The Gen Z Effect: The Six Forces Shaping the Future of Business by Tom Koulopoulos & Dan Keldsen

Author:Tom Koulopoulos & Dan Keldsen [Koulopoulos, Tom & Keldsen, Dan]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Sociology, Social Science, Strategic Planning, Workplace Culture, General, Organizational Development, Business & Economics
ISBN: 9781629560328
Google: b8hXBAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Bibliomotion, Inc.
Published: 2014-11-11T20:48:50+00:00

POEM, AN ODE TO MARKETING

Our next stop in understanding the evolution of influence is POEM. It’s not an ode to the power of marketing but more like a nod to the Gen Z marketer’s understanding of how to influence her prospective or existing customers. POEM stands for Paid, Owned, and Earned Media.

Paid Media

Outside of the sort of viral influence we’ve started to see on the web through YouTube, Twitter, and other such media, influence has been bought and paid for by affluent people and companies, creating what is, not surprisingly, called “paid media.” It’s what most of us know as TV and radio commercials, newspaper and magazine ads, billboards, and banner ads.

During the last two hundred years of mass media, you had to pay for influence if you wanted to grow your company in any serious way. Outside of newspapers, magazines, TV, and radio there simply were no options that could provide large-scale reach for a company looking to influence the marketplace. Companies such as Coke, Nike, Pepsi, IBM, Anheuser-Busch, Procter & Gamble, and myriad other brands, have had a tremendous advantage in the market because they have been long-term players and have enormous advertising budgets. In fact, P&G.’s v. U.S. ad budget of $3 billion is greater than the GDP of twenty-nine countries, and its global budget of $9 billion tops the GDP of fifty countries.3 By the way, about 35 percent of the company’s U.S. budget is spent on digital marketing, according to P&G. As a result of this incredible bombardment of advertising, these brands are known around the world. So much so that a study conducted by the Amsterdam School of Communications Research showed that even two-year-olds could typically identify eight out of twelve major global brands.4

That sort of recognition puts brands in a position that any new company would love to have but clearly can’t afford to pay for by going head to head with the advertising spend of mega brands. You would think that, after decades of being imprinted on our collective psyche, a brand such as Coca-Cola could sustain itself without the need for paid advertising. Does the money really need to be spent? Any advertising executive worth her Madison Avenue address would say, “Of course! Otherwise, your competitors will step in and quickly eclipse your brand.”

The high priests of advertising, Al Ries and Jack Trout, wrote the gospel on modern advertising with their 1981 book, Positioning. Their constant refrain was that repetition of the tagline was the best weapon in the influencer’s arsenal, and it clearly remains one of the most significant sources of advertising spent for traditional businesses.

However, you can’t “own” somebody’s mind, despite Ries and Trout’s claims to the contrary. Massive advertising has simply been the best and only means available until recently. In the absence of anything better, it became the default method for every company that wanted to build a brand. Recognizing this simultaneous power and weakness of paid media is key to understanding the switch from affluence to influence that is now under way.

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