Marketing Convergence
Today’s generation revolves around the modern technology. From businesses to marketing, and even gadgets, everything changed. They say, Internet is one thing that changed everything. But does internet totally changed everything? As we can see, our society today is far more different than the traditional ones. From mass marketing, to personal relationship, from Return on Investment to market share, from traditional consumers to cyber consumers, these are the differences made.
With these variations, people could say that internet does change everything. However, it does not change everything; it just created major changes which were greatly noticed by everyone. In terms of business and marketing, internet totally changed how the consumers behave and how the business operates. These changes prove that the power of technology creates new and different possibilities and convenience to both consumers and the companies. In a way that companies can use new technologies to meet the consumer’s need. And great opportunity comes through the fusion of old and new, physical and virtual.
As internet opened new opportunities, many companies and organizations took advantage of this. E-business was initially created and eventually, through their great minds, e-business and traditional business was brought together which created something new and different. Through this, people or consumers can combine these two ways to suit their individual taste. However, not all the combinations worked. In the end, the very key for this kind of business is to experiment different combinations. And as investors showered their capital in this kind of market, massive experiments and new business models were created. Though most of it was successful, some was flawed.
In convergence marketing, there are five (5) specific areas which seem to lead a very powerful combination. These are areas wherein the interactions are complex and can contribute the success of a business. And these areas called “five C’s” are the following:
1. Customerization
Convergence of customized and standardized offerings and messages
2. Community
Convergence of virtual and physical communities
3. Channels
Seamless convergences of call, click, and visit
4. Competitive value
Convergence of new and traditional competitive value equations and pricing models
5. Choice tools
Convergence of new search engines and decision tools for consumers and company-provided advice
With these specified area, new technologies and systems creates opportunities for consumers to have impressive creativities which combines old and new to create a fusion. These areas also have significant challenges for convergence within and across the areas.
Today’s technologies are powerful enough to allow consumers or costumers to become the co-producers in developing and customizing the products and services. And these kinds of services are cheaper and easier. Companies use such technologies to create customized offerings such as coffees, vitamins, jeans, bicycles, eyewear, cosmetics, food, clothing and much other stuff. Through this, pioneers of this technology saw it as a certain win. Of course, customers would go to those services where in they can customize their product than the less-than-perfect standardized offering.Though most products are based on customerization, standardized products are still present. However, companies use variety of strategies to combine the customerization and standardization.
And due to the fact that every year, new technologies, new strategies, and new ideas were being made, it would not be surprising that convergence will continue to grow. And according to a market research, here are possible convergences,
· Mobile and shopper research will collide. A National Retail Federation poll recently found 41 percent of members were increasing investment in mobile retail and marketing. It’s crucial to continue to develop and test new mobile research programs to help us continue to progress.
· Mobile is no longer the “third screen.” Many households are moving to digital entertainment and away from traditional TV and the use of mobile streaming apps is on the rise. For brands, the ability to track advertising, image and sentiment will get more complex and the sheer volume of data will require creative new models to make sense of it. This is an area where research analysts can bring expertise to the conversation.
· Gamification of research will be extended to mobile devices. While there is still much investigation into the best implementations for game-based research, the movement to mobile devices will create pressure on game-like and game-based research. This will affect the validation of both gamification and mobile research.
· Pricing and packaging will converge into a single study architecture. The trade-offs between changing or holding price points will drive new studies that collect attitudes on simultaneous changes to price, package size and quantities, all variables for pricing strategy.
· Social media drives statistical research and vice versa. Social media monitoring is being used to inform sentiment analysis across brands. However, the elements needed to make predictive assessments are still missing. Research analysts will increasingly experiment with adding social media metrics into time-tested models.
With all the increasing marketing convergence, still, people are not satisfied with is present. They still continue to explore and discover new ideas for new technologies. But what are the drivers of the convergence? On consumers’ side, the drivers for this are the desire for continuity of experience and attention, instant gratification need when it comes to desired product or service, convenience and control over experience, and the need to experience the advancements in web and mobile user experience on conventional media channels. And with these, the leading indicator is the proliferation of connected devices.
It is known that there is a rapid growth in average devices per household. People always desire to own multiple devices because they feel the utility of owning such devices do justice to their lifestyle need. And with that, they are capable and willing to pay for the same. For this fact, it would be obvious that device convergence is a great advantage to both parties.
Moreover, marketers would be interested in it because of the main drivers such as the suitability of market segments owing to their high income, and historically high consideration rates. Another is higher tendency of impulse buying and higher willingness to pay for certain lifestyle, and possibility of sharing consumer data across multiple service providers such as carriers and cable providers which allows better behavioural insights.
Marketing convergence is indeed one of the definitions of modern technology. And as long as this convergence exists, the market in our society would continue make advancements and eventually, would make this world a much better place to live.
References:
http://researchindustryvoices.com/2012/01/23/why-convergence-will-define-marketing-research-in-2012/
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