We marketers have traditionally taken a mass media approach for many campaigns and the internet has forced us and our companies/clients to begin to change their approach - as can be seen by the growing online spending budgets and declining print budgets.

The consumers’ slow shift away from mass media to micro media - I say slow because television viewership is still high and people still read the newspapers - has not only affected marketing products and services, but also product development itself.

I previously worked for one of the largest financial institutions in Jamaica and was a member of the marketing and product development teams. We helped to create their online banking service which launched in 2007 and the creative agency outlined an expansive campaign mostly focused on mass media. Our team advocated for a different and more targeted approach - promoting via the web and being more targeted.

The reasoning was simple: Internet penetration in Jamaica is below 25% (more people have access at work) so spending money on newspaper ads and other mass media at the start would be like sifting for gold in a river bed that has a little - you will find some but it is going to take a lot of time and energy.

Instead, our team suggested that we certainly advertise the launch but then promote it online - the company site as well as key websites that the target market visited. If they are already on the internet, it should follow that it is easier to get them to sign-up for internet banking, right?

An in-branch marketing component was proposed to be combined with the web. That approach has prevailed and growth has not been explosive but reported to be satisfactory and more importantly, it has cost significantly less to execute.

This is what the age of micro media is all about - the ability to target niches rather than the old shotgun approach.

Article Tags: mass media | micro media | micromedia
Filed under: Marketing Trends, Strategy