 965,000 while the Lexus Signal campaign had more than 85,000 notes. In most social media channels that are focused on sharing such content, people can vote on or rank or add their comments. Thus, these channels also integrate the discussion forum element. At times, such posts from users may be misused by competitors or by people with ulterior motives, resulting in hate speech, insults, swearing, and general unpleasantness. Given the fact that these sites are vulnerable to such consumer misbehavior, forums may require moderators or restricted access protocols to ensure that discussions and feedback stay relevant, socially appropriate, and unbiased. Hence, as with most marketing channels, image centric channels also require suitable content and proper monitoring to ensure a successful campaign.

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Sources:

http://instagram-static.s3.amazonaws.com/case_studies/IG_Guerlain.pdf

http://blog.business.instagram.com/post/124675270476/glowing-results-for-terracota-did-you-know-that

http://shortyawards.com/6th/the-signal-lexus-tumblr

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